Elke Sommer, the prolific German-born film star known for her roles in 1960s Hollywood comedies and espionage classics such as A Shot in the Dark and The Prize, has died at the age of 85.
Sommer passed away on Wednesday at her home in Bel-Air from heart failure. The Los Angeles Police Department confirmed that officers responded to the death of an 85-year-old woman on her block that same evening.
From Wartime Berlin to European Cinema
During World War II, her family evacuated to southern Germany, eventually settling in Bavaria in 1942. Though she initially intended to work as an interpreter and spent a year alone in London at age 17 as an au pair before college, a chance vacation to Italy with her mother in 1958 changed her trajectory.
While sitting in a café in the seaside town of Viareggio, someone pinned a ribbon on her and declared her the winner of an impromptu beauty contest. She soon secured a role for $2,000 playing a German tourist in The Friend of the Jaguar before being noticed by celebrated director Vittorio De Sica, launching a whirlwind European film career across Italy, Spain, France, England and her native country under the adopted surname Sommer, supported by her fluency in five languages.
Transitioned to Hollywood from British Comedies
Sommer transitioned smoothly to English-language cinema, starring in British comedies before Hollywood came calling in the 1960s. Producer Pandro S. Berman offered her a role in The Prize, where a Variety review noted that she hasn’t a very scintillating role, but has the looks to make that a secondary issue.
| Film Title | Year | Co-Star / Director | Notable Role |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Prize | 1963 | Paul Newman / Mark Robson | Swedish chaperone / love interest |
| A Shot in the Dark | 1964 | Peter Sellers / Blake Edwards | Maria Gambrelli (maid) |
| The Art of Love | 1965 | James Garner, Dick Van Dyke | Damsel in distress |
| The Wicked Dreams of Paula Schultz | 1968 | Bob Crane | Defecting East German athlete |
Later Career Shifts and Personal Legacy
As major Hollywood studio offers shifted in the 1970s, Sommer returned to European productions, including cult horror features for Italian director Mario Bava, such as Baron Blood, where her character confronts a sadistic 400-year-old nobleman played by Joseph Cotten, and Lisa and the Devil, where she played an American tourist lured by Satan, played by Telly Savalas, into a haunted house in Spain. She also appeared in British genre entries, including the World War I film Zeppelin with Michael York, the Agatha Christie adaptation And Then There Were None as secretary Vera Clyde in 1974, the comedy Carry On Behind in 1975, the sex comedies Percy and Percy’s Progress, and another Sellers film, The Prisoner of Zenda, as well as Ralph Thomas’s heist film A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square.
By the 1990s, Sommer stepped back from intensive screen acting to focus on painting, though she occasionally made film and television appearances, including voicing Yzma in the German dub of The Emperor’s New Groove. The dispute escalated in 1990 with a war of words in the German media when Gabor was quoted claiming Sommer was broke, hung out in sleazy bars, and sold hand-knitted sweaters for $150, while Gabor’s husband Frédéric Prinz von Anhalt was quoted claiming Sommer lied about her age, was nearly bald, and looked 100 years old. Reflecting on her career as an international sex symbol in a 2014 interview with Film Talk, Sommer noted that she never took the designation too seriously, remarking that some of her favorite screen idols like Rita Hayworth and Ava Gardner shared the exact same label, and recalling how fans on golf courses would still shout out, Hey, Maria Gambrelli!
How are you!?
More on Elke Sommer
Elke Sommer died at 85, just months after her husband. Learn more about the ‘A Shot in the Dark’ star’s life, marriages, and Hollywood career.https://t.co/AacpxLCkls
Actress Elke Sommer has passed aged 85, just three months after her husband died. Huge fun in Pink Panther sequel A Shot in the Dark, she was also adored in the UK by producer couple Peter Rogers & Betty Box who used her in their films across 20 years inc Carry On Behind in 1975 pic.twitter.com/MoX8B4kseE
