Elke Sommer obituary

Glamorous star of 1960s films best known for her role opposite Peter Sellers in A Shot in the Dark

Like Ingrid Bergman and Sophia Loren, the German actor Elke Sommer was part of the postwar crossover wave of European stars who pepped up the tail end of the Hollywood studio era. Sommer, who has died aged 85, matched them for glamour but not dramatic prestige. Her sex-kitten image gave her a decade in the limelight playing exotic continental paramours for leading men and glamorous assassins in the 1960s.

With her beehive hairdo and an upturned nose she was initially self-conscious about, Sommer brought freshness and gameness to her most celebrated role: as Maria Gambrelli, the maid whom Peter Sellers as Inspector Clouseau goes out of his way to exonerate of murder in the 1964 comedy A Shot in the Dark. In the words of the trailer: “Number one sexpot, I mean suspect.”