Elke Sommer, the Berlin-born actor who played a maid suspected of murder opposite Peter Sellers in A Shot in the Dark, has died aged 85, The Hollywood Reporter reported.
She died on Wednesday 28 October at her home in Bel-Air, of heart failure, her stepson Sebastian Walther told the German newspaper Bild, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Variety gave the place as her home in Los Angeles.
Walther told Bild: “Elke passed away peacefully around 10 p.m. Now she can finally be with her beloved husband again [German hotelier Wolf Walther].”
The Maid in A Shot in the Dark
In A Shot in the Dark (1964), the sequel to The Pink Panther, Sommer played the maid Maria Gambrelli. Gambrelli is accused of murder and rescued by Peter Sellers’s Inspector Clouseau, The Hollywood Reporter reported.
In a 2014 interview with Film Talk, reported by The Hollywood Reporter, she said “all of the Pink Panther films were very good, and I’m very happy that a lot of people say A Shot in the Dark is the best, which I think is very true.”
From Berlin to Hollywood
She was born Elke Schletz in Berlin on 5 November 1940, the daughter of a Protestant minister, according to The Hollywood Reporter. During the war the family was evacuated to Bavaria, The Guardian reported.
Then came a trip to Italy. In 1958 she won a beauty contest there and was spotted by Vittorio De Sica, according to The Guardian. Offers of Italian comedies followed.
She was fluent in five languages, The Hollywood Reporter reported.
Her Hollywood breakthrough was The Prize (1963), opposite Paul Newman. The role won her a Golden Globe for best female newcomer, which she shared with Tippi Hedren and Ursula Andress, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
A Busy Run
The work kept coming through the 1960s and 1970s.
Variety lists The Art of Love, The Oscar, Boy, Did I Get a Wrong Number!, Deadlier Than the Male and The Wrecking Crew among her films.
The Guardian adds Mario Bava’s Baron Blood and Lisa and the Devil. She also appeared in And Then There Were None (1974) and in Carry On Behind (1975), the 27th Carry On film.
Painter, Singer and Libel Winner
Later, Sommer stepped back from the screen to concentrate on painting, according to The Guardian.
She took that to television. She hosted a PBS show, Painting With Elke Sommer, and recorded several albums as a cabaret singer, The Hollywood Reporter reported.
There was a court win as well. In December 1993 a Santa Monica jury awarded her $3.3 million in libel damages from Zsa Zsa Gabor and her husband, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
She was married to Joe Hyams from 1964 until their divorce in 1981. In August 1993 she married the hotelier Wolf Walther, who died of cancer in July 2026, The Hollywood Reporter reported. She had no children of her own.
More from the screen is in prw’s Celebrity Life archive, including Judi Dench’s account of how sight loss has ended her acting and reading.
Sources: The Guardian, “Elke Sommer, prolific German star of A Shot in the Dark and And Then There Were None, dies aged 85”, 29 October 2026 (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2026/oct/29/elke-sommer-prolific-german-star-of-a-shot-in-the-dark-and-and-then-there-were-none-dies); Variety, “Elke Sommer, ‘Pink Panther’ and ‘The Prize’ Star, Dies at 85”, 29 October 2026 (https://variety.com/2026/film/news/elke-sommer-dead-pink-panther-shot-in-the-dark-1236934138/); The Hollywood Reporter, “Elke Sommer, Actress in ‘A Shot in the Dark’ and ‘The Prize,’ Dies at 85”, 29 October 2026 (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/elke-sommer-dead-shot-in-the-dark-the-prize-1236742548/)
Photo: A.k.zehnnullzwo, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Elke Sommer in 2018, aged 77.
