Elke Sommer's Hollywood Career: The actress known for 'A Shot in the Dark' dies at 85
The German-born star who worked with Paul Newman and Peter Sellers passed away at her Bel Air home on Wednesday.
By Jack Weber ·
Eighty-five years ago, Elke Sommer was born Elke Schletz in Berlin, a city she left as a child during World War II. She has now died at that same age.
Her stepson Sebastian Walther told the German newspaper Bild that she died at her home in Bel Air, Los Angeles, on Wednesday. The Los Angeles Police Department confirmed responding to a death on her street Wednesday night. They identified the victim as an 85-year-old woman.
Born on Nov. 5, 1940, Sommer’s father was a Protestant pastor. He died when she was 14. Her family moved south in 1942. She intended to study languages but entered film after a trip to Italy with her mother Renata in 1958. An industry executive there saw her and cast her in The Friend of the Jaguar. Vittorio De Sica soon noticed her as well. She worked throughout Europe in Italy, Spain, and England, adopting the surname Sommer.
Producer Pandro S. Berman offered her a role in The Prize after seeing her in a German drama. She played the chaperone and love interest to Paul Newman’s Nobel Prize-winning character. The film earned her a Golden Globe for most promising newcomer. Variety noted she had looks that made her limited role secondary.
She appeared in Blake Edwards’ Pink Panther sequel A Shot in the Dark as Maria Gambrelli. She played a maid framed for murder who sparks romantic interest for Peter Sellers’ Inspector Clouseau. She also worked with James Garner and Dick Van Dyke in The Art of Love, Bob Hope in Boy, Did I Get a Wrong Number!, and Dean Martin and Sharon Tate in The Wrecking Crew.
Sommer married Joe Hyams, a photographer, in November 1964. He took her Playboy photos. They divorced in 1981. In 1993, she married German hotelier Wolf Walther. He died in July at age 77.
Her career slowed in the 1970s but resumed in Europe. She appeared in the World War I film Zeppelin with Michael York and the Agatha Christie adaptation And Then There Were None. She also starred in two Mario Bava horror films. By the 1990s, she focused on painting while making occasional film and television appearances. She voiced Yzma in the German dub of The Emperor’s New Groove.
Sommer had a public feud with Zsa Zsa Gabor. It began in 1984 on Circus of the Stars when Sommer made comments about Gabor’s body. In 1990, Gabor claimed Sommer was broke and sold hand-knitted sweaters for $150. Gabor’s husband said Sommer was nearly bald and looked 100 years old. Sommer sued for defamation. A jury ordered Gabor and her husband to pay $3.3 million in 1993.
Sommer rejected the sex symbol label in a 2014 interview with Film Talk. She said she was directed and produced and only brought energy to her roles. She believed movie stars should be extraordinary and above average for audiences who pay to see them.
