Elke Sommer, German star of 'A Shot in the Dark', dies at 85
Elke Sommer, the German actress who became a Hollywood star in the 1960s with films such as the Pink Panther sequel A Shot in the Dark, has died aged 85. Bild reported that she died of heart failure in Los Angeles.
Elke Sommer, one of the European actresses who crossed over to Hollywood after the war, has died at the age of 85, the German newspaper Bild reported, saying she died of heart failure in Los Angeles.
Born Elke Schletz in Berlin in 1940, the daughter of a Protestant pastor, she was evacuated to Bavaria with her family during the war. She planned to become an interpreter, but after winning a beauty contest on a trip to Italy in 1958 she was spotted by director Vittorio De Sica and cast in a series of Italian comedies.
Her gift for languages took her into English-language film with the 1961 British comedy Don't Bother to Knock. Her Hollywood breakthrough came in 1963 with The Prize, opposite Paul Newman, which earned her a shared Golden Globe for most promising newcomer. A year later she played the maid suspected of murder alongside Peter Sellers in A Shot in the Dark.
A string of Hollywood films followed, including The Art of Love with James Garner and Dick Van Dyke and the Bob Hope comedy Boy, Did I Get a Wrong Number!. She also starred in the 1974 Agatha Christie adaptation And Then There Were None and the British comedy Carry On Behind.