Elke Sommer, whose screen presence carried her from post-war Europe into the bright comedies and spy films of 1960s Hollywood, has died at 85. Her stepson, Sebastian Walther, told the German newspaper Bild that she died of heart failure at her Bel-Air home on Wednesday.
Walther said: 'Elke passed away peacefully around 10 p.m. Now she can finally be with her beloved husband again.'
She was born Elke Schletz in Berlin on November 5, 1940, during Nazi occupation of Germany, the only child of a Protestant minister. Her father died when she was 14.
During World War II, her family was evacuated to Bavaria and settled in the small town of Niederndorf. At 17, she went to London to work as an au pair, briefly for the family of actress Vicki Michelle.
A holiday in Italy in 1958 changed the direction of her life. Sommer won a beauty contest, caught the attention of the director Vittorio De Sica and took the surname by which film audiences would know her.
Her first English-language film was the 1961 British comedy 'Don't Bother to Knock,' in which she appeared with Richard Todd. She then moved to Hollywood in the early 1960s, where she became a popular pin-up model.
Her breakthrough came in 'The Prize' (1963), a spy film and romantic comedy with Paul Newman. Sommer won the Golden Globe for most promising newcomer actress, sharing it with Tippi Hedren and Ursula Andress.
She played Maria Gambrelli, the maid, opposite Peter Sellers in 'A Shot in the Dark,' the second film in the Pink Panther franchise.
Sommer also appeared in Carl Foreman’s 'The Victors' (1963), where she was billed as one of the 'six most exciting women in the world' alongside Melina Mercouri, Jeanne Moreau and Romy Schneider.
Her later films included 'The Wrecking Crew' (1968), with Dean Martin and Sharon Tate. It was the last of Tate’s films released before her murder in 1969.
In 'And Then There Were None' (1974), she played the secretary Vera Clyde.
Sommer posed for Playboy for the first time in 1964.
Film was one part of her working life. She sang cabaret and made several albums, held her first art exhibition at age 24, and later hosted the PBS programme 'Painting With Elke Sommer.'
She was married to the Hollywood columnist and author Joe Hyams from 1964 until their divorce in 1981. Hyams was 17 years her senior.
In 1982, she played the wife of Joseph Goebbels in the ABC miniseries 'Inside the Third Reich.'
A 1984 appearance on 'Circus of the Stars' led to a public feud with Zsa Zsa Gabor. In December 1993, a Santa Monica jury awarded Sommer $3.3 million in libel damages against Gabor and Gabor’s husband, Frédéric Prinz von Anhalt.
Sommer married the German hotelier Wolf Walther in August 1993. He died of cancer in July, three months before her death.
She was fluent in five languages and had no children of her own.
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