Movie
Photo: Chicago Sun Times / United Artists studios · Public domain · via Wikimedia Commons Photo shows actor Peter Sellers
Inspector Jacques Clouseau
Peter Sellers' bumbling French inspector wears a tidy, slightly fussy chevron that somehow stays immaculate while everything around him explodes.
- Actor
- Peter Sellers
- Film
- The Pink Panther
- Year
- 1963
- Medium
- Movie
- Style
- Chevron
- Fan Votes
- 0 legendary · 0 meh
Why Inspector Jacques Clouseau's Mustache Matters
Inspector Clouseau was supposed to be a supporting character in Blake Edwards's The Pink Panther (1963), but Peter Sellers stole the film and the franchise. The mustache is central to the disguise: a neat, bristly chevron that gives Clouseau the appearance of a competent detective, which is the joke, because he is not.
Sellers used the mustache beautifully. It frames his perpetually confident expression as he falls down stairs, mispronounces "room," and accuses the wrong person with total certainty. In later films the mustache occasionally gets singed, squashed or disguised, and it always bounces back.
Steve Martin wore a similar mustache in the 2006 and 2009 reboots, but the original is the one every detective mustache secretly wants to be.
- *The Pink Panther* (1963) was directed by Blake Edwards, with Henry Mancini's theme becoming a jazz standard.
- Peter Sellers (1925–1980) played Clouseau in six films between 1963 and 1978 (including footage used in *Trail of the Pink Panther*, 1982).
- Sellers was nominated for two Oscars for *Dr. Strangelove* (1964) and *Being There* (1979).
How to Grow the Chevron
The Tom Selleck. Thick, wide, and confident. The default setting for a man who means business.
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