Elke Sommer, German-born star of 'A Shot in the Dark' and 'The Prize', dies at 85 of heart failure

Early life

Sommer was born in Berlin in November 1940. She first wanted to be an interpreter and could speak six languages as a teenager. In 1958, at 17, she won the Italian beauty contest Miss Viareggio while on holiday, and that led her to acting. The Italian director Vittorio De Sica noticed her, and she went on to appear in Italian comedies and in small roles in Italian and German films.

Hollywood

She became known to a wide audience in the early 1960s. In The Prize, directed by Mark Robson, she appeared with Paul Newman and Edward G. Robinson, and the film won her the 1964 Golden Globe for most promising newcomer. In the same year she appeared in A Shot in the Dark, the second Pink Panther film, opposite Peter Sellers, which remained her best-known role. She reprised the part in Son of the Pink Panther in 1993.

Her career lasted nearly 60 years. She also appeared in three issues of Playboy, in September 1964, December 1967 and September 1970.

In 1964 she married the Hollywood columnist Joe Hyams, and they divorced in 1981. She met Wolf Walther in 1989 when she was cast in the play Tamara. They married and stayed together for 32 years.

Sommer and Sir Patrick Stewart, the actor known for Star Trek and the X-Men films, both died on 28 October, and both deaths were reported on 29 October.

A Shot in the Dark, directed by Blake Edwards, was the second film in the Pink Panther series and the first in which Peter Sellers' bumbling Inspector Clouseau took centre stage. Sommer played Maria Gambrelli, a maid who is the main suspect in a series of murders, and the film is often named among the best of the series. Son of the Pink Panther, in which she reappeared in 1993, was directed by Edwards and starred Roberto Benigni. Her other films of the period also included Boy, Did I Get a Wrong Number! and And Then There Were None.

The Prize, from 1963, was a Cold War thriller based on a novel by Irving Wallace, set around the Nobel Prize ceremonies in Stockholm. The Oscar, from 1966, was a drama about a Hollywood star, and The Wrecking Crew, from 1968, was an espionage comedy in which she appeared alongside Dean Martin. The Golden Globe she won in 1964, awarded by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, was for most promising newcomer among actresses.

The only family statement quoted in the reports was her stepson's, and the reports of her death do not say whether a memorial or funeral will be held. Her career, which began with a beauty contest in Italy at 17, ran across Italian, German and American films for nearly six decades.

Sommer belonged to a generation of European actresses who found work in Hollywood in the 1960s, when American studios were making films in Europe and casting international stars. For viewers who know the Pink Panther series, she is the glamorous figure in A Shot in the Dark, the film in which Peter Sellers' Inspector Clouseau becomes a murder investigator. The reports of her death describe her as one of the top film actresses of that decade.

Her funeral arrangements have not been announced in the reports available.