It may come as a surprise that Burt Kwouk, or Herbert Tsangtse Kwouk to give him his full nomenclature, was born in Warrington. He was to become famous for his combative role as Cato in the Peter Sellers Pink Panther movies.
Apparently, the actor had not really wanted the role as he felt it was neither strong nor noticeable enough; however, it’s the one for which he’s remembered.
Herbert Kwouk’s arrival in Warrington came about when his Chinese parents, William and Julia, were touring Europe on a business trip and were ensconced in Cheshire prior to heading back to their native Shanghai. His father was a tycoon in the textiles industry, the family sufficiently well-off for their son to attend the Far East equivalent of Eton, although the family wealth would be lost in the Communist revolution of the late 1940s.
Burt Kwouk, best known for playing Inspector Clouseau’s man servant, Cato, in the Pink Panther films. (Image: PA Wire)
The family left China in 1947, moving to Britain. Kwouk would travel on to the US to complete his education, graduating with a BA in 1953. Money from home had dried up, so he took menial jobs to enable him to continue with his law studies. He returned to Britain the following year and, pestered by a girlfriend, agreed to try his hand at acting.
He began getting work as a film extra playing Chinese and Japanese characters; when asked why he was happy to keep playing to stereotype, he responded with self-effacing humour: ‘If I don’t do it, someone else will.’ He conceded that many of the roles he played were racist caricatures at the time, but that he hoped not only to make some money from doing it but also to ‘try to elevate it a bit, if I can’.
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Kwouk’s film debut came in 1957, as an uncredited Malaysian in Windom’s Way. His appearance in The Inn of the Sixth Happiness the following year gave him his cinematic break as his character led a prison revolt, then aided leading lady Ingrid Bergman (playing missionary Gladys Aylward) in leading orphans to safety during the 2nd Sino-Japanese War (1937-45). He would say later that this was his favourite role because it was the first time he ‘had a featured role in a good movie’, and that, ‘you always remember your first of everything – your first house, your first car, your first child, your first woman…’
Kwouk married Caroline Tebbs in London in the summer of 1961, a union that lasted until his death 55 years later. They had one child, Christopher Kwouk (1974-).
Burt Kwouk and Peter Sellers as Cato and Inspector Clouseau in A Shot in the Dark. (Image: Movie Stills DB)
In movie terms, Burt Kwouk would be most famous for playing Cato Fong, manservant of Chief Inspector Clouseau (Peter Sellers) in the Pink Panther films. The character was introduced in 1964’s A Shot in the Dark, the second film in the franchise. The comic character, cast by Blake Edwards, was so successful that Kwouk would roll him out on a further half-dozen occasions (his final escapade as Cato came in 1992, 28 years after the first). The running gag was Cato Fong attacking Clouseau when he was off-guard as a means of maintaining his boss’s alertness, with the Chief Inspector’s flat often being wrecked in the process. The phone would ring in the middle of the mayhem, which Cato would answer calmly, handing the receiver to Clouseau who, having dealt with the call, would resume pummelling his manservant.
‘I got to know Cato quite well and I liked Cato because he never argued with me and he never borrowed money from me. I liked playing Cato quite a lot,’ he said of his alter ego.
Kwouk also had minor roles in a trio of James Bond films: Goldfinger (1964), when he played Mr Ling, a Chinese expert in nuclear fission; the spoof Casino Royale (1967) and You Only Live Twice (also 1967), in which he was a Japanese underling of Bond villain Blofeld. He also appeared alongside acting royalty Laurence Olivier and Anthony Quinn in the Cold War movie The Shoes of the Fisherman (1968). Among Kwouk’s other movies were Rollerball (1975) and The Fiendish Plot of Dr Fu Manchu (1980), when he played alongside Peter Sellers in the star’s final film. Sellers’s character, Fu Manchu, cleverly references the pair’s previous Pink Panther collaborations in the opening sequence when he looks at Kwouk’s character, his servant, and says: ‘Your face is familiar.’ Kwouk’s Cato would also outlive Sellers’s death in July 1980, being rolled out in later Pink Panther sequels. He also appeared in Empire of the Sun (1987).
Burt Kwouk was made an OBE in the 2011 New Year’s Honours for services to drama (Image: PA Wire)
Kwouk was also a successful TV actor with roles in Danger Man, The Saint, Man of the World, Return of the Saint, Doctor Who, The Avengers, and The Harry Hill Show, in which he played himself. Among his most notable roles though were as the Imperial Japanese Army Major Yamauchi in Tenko (1981-84), the World War II internment camp drama; as
Peter Lo Ching in The House of Eliott (1991) and as Electrical Entwistle in the long-running Last of the Summer Wine (2002-10), making his debut in 2002 in a role that was written especially with him in mind. He also did commercials and voice acting for radio.
That role in Tenko was a typical one for Kwouk, who appreciated how fate had been kind to him: ‘It would appear at times that World War II in the Far East was fought for my benefit, so that I could have lots of acting jobs being in the Japanese Army, the Chinese Army, the Korean Army – all of them.’
Kwouk was made an OBE in the 2011 New Year’s Honours for services to drama. His later years would be spent in Hampstead. He died on May 24, 2016. His selected filmography extends to some 60 movies, while his TV credits amount to around 40 productions. There was audio theatre, video games and other miscellaneous work, while his presentation of Channel 4’s interactive gambling show Banzai (2001-04) gained him a late cult following. That he had a sense of humour and a desire to keep working was manifested in his comment: ‘They can call me anything they like, as long as I get paid and my name is spelt correctly.’.
CHRONOLOGY
1930 – Herbert Tsangtse Kwouk born in Warrington (July 18).
1947 – Leaves China and heads to the United States to complete his education.
1954 – Returns to Britain and takes up acting.
1958 – Kwouk’s breakthrough movie role in The Inn of the Sixth Happiness.
1961 – Marries Caroline Tebbs, going on to have one child, Christopher.
1964 – His big break arrives as he’s cast in the first of the Pink Panther films.
1980 – Appears alongside his old sparring partner in Peter Sellers’s final movie.
2002 – Makes his debut in The Last of the Summer Wine.
2016 – Death of Bert Kwouk in Hampstead, London (May 24), aged 85.
Photo: PA Wire
photo: . Movie Stills DB. Movie Stills DB