Elke Sommer has died: Germany's Hollywood star dies shortly before her 86th birthday
The Berlin-born actress died on Wednesday at her home in Bel Air. She made around 100 films, starred opposite Paul Newman and Peter Sellers and won a Golden Globe.
Archive image · Photo: A.k.zehnnullzwo / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped and resized)
Actress Elke Sommer has died at the age of 85 – a few days before her 86th birthday on 5 November. She died on Wednesday at her home in Bel Air, California, a confidant confirmed to German broadcaster ZDF. Born in Berlin in 1940 and raised in Erlangen, she became one of Germany's best-known film stars of the 1960s after her first major lead role in 'Das Mädchen und der Staatsanwalt' (1961).
In Hollywood she made 'The Prize' with Paul Newman, which earned her the Golden Globe for most promising newcomer, and the 'Pink Panther' comedy 'A Shot in the Dark' (1964) with Peter Sellers. In total she appeared in around 100 cinema and television films, alongside Alain Delon, Glenn Ford and Dean Martin among others. Her last feature film was Dani Levy's 'Das Leben ist zu lang' (2010). She was also a singer and painter.
Germany's culture minister Wolfram Weimer paid tribute to her as 'an extraordinary actress and an ambassador of German film in Hollywood', while Bavarian premier Markus Söder called her a 'true acting icon'. Her husband Wolf Walther died in July.