André Maranne

Beleaguered-looking French-British character actor, born André Gaston Maillol in Toulouse. Active in the United Kingdom (where he would take out citizenship by naturalisation in 1967) and billed as André Maranne from 1956, he provided a cultivated presence as stereotypical French gendarmes, customs officers, and waiters. His best-known role was that of Herbert Lom's bespectacled and hapless aide, Sergeant François Chevalier, in six Pink Panther movies. He also appeared in an episode of Fawlty Towers (1975) as a culinary aide to Basil. Maranne was genuinely myopic but disliked wearing his glasses on screen. While TV appearances were undoubtedly his forte, on occasion Maranne graced the big screen. Aside from the Pink Panther films, notable appearances included a deft comic turn in Darling Lili (1970) (alongside the equally hilarious Jacques Marin) and as Admiral Pierre-Charles de Villeneuve, the ill-fated commander of the Franco-Spanish fleet at Trafalgar in The Nelson Affair (1973). For BBC radio, Maranne worked as presenter of Bonjour Francoise (1968), a French language course for beginners. He also acted in La Chasse au Trésor (1968), a BBC drama series for young children, designed to teach the basics of French. It was set in France and featured an all-French cast. Maranne retired in 1991 to Brighton, England, where he died in 2021, aged 94.