Elke Sommer, German star of A Shot in the Dark, dies aged 85
The German-born actor who crossed over to Hollywood in the 1960s and 70s and later turned to painting died in Los Angeles of heart failure, Bild reported.
At a glance
- Elke Sommer, the German-born actor known for A Shot in the Dark, has died aged 85 in Los Angeles.
- Bild magazine reported that she died of heart failure; she was born Elke Schletz in Berlin in 1940.
- She shared a most promising newcomer Golden Globe for 1963's The Prize and later concentrated on painting.
Elke Sommer, the German actor whose best-known roles came in films of the 1960s and 70s including A Shot in the Dark, And Then There Were None and Carry On Behind, has died aged 85. Bild magazine reported that she died in Los Angeles of heart failure.
Born Elke Schletz in Berlin in 1940, the daughter of a Protestant pastor, she was evacuated with her family to Bavaria during the war. She had intended to work as an interpreter, but was spotted by the Italian director Vittorio De Sica after winning a beauty contest on a trip to Italy in 1958, and was offered roles in a string of Italian comedy films.
From Italian comedies to Hollywood
She returned to more serious work in the West German drama The Death Ship, opposite Horst Buchholz. Her gift for languages helped her make her first film in English, the 1961 British comedy Don't Bother to Knock, with Richard Todd. Carl Foreman's 1963 war film The Victors billed her as one of the "six most exciting women in the world", alongside Melina Mercouri, Jeanne Moreau and Romy Schneider.
Her Hollywood breakthrough came the same year with The Prize, in which she played Paul Newman's lover in an adaptation of Irving Wallace's novel. She was a joint winner of a most promising newcomer Golden Globe for the role.
Her career took off with A Shot in the Dark, the sequel to The Pink Panther starring Peter Sellers, in which she leaned heavily into her "sexpot" image as a maid suspected of a series of murders. Further high-profile Hollywood films followed, including The Art of Love with James Garner and Dick Van Dyke, The Oscar with Stephen Boyd, and the Bob Hope comedy Boy, Did I Get a Wrong Number! In 1968 she took leading actor status in The Wicked Dreams of Paula Schultz, a comedy about an East German athlete who pole-vaults over the Berlin Wall.
Horror, comedy and a retreat from the screen
In the 1970s Sommer appeared in two cult horror films by Mario Bava, Baron Blood and Lisa and the Devil, and in the sex comedies Percy and Percy's Progress for the British director Ralph Thomas. She followed those with two high-profile British films: as the secretary Vera Clyde in the 1974 adaptation of Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None, and a year later Carry on Behind, the 27th entry in the Carry On series.
After another Sellers film, The Prisoner of Zenda, and Ralph Thomas's heist film A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square, Sommer scaled back her screen appearances and concentrated on painting. In the mid-1980s she became embroiled in a long-running feud with Zsa Zsa Gabor after they appeared together on the TV show Circus of the Stars; Sommer was ultimately awarded $3.3m in damages for defamation.
Sommer was married twice, to the writer Joe Hyams from 1964 until 1981, and to the hotelier Wolf Walther from 1993 until his death in 2026.
Source: The Guardian World.
Questions and answers
- How did Elke Sommer die?
- Bild magazine reported that she died in Los Angeles of heart failure, aged 85.
- What films was Elke Sommer best known for?
- Her best-known roles were in the 1960s and 70s, including A Shot in the Dark, And Then There Were None, Carry on Behind and The Wicked Dreams of Paula Schultz.
- How did Elke Sommer start her acting career?
- She was spotted by the Italian director Vittorio De Sica after winning a beauty contest in Italy in 1958, and made her first English-language film, Don't Bother to Knock, in 1961.
