German-born actress Elke Sommer has passed at the age of 85. If you don’t know who she is, you were never a teenage boy in the 1960s. She wasn’t much of an actress, but she played a starring role in many of my dreams.
I know her for her Pink Panther Movie, A Shot in the Dark and the weird Olympics movie with 4 stars of Hogan’s Heroes, The Wicked Dreams of Paula Schultz.
I thought she was in a Bob Hope picture with Phyllis Diller also, but I can’t remember the name. Google’d it: Boy, Did I Get a Wrong Number! (1966)
I wasn’t a teen until well after the 60s but I remember her. I do admit to often confusing her with Britt Ekland though.
It has been a rough couple of weeks for old celebrities. So many just passed.
She was also a co-star in the much reviled movie The Oscar with Stephen Boyd and Tony Bennett. I don’t remember much about her part except her odd characterization of herself as from a Chinese restaurant menu. “You take one from column A and two from column B. You get an eggroll either way.”
Whoa. Eggroll, huh?
We Germans were proud of her, one of our rare Hollywood stars, although she rarely got out of B-movie territory. She was also kind of relaxed and even amused about her status as sex symbol, and once said “It’s funny that I’m considered a sex symbol, I only had four men in my life” (meaning her four husbands). Another point of trivia: she was the daughter of a Lutheran minister.
Another funny story I read in one of her obituaries: she once successfully sued her colleague/rival(?) Zsa Zsa Gabor for falsely claiming that she was totally broke, getting more than $2 million in damages.
Hm, she must have been like Elizabeth Taylor who would only sleep with men she married.
Both my older brother and I had the hots for Elke after seeing her in A Shot in the Dark. And I was only ten at the time!
Drawing was one of her hobbies, and she had her own art show on PBS back in the '80s. My first daughter (now 45) loved to watch her draw and tried to copy her style.
Oh, and I forgot to mention that she was very polyglott and spoke six languages fluently. Spiegel Online where I got this from didn’t state which ones, but of course German and English, most probably Italian as she did a lot of work in Italy, probably also French and Spanish. Her sixth language, I can’t guess.
A Shot in the Dark is one of my favourite comedies; the scene in the nudist camp was certainly memorable.
Same here. My first thought upon hearing of Elke Sommer’s death was-- oh, the innkeeper’s daughter in ‘The Wicker Man’? Checking IMDB-- nope, that was Britt Ekland.
Same here. I was wondering how Wickerman hadn’t been mentioned when I know so many of us here love it 
At least I know I’m correct in remembering her from many game shows in the '70s. Oh wait, it was mostly just Hollywood Squares. I could swear she was on all of them, especially Match Game. Regardless, I remember her fondly from my younger days.
Certainly ensured she wasn’t totally broke.
