Elke Sommer who rather be known as a painter who acts than as an actress who paints.

Elke Sommer, was spotted by film director Vittorio De Sica while on holiday in Italy, and started performing in films there in the late 1950s. She quickly became famous as a sex symbol and moved to Hollywood in the early 1960s. She also became one of the most popular pin-up girls and posed for Playboy Magazine.

She became one of the top movie actresses of the 1960s and made 99 movie and television performances between 1959 and 2005. She was best known for: A Shot in the Dark (1964) with Peter Sellers, The Art of Love (1965) with James Garner and Dick Van Dyke, The Oscar (1966) with Stephen Boyd, Boy, Did I Get a Wrong Number! (1966) with Bob Hope, Deadlier Than the Male (1966), and The Wrecking Crew (1969) with Dean Martin; Sommer was the leading lady in each of these films.

In 1964, she won the Golden Globe Awards as Most Promising Newcomer Actress for The Prize, a film she co-starred with Paul Newman and Edward G. Robinson.


In 1972, she performed in two Italian horror movies directed by Mario Bava, which have both become cult classics Baron Blood and Lisa and the Devil.

In 1975, Peter Rogers cast her in Carry On Behind as the Russian Professor Vrooshka.

Sommer also performed as a singer, making several albums.