Elke Sommer, the stunning German-born blonde bombshell who was a mainstay of 1960s Hollywood comedies and spy films including “The Prize” and “A Shot in the Dark,” has died. She was 85 years old.
Sommer died at her home in Bel-Air on Wednesday, her stepson Sebastian Walther told German media Bild. The Los Angeles Police Department told The Associated Press it responded to the death of an 85-year-old woman in the Sommer neighborhood Wednesday evening.
With expressive almond-shaped eyes and golden locks, often styled in a beehive, Sommer worked with some of the biggest stars of the era, including Paul Newman in “The Prize,” Peter Sellers in the Pink Panther film “A Shot in the Dark,” 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 was born Elke Schletz in Berlin during World War II on November 5, 1940, but the family had to evacuate south in 1942. Her father, who died when she was 14, was a Protestant minister.
She intended to study languages, but during a trip to Italy with her mother, Renata, in 1958, she caught the attention of an Italian film professional who invited her to appear in his first film: “The Jaguar’s Friend.” The actor and filmmaker Vittorio De Sica also noticed her and soon she was working non-stop throughout Europe, in Italy, Spain and England, under the new surname Sommer.
Working in Hollywood in the 1960s
Her big break in Hollywood came from producer Pandro S. Berman, who had seen her in a German drama screened for the Golden Globes, and offered her a role in “The Prize” where she played chaperone and love interest to Newman’s Nobel Prize-winning character. In the trade magazine Variety’s Review, they wrote that Sommer “does not have a very scintillating role, but has the appearance of making it a secondary issue.” And that would allow him to win the Golden Globe for Most Promising Newcomer.
In Blake Edwards’ Pink Panther sequel, “A Shot in the Dark,” she plays Maria Gambrelli, a maid accused of murder, who also attracts the romantic interest of Sellers’ Inspector Clouseau. She also posed for Playboy Magazine around this time, in photographs taken by her first husband, Joe Hyams. They married in November 1964 and divorced in 1981.
In 1993, she married German hotelier Wolf Walther, who died in July at age 77.
Work slowed down a bit in the 1970s, but she found work in Europe, appearing in the World War I film “Zeppelin” with Michael York as well as the Agatha Christie adaptation “And Then There Were None.” She also starred in two Mario Bava horrors. In the 1990s, she turned to painting, but occasionally made appearances in films and television shows. She voiced Yzma in the German dub of “The Emperor’s New Groove”.
Feud with Zsa Zsa Gabor
Sommer may also be remembered for a bizarre feud with Zsa Zsa Gabor, which arose during their appearance together on the show “Circus of the Stars” in 1984, where Sommer allegedly made comments about Gabor’s body.
In 1990, a war of words broke out in the German media when Gabor said Sommer was broke, hung out in sleazy bars and made a living selling hand-knitted sweaters for $150. Gabor’s husband, Frédéric Prinz von Anhalt, was also quoted in another publication, claiming that Sommer lied about her age, that she was almost bald and appeared to be 100 years old.
Sommer responded by filing a libel and slander suit seeking $10 million. In 1993, a jury ordered Gabor and her husband to pay Sommer $3.3 million.
Sommer liked to be glamorous, not a sex symbol
Although her appearance often seems to make headlines, Sommer didn’t take the sex symbol designation too seriously, saying it was essentially meaningless. She told Film Talk in a 2014 interview that some of her favorite actors, like Rita Hayworth and Ava Gardner, were also considered sex symbols. Besides, she said, she was still just acting the part.
“My whole life I’ve been directing, I’ve been producing, I’ve spoken the lines written for the character,” she said in the interview. “I was always acting, and the only thing I could bring was my energy. So what is this sex appeal? Why did I get on this Sexiest Women list? It’s not because of my looks or anything; it’s because of the energy.”
She did, however, believe in the importance of movie star glamour. In a television interview for the 1967 crime film “Deadlier Than the Male,” she told the reporter that she was “very much in favor of on-screen glamor.”
“I think movie stars, if I can use that word…should be something extraordinary and above normal, above average for people who pay a lot of money to go see them,” Sommer said. “They shouldn’t be the girl next door, like the boy next door. They should be something very tall and people should say ‘oh’ and ‘ah’ when they see them.”
Bahr writes for the Associated Press.
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