Elke Sommer, ‘Pink Panther’ actress, dies at 85
Elke Sommer attends the 'Goldene Sonne 2018' Award by Sonnenklar.TV on April 7, 2018 in Kalkar, Germany. (Photo by Tristar Media/Getty Images)
Elke Sommer, the striking blonde bombshell of German descent who was a mainstay of 1960s Hollywood comedies and espionage movies including "The Prize" and "A Shot in the Dark," has died. She was 85.
Sommer died at home in Bel Air, in Los Angeles, on Wednesday, her stepson Sebastian Walther told the German outlet Bild. The Los Angeles Police Department told The Associated Press that it responded to the death of an 85-year-old woman on Sommer’s block Wednesday night.
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The backstory:
Sommer was born Elke Schletz in Berlin during World War II, on Nov. 5, 1940, though the family had to evacuate to the south in 1942. Her father, who died when she was 14, was a Protestant pastor.
She’d intended to study languages, but during a trip to Italy with her mother, Renata, in 1958, she caught the eye of someone in the Italian film industry who invited her to appear in her first film: "The Friend of the Jaguar." Actor and filmmaker Vittorio De Sica noticed her too, and soon she was working nonstop throughout Europe, in Italy, Spain and England, with the newly adopted surname Sommer.
According to TMZ, her notable filmography began flourishing in the 1960s with her iconic performance alongside Peter Sellers in the 1964 "Pink Panther" sequel, "A Shot in the Dark." TMZ notes that she went on to star in high-profile features such as "Boy, Did I Get a Wrong Number!" in 1966, "And Then There Were None" in 1974, the British comedy "Carry On Behind" in 1975, and reunited with Sellers for "The Prisoner of Zenda" in 1979.
Throughout her career, she shared the screen with stars like James Garner, Dick Van Dyke, Paul Newman and Edward G. Robinson. Her television credits included roles in "The Six Million Dollar Man," "St. Elsewhere" and the miniseries "Inside the Third Reich."
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Beyond her acting accomplishments, Sommer's life in the 1980s was marked by a highly publicized defamation lawsuit against Zsa Zsa Gabor and her husband following a feud on "Circus of the Stars"; Sommer ultimately won $3.3 million in damages.
Her final entertainment credit was voicing the character Nette in the 2017 animated short, "A Thousand Kisses."
The Source: The Associated Press contributed to this report. Information for this story came from German news outlet Bild, which reported Elke Sommer’s death and her stepson’s confirmation of her cause and place of death. Details about Sommer’s filmography and career were sourced from TMZ, while the article also included information about her reported defamation lawsuit and final acting credit. This story was reported from Los Angeles.