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Elke Sommer

Elke Sommer

Birthday: 1940-11-05 | Place of Birth: Berlin, Germany

Elke Sommer, born Elke von Schletz, is a German-born actress, entertainer and artist, who has starred in many Hollywood films. She was spotted by film director Vittorio De Sica while on holiday in Italy, and began appearing in films there in 1958. Also that year, she changed her surname from Schletz to Sommer, which was easier to pronounce for a non-German audience. She quickly became a noted sex symbol and moved to Hollywood in the early 1960s. She also became one of the most popular pin-up girls of the time, and posed for several pictorials in Playboy magazine, including the September 1964 and December 1967 issues. Sommer became one of the top film actresses of the 1960s. She made just shy of 100 film and television appearances between 1959 and 2005, including A Shot in the Dark with Peter Sellers, The Art of Love with James Garner and Dick Van Dyke, The Oscar with Stephen Boyd, Boy Did I Get a Wrong Number! with Bob Hope, the Bulldog Drummond extravaganza Deadlier Than the Male, The Wrecking Crew with Dean Martin, and The Wicked Dreams of Paula Schultz. In 1964, she won a Golden Globe award as Most Promising Newcomer Actress for The Prize, a film in which she co-starred with Paul Newman and Edward G. Robinson. A frequent guest on television, Sommer sang and participated in comedy sketches on episodes of The Dean Martin Show and on Bob Hope specials, made 10 appearances on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, and was a panelist on the Hollywood Squares game show many times between 1973 and 1980, when Peter Marshall was its "Square-Master", or host. Sommer's films during the 1970s included the thriller Zeppelin, in which she co-starred with Michael York, and a remake of Agatha Christie's frequently filmed murder mystery Ten Little Indians. In 1972, she starred in two Italian horror films directed by Mario Bava: Baron Blood and Lisa and the Devil. The latter was subsequently re-edited (with 1975 footage inserted) to make a different film called House of Exorcism. Sommer went back to Italy to act in additional scenes for Lisa and the Devil, which its producer inserted into the film to convert it to House of Exorcism, against the wishes of the director. In 1975, Peter Rogers cast her in the British comedy Carry On Behind as the Russian Professor Vrooshka.[2] She became the Carry On films' joint highest-paid performer, at £30,000; this was an honor that she shared with Phil Silvers (who starred in Follow That Camel). Most of her movie work during the decade came in European films. After the 1979 comedy The Prisoner of Zenda, which reunited her with Sellers, the actress did virtually no more acting in Hollywood films, concentrating more on her artwork. She provided the voice for Yzma in the German release of The Emperor's New Groove. Sommer also performed as a singer, recording and releasing several albums. Description above from the Wikipedia article Elke Sommer, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

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Known For

Acting

Year
Title

Role

1992
Severed Ties

as    Helena Harrison

1986
Peter the Great

as    Charlotte

1986
Anastasia - The Mystery of Anna

as    Isabel Von Hohenstauffen

1986
Anastasia: The Mystery of Anna

as    Isabel Von Hohenstauffen

1985
Lily in Love

as    Alicia Braun

1980
The Top of the Hill

as    Eva Heggener

1980
1979
The Prisoner of Zenda

as    Countess Montparnasse

1979
The Double McGuffin

as    Prime Minister Kura

1978
The Astral Factor

as    Chris Hartman

1978
Percy's Progress

as    Clarissa

1976
Lisa and the Devil

as    Lisa Reiner

1976
The House of Exorcism

as    Lisa Reiner

1975
Carry On Behind

as    Professor Anna Vooshka

1974
And Then There Were None

as    Vera Clyde

1972
Probe

as    Heideline 'Uli' Ullman

1971
Zeppelin

as    Erika Altschul

1970
The Invincible Six

as    Zari

1968
The Wrecking Crew

as    Linka Karensky

1967
Deadlier Than the Male

as    Irma Eckman

1966
1965
Hotel der toten Gäste

as    Herself

1965
The Money Trap

as    Lisa Baron

1965
The Art of Love

as    Nikki Dunnay

1965
The Dolls

as    Ulla (segment "Il Trattato di Eugenetica")

1964
A Shot in the Dark

as    Maria Gambrelli

1963
The Prize

as    Inger Lisa Andersson

1961
Don't Bother to Knock

as    Ingrid