Some stars simply light up the screen the moment they appear, and for a whole generation of moviegoers, Elke Sommer was one of them.See More…
The German-born actress, whose golden beehive and almond eyes became a symbol of 1960s Hollywood glamour, has died at the age of 85. She passed away peacefully at her home in Bel-Air, Los Angeles, on Wednesday, October 28, 2026, just days before what would have been her 86th birthday.
Her stepson, Sebastian Walther, told the German outlet Bild that she died of heart failure after a long illness. “Elke passed away peacefully around 10 p.m.,” he said. “Now she can finally be with her beloved husband again.”
Born Elke Schletz in Berlin on November 5, 1940, she grew up in the middle of World War II, and her family fled south in 1942. Her father, a Protestant pastor, died when she was just 14.
She never planned to be a movie star. Young Elke wanted to study languages and become an interpreter. Then, on a 1958 trip to Italy with her mother, she caught the eye of someone in the Italian film business, and before long she was working in films all over Europe under her new name, Sommer.
Hollywood came calling when producer Pandro S. Berman cast her opposite Paul Newman in the 1963 thriller “The Prize.” The role won her a Golden Globe as most promising newcomer, and suddenly her face was everywhere.
A year later came the role many fans still treasure. In Blake Edwards’ Pink Panther sequel “A Shot in the Dark,” she played Maria Gambrelli, the maid accused of murder who completely bewitched Peter Sellers’ bumbling Inspector Clouseau.
The leading men kept coming. She shared the screen with James Garner and Dick Van Dyke in “The Art of Love,” with Bob Hope in “Boy, Did I Get a Wrong Number!” and with Dean Martin and Sharon Tate in “The Wrecking Crew.”
Yet she never took the “sex symbol” label too seriously. “It’s not because of my looks or anything; it’s because of the energy,” she once explained. She did believe stars should be something special, saying audiences should say “oh” and “ah” when they see them.
There was a surprising chapter, too. A feud with Zsa Zsa Gabor that started in 1984 grew into a public war of words, and Sommer took it to court. In 1993, a jury ordered Gabor and her husband to pay Sommer $3.3 million.
In later years she worked mostly in Europe, appearing in films such as “Zeppelin” and “And Then There Were None,” before turning much of her attention to painting. That same year, 1993, she married German hotelier Wolf Walther, a marriage she later called the most important decision of her life.
Her final months were marked by heartbreak. Wolf died of cancer in July 2026, and Elke told Bild that her heart was broken. She followed him only three months later. Her family says her last wish was to rest in the family grave in her beloved Franconia, Germany, beside her parents.
Somewhere tonight, a maid named Maria Gambrelli is still smiling at a clumsy French inspector, and that’s exactly how we’ll remember Elke Sommer.
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