Elke Sommer obit

Elke Sommer Dies: ‘A Shot In The Dark’, ‘The Wrecking Crew’ Actor Was 85

 She was not on the list.

Elke Sommer, the cool blond star whose distinctive German accent and regal bearing lent her a certain exotic quality that she brought to such 1960s films as the Pink Panther sequel A Shot in the Dark, Bob Hope’s comedy Boy, Did I Get a Wrong Number!, The Oscar starring Stephen Boyd and spy entry The Wrecking Crew, died Wednesday, October 28, of heart failure at her home in Bel-Air, California. She was 85.

Her death was announced by her stepson Sebastian Walther, through a spokesperson, to the German newspaper Bild. The statement read: “Elke passed away peacefully around 10 p.m. Now she can finally be with her beloved husband again.” Sommers husband, German hotelier Wolf Walther, died three months ago, on July 22.

Born Elke Schletz on November 5, 1940, in Berlin, to a family headed by her Lutheran minister father, Sommer moved briefly to London in 1957. While vacationing in Italy the following year, she was noticed by film director Vittorio De Sica, who began casting her in movies. She changed her surname to Sommer at that point.

Her breakthrough came with 1963’s The Prize, a spy film and romantic comedy starring Paul Newman (Sommer was named Most Promising Newcomer Actress at the Golden Globes for her performance.) The following year brought A Shot in the Dark, the second in the durable Pink Panther franchise starring Peter Sellers.

Sommers’ popularity continued through a string of 1960s films, many of them caper-style thrillers tinged with comedy and romance that paired Sommer with established leading men. There was The Art of Love in ’65 with James Garner; The Oscar with Boyd in 1966; and, that same year, Boy, Did I Get a Wrong Number! with Hope, and Deadlier Than the Male, a Bulldog Drummond spy movie with Richard Johnson. The Wrecking Crew (1968) was one of her more popular entries, starring Dean Martin as spy Matt Helm (the film also featured Sharon Tate and would be the last of Tate’s movies released before her murder in 1969).

Through the mid-1970s, Sommer appeared in thriller Zeppelin, Agatha Christie’s Ten Little Indians, Italian horror films Baron Blood and Lisa and the Devil (the latter a 1972 film re-released in 1975 with additional scenes featuring Sommer and retitled House of Exorcism to piggyback on the popularity of The Exorcist).

Sommer, who several albums as a cabaret singer, increasingly worked in Europe though the ’70s, including the 1979 comedy The Prisoner of Zenda with her old Panther co-star Sellers. As her film career began to wane, Sommer shifted to television in the 1980s and ’90s, and she portrayed the wife of Joseph Goebbels in the 1982 ABC miniseries Inside the Third Reich. She frequently appeared on the NBC variety show hosted by her old Wrecking Crew co-star Dean Martin and guested on St. Elsewhere, The Love Boat and other shows. She even made a memorable appearance on The Muppet Show.

In 1984, Sommer appeared on the CBS reality competition series Circus of the Stars, which led to a real-life feud and legal battle with Zsa Zsa Gabor. According to reports at the time, Gabor apparently heard Sommer crack a joke about Gabor’s weight. “Poor horse,” Sommer reportedly said when Gabor mounted the saddle, a quip overheard by Gabor, who then told a German news outlet that Sommer was destitute, hung out in sleazy bars, was balding and earned a living selling hand-knitted sweaters.

Sommer sued Gabor and Gabor’s husband Frédéric Prinz von Anhalt for defamation and emotional distress, ultimately winning $3.3 million in general and punitive damages in Santa Monica Superior Court.

Sommer married Hollywood newspaper columnist Joe Hyams in 1964 (they divorced in 1981). She was married to hotelier Walther from 1993 until his death from cancer three months ago.

Complete information on survivors was not immediately available.

 

Filmography

Film

The Friend of the Jaguar (1959) – Grete

Men and Noblemen (1959) – Caterina

Ragazzi del Juke-Box (1959) – Giulia Cesari

The Death Ship (1959) – Mylene, ein Französisches Mädchen

The Day the Rains Came (1959) – Ellen

La Pica sul Pacifico (1959) – Rossana

Stage Fright (1960) – Evelyne

Howlers in the Dock (1960) – Giulia Giommarelli

Heaven, Love and Twine (1960) – Eva

The Warrior Empress (1960)

Femmine di lusso (1960) – Greta

Und sowas nennt sich Leben [de] (1961) – Britta

Daniella by Night (1961) – Daniella

Don't Bother to Knock (1961) – Ingrid

Beloved Impostor (1961) – Barbara Shadwell

Auf Wiedersehen (1961) – Suzy Dalton

Café Oriental (1962) – Sylvia

Douce violence (1962) – Elke

Das Mädchen und der Staatsanwalt (1962) – Renate Hecker

Un chien dans un jeu de quilles (1962) – Ariane

Bahía de Palma (1962) – Olga

The Phone Rings Every Night (1962) – Tochter Mabel Meyer

Les Bricoleurs (1963) – Brigitte

Ostrva (1963) – Eva

The Victors (1963) – Helga Metzger

...denn die Musik und die Liebe in Tirol (1963)

The Prize (1963) – Inger Lisa Andersson

A Shot in the Dark (1964) – Maria Gambrelli

Among Vultures (1964) – Annie Dillman

Le bambole (1965, UK title: Four Kinds of Love) – Ulla (segment "Il Trattato di Eugenetica")

Hotel of Dead Guests (1965) – Herself

The Art of Love (1965) – Nikki Dunnay

The Money Trap (1965) – Lisa Baron

The Oscar (1966) – Kay Bergdahl

Boy, Did I Get a Wrong Number! (1966) – Didi

The Venetian Affair (1966) – Sandra Fane

The Peking Medallion (1967, a.k.a. The Corrupt Ones) – Lilly Mancini

Deadlier Than the Male (1967) – Irma Eckman

The Wicked Dreams of Paula Schultz (1968) – Paula Schultz

They Came to Rob Las Vegas (1968) – Ann Bennett

The Wrecking Crew (1969) – Linka Karensky

The Invincible Six (1970) – Zari

Percy (1971) – Helga

Zeppelin (1971) – Erika Altschul

Baron Blood (1972) – Eva Arnold

Trip to Vienna (1973) – Toni Simon

Lisa and the Devil (1973) – Lisa Reiner / Elena

One or the Other of Us (1974) – Miezi

Percy's Progress (1974) – Clarissa

Ten Little Indians (1974, also known as And Then There Were None) – Vera Clyde[9]

Carry On Behind (1975) – Professor Anna Vooshka

The Net (1975) – Christa Sonntag

One Away (1976) – Elsa

The Swiss Conspiracy (1976) – Rita Jensen

Meet Him and Die (1976) – Perrone's Secretary

The Astral Factor (1978) – Chris Hartman (re-released as The Invisible Strangler in 1984)

I Miss You, Hugs and Kisses (1978, also known as Drop Dead Dearest) – Magdalene Kruschen

The Prisoner of Zenda (1979) – The Countess

The Double McGuffin (1979) – Madame Kura

The Treasure Seekers (1979) – Ursula

Exit Sunset Boulevard (1980) – Frau Lachmann

A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square (1979) – Miss Pelham

The Man in Pyjamas (1981) – Frau Lachmann

Lily in Love (1984) – Alicia Braun

No One Cries Forever [de] (1984) – Lou Parker

Death Stone (1987) – Kris Patterson

Himmelsheim (1988) – Helga Münzel

Severed Ties (1992) – Helena Harrison

Life Is a Bluff (1996) – Jutta

Doppeltes Spiel mit Anne (1999) – Frau Lorenz

Flashback [de] (2000) – Frau Lust

The Emperor's New Groove (2000) – Yzma (voice, German dub)

Life Is Too Long (2010) – Alfi Seliger's mother

A Thousand Kisses (2017, animated short) – Nette (voice)

Television

           

This television-related list is incomplete; you can help by adding missing items. (August 2025)

Elke Sommer television credits

Year     Title     Role     Notes   Ref.

1972    Probe   Heideline 'Uli' Ullman            TV movie       

1973    The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson          Herself (guest)            

1976    Six Million Dollar Man          Dr Ilse Martin  S4E5  

1979    Stunt Seven     Rebecca Wayne           TV movie       

1979    The Muppet Show      Herself S3E19

1980    Top of the Hill Eva Heggener TV movie       

1981    Miss Universe Pageant           Herself, co-host           Beauty Pageant          

1982    Inside the Third Reich Magda Goebbels         TV movie       

1985    Jenny's War     Eva Gruenberg            4 episodes       

1986    The Exciting World of Speed and Beauty      Herself (host)             

1986    Peter the Great            Charlotte          TV miniseries 

1986    St. Elsewhere  Natasha           1 episode        

1986    Anastasia: The Mystery of Anna        Isabel Von Hohenstauffen       TV movie       

1988    Adventures Beyond Belief      Headmistress Bruno von Kleff           5 episodes       

1992    Counterstrike   Anita Duvalier Episode: "No Honour Among Thieves"        

1993    Happy Holiday            Isabella Scattini           1 episode        

1993    Destiny Ridge Anna              

1994    Florian III        Sonja Carpenter                      

1999    Gisbert Unknown        1 episode        

2000    Nicht mit uns  Andrea Paretti TV movie       

2005    Reblaus           Maria Rüppel  TV movie       

2005    Ewig rauschen die Gelder       Frau von Korff            TV movie