ELKE SOMMER DIES AT LOS ANGELES HOME

Elke Sommer, who appeared opposite Peter Sellers in the Pink Panther film A Shot in the Dark, has died at her home in Los Angeles. Her stepson Sebastian Walther said she had been battling heart failure. “Elke passed away peacefully around 10 p.m.,” Walther told the German outlet Bild. Her death came three months after her husband of 32 years, Wolf Walther, died of cancer.

In the 1964 film A Shot in the Dark, Sommer played Maria Gambrelli, a murder suspect whom Sellers’s Inspector Clouseau sought to clear. She had appeared alongside Paul Newman in the 1963 film The Prize, playing Inger Lisa Andersson. Her character served as a chaperone to Nobel Prize winner Andrew Craig, whom Newman played. Sommer received a Golden Globe for her performance in The Prize. Her other films included The Art of Love and The Wrecking Crew.

Sommer was one of Germany’s best known actresses during the 1960s. Her film career continued for decades, and her final credited appearance came in the 2017 animated short A Thousand Kisses. She also appeared in three Playboy shoots between 1964 and 1970. Speaking about her death, Sebastian Walther said: “Now she can finally be with her beloved husband again.”