Elke Sommer, the German actress and Golden Globe winner, died on Wednesday at her home in Bel Air, Los Angeles, at the age of 85.
Her stepson, Sebastian Walther, told the German outlet Bild that Sommer passed away peacefully around 10 p.m. local time from heart failure. The Los Angeles Police Department confirmed responding to the death of an 85-year-old woman on her block that evening.
Born Elke Schletz in Berlin in 1940, Sommer rose to fame as part of a wave of European actors who crossed into Hollywood in the 1960s. She won a Golden Globe for most promising newcomer in 1964 for her role in *The Prize*, starring alongside Paul Newman. Her breakthrough in English-language cinema came with *A Shot in the Dark*, the 1964 Pink Panther sequel, where she played a maid opposite Peter Sellers.
Sommer’s career spanned over 100 films, including *And Then There Were None* (1974) and the *Carry On* comedy *Carry on Behind* (1975). She also worked with stars like James Garner, Dick Van Dyke, Bob Hope, and Dean Martin. Despite her success, she later scaled back acting to focus on painting and theater.
She was married twice: first to writer Joe Hyams from 1964 to 1981, and then to hotelier Wolf Walther from 1993 until his death in July 2026. According to Bild, she will be buried in Marloffstein, Bavaria, where her family’s grave is located.
German officials paid tribute to her legacy. Bavaria’s Minister-President Markus Söder called her a “true icon of acting,” while Culture Minister Wolfram Weimer described her as a “botschafterin des deutschen Films in Hollywood” (ambassador of German film in Hollywood). Sommer herself once remarked on her enduring fame: “If you were once a Hollywood star, you remain one for life.”
