The Pink Panther

Top 10 Fun Facts

1. By the numbers: The Pink Panther is ranked #62 on Bravo's list of "100 Funniest Movies," and #20 on AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores.
2. Movie posters featured the tagline "A Madcap Frolic of Crime and Fun," as well as the more demanding "You only live once, so see The Pink Panther twice!" What a pushy panther.
3. Thanks to the popularity of the film's animated opening credits sequence, the cartoon kitty became a star in his own right with a series of theatrical shorts and eventually his own TV show. There really are a million different ways to make it in Hollywood.
4. Pick a Peter, any Peter: before Peter Sellers signed on to play Inspector Clouseau, the part was offered to Peter Ustinov.
5. Sellers was determined to lose weight for the role, taking diet pills for an entire year. Ironically, he earned 90,000 pounds for his performance.
6. The movie was conceived as a tale of a suave jewel thief, with Inspector Clouseau appearing in a more minor role. But Sellers' portrayal of the bumbling detective charmed Blake Edwards so much that he shifted the entire focus of the film.
7. Edwards wasn't the only one in love with Clouseau - audiences delighted in his antics so much that the studio released a second Clouseau film, A Shot in the Dark, just three months later.
8. Claudia Cardinale, the actress who portrayed Princess Dala, spoke no English. Her lines were dubbed by actress/folk singer Gale Garnett.
9. Both Janet Leigh and Ava Gardner were offered the role of Simone Clouseau, before French actress Capucine landed the part.
10. The crew used an industrial foaming agent for the bubble bath scene with Capucine and Robert Wagner. Bad idea. Both stars' suffered burns on their skin, and Wagner went blind for four weeks.

Cast

Crew