Elke Sommer (5 November 1940) is a German actress who also performed as a singer, recording and releasing several albums. This gorgeous Teutonic temptress was one of Hollywood's most captivating imports of the 1960s. Blonde and beautiful with her trademark pouty lips, high cheekbones and sky-high bouffant hairdos, proved irresistible to American audiences, whether adorned in lace or leather, or donning lingerie or lederhosen.
She was born in Berlin-Spandau on November 5, 1940 with the unlikely name of Else Schletz-Ho to a Lutheran minister and his wife. The family was forced to evacuate to Erlangen, during World War II in 1942, a small university town in the southern region of Germany. It was here that her parents first introduced her to water colors and her lifelong passion for painting was ignited. Her father's death in 1955, when she was only 14, interrupted her education and she relocated to Great Britain, where she learned English and made ends meet as an au pair. She eventually attended college back in Germany and entertained plans to become a diplomatic translator but, instead, decided to try modeling.
After winning a beauty title ("Miss Viareggio Turistica") while on vacation in Italy, she caught the attention of renowned film actor/director Vittorio De Sica and began performing on screen in 1959. Also that year, she changed her surname from Schletz to Sommer. Elke began making a name for herself in German films, as well, and gradually upgraded her status to European sex symbol and moved to Hollywood in the early 1960s. Sommer became one of the more popular pin-up girls of the time, posing for pictorials in the September 1964 and December 1967 issues of Playboy magazine.
Sommer became one of the top film actresses of the 1960s. She made 99 film and television appearances from 1959 to 2005, including The Prize (1963) with Paul Newman, A Shot in the Dark (1964) with Peter Sellers, Boy, Did I Get a Wrong Number! (1966) with Bob Hope, the Bulldog Drummond extravaganza Deadlier Than the Male (1966), The Wrecking Crew (1968) with Dean Martin, and The Wicked Dreams of Paula Schultz (1968); in each of these films she was the leading lady.
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 host.
Sommer's films during the 1970s included the thriller Zeppelin, in which she co-starred with Michael York, and a 1974 remake of Agatha Christie's 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 re-edited (with 1975 footage inserted) to make a different film titled 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. She became the Carry On films' joint highest-paid performer, at £30,000; this was an honour 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.
In the 1980s, Sommer hosted a syndicated programme titled The Exciting World of Speed and Beauty. Sommer was embroiled in a long-running feud with Zsa Zsa Gabor that began in 1984 when both appeared on Circus of the Stars. This had escalated into a multimillion-dollar libel suit by 1993, resulting in Sommer being awarded $3.3 million in damages from Gabor and her husband, Frederick von Anhalt, for defaming her in interviews published in a pair of German publications in 1990.She has been married since 1993 to hotelier Wolf Walther.
After the 1990s, Sommer concentrated
more on painting than on acting. As an actress, she had worked in half a dozen
countries learning the languages (she speaks seven languages) and storing
images which she has expressed on canvas. Her artwork shows a strong influence
from Marc Chagall. In 2001, a Golden Palm Star on the Palm Springs Walk of
Stars was dedicated to her.As of May 2017, Sommer was living
in Los Angeles, California.
(Edited from Wikipedia & IMDb)