The Pink Panther Edwards tried again to revive the series, this time by casting Roberto Benigni as Gendarme Jacques Gambrelli, Inspector Clouseau's illegitimate son by Maria Gambrelli, the murder suspect from "A Shot in the Dark." Once again, many former Panther co-stars return – Herbert Lom, Burt Kwouk, and Graham Stark, and a star of the original 1963 film, Claudia Cardinale. Although intended to relaunch the series with a new lovable inept hero, "Son" failed critically and commercially and became the final installment in the original Pink Panther series. This reboot launches a new series starring Steve Martin as Inspector Clouseau and Kevin
Trail of the Pink Panther in the fashion of Jack Lemmon's Professor Fate). When Sellers died, United Artists tried to get Dudley Moore to play Clouseau in the Sellers-penned "Romance of the Pink Panther". Moore wouldn't do it without Edwards and was only willing to play Clouseau once as a tribute to Sellers (knowing "Romance" was to have ended the series, according from a LA Times interview with Moore in 1980). United Artists wanted the series to continue, but Edwards wouldn't use another actor as Clouseau, no doubt remembering the negative reception that "Inspector Clouseau" suffered upon release in 1968 (a production which featured Alan