Overview[]
"The Phantom" is a jewel thief, Clouseau's arch enemy (after Dreyfus) in several of the films and known to the public as Sir Charles Litton. He serves as the primary villain of the first film, at the end of which, and with help from Clouseau's wife and an exiled princess, he frames Clouseau for his past robberies and has him temporarily sent to prison. This ignites Clouseau's thirst for revenge in the third Sellers/Edwards film, in which the Pink Panther is stolen from a museum. In the first film he was played by David Niven, and in Return by Christopher Plummer. In later films, an aging and frail Niven made cameo appearances in the role with his voice dubbed by impressionist Rich Little. In these later films, Litton is supposed to have been married to Clouseau's ex-wife after the events of the first Pink Panther, even though in Return his wife had been a different character, unacquainted with Clouseau before that film's events. In The Pink Panther 2, the diamond is stolen by a similar master thief, the Tornado, played by Johnny Hallyday.