TTHHEE MMIIDDNNIIGGHHTT PPAALLAACCEE IIII NNNNTTTTEEEERRRRVVVVIIIIEEEEWW WWIIIITTTTHHHH EEEELLLLKKKKEEEE SSSSOOOOMMMMMMMMEEEERRRR ((((2222000000009999)))) Written by: GARY SWEENEY Elke Sommer is an actress whose films have spanned from horror to comedy. She has become well-known from her appearances in such films as Lisa and the Devil, A Shot in the Dark, The Oscar, The Prize, and The Victors. Over the years, she has added singing and painting to her artistic arsenal. Having won a Golden Globe Award for her role in The Prize with Paul Newman and Edward G. Robinson, she began a long and interesting career full of stories and good memories. Her recently developed website, Elke Sommer Online, offers a glimpse into her personal and professional life. I recently had the great pleasure of speaking to Elke about her start in films, her favorite costars and their real-life personalities, (some of which may surprise you!), her artwork, and even the haunted house she owned in the 1960s! MP: I’m on the phone with Elke Sommer, an actress whose career spans many decades and who has made so many memorable films with a variety of talented actors. She has acted her way through horror, comedy, and intrigue, and continues to act today in addition to singing and painting. Elke, thank you so much for your time today; it’s an honor to be speaking with you. Elke: Well thank you very much! MP: I know you started out overseas and I wanted to mention one of your early films – 1962’s Sweet Ecstasy. You were already familiar with the director, Max Pécas, because he’d directed you the year before in Daniella by Night. How were those early days for you as a new actress? Elke: I was working practically my whole life once I started, never really stopping, you know? It was very nice. I had started my career in Italy, as you might know, with Vittorio De Sica, who liked me so much after I did the first movie that he hired me for a second movie. The first movie, which was with Walter Chiari, he was directing and in the second he was playing the male lead. So I had already done like four or five pictures in Italy. Then I went to Germany and then did a picture with Alain Delon in France which was called Le chien (The Dog) with François Chalais, who was a wonderful, wonderful man. With Max Pécas, it was work; what can you say? It was work; I never fell in love with any of my leading men or with anybody. The second picture I had a little bit of a problem with Mr. Pécas because he decided he liked me very much and was kind of a pain in the neck. So it was difficult working with him; and when I of course did not want to have anything but work to do with him – I remember the producer’s name was Joël Lifschutz – he sulked and refused to work for a couple of days. It was hard. It was the only time I really had problems with anybody in the motion picture business trying to really get me, you know? MP: At any time early on in your career, were you ever concerned about being used strictly for your looks as opposed to being taken seriously as an actress? Elke: You know, I went to a very good school and I learned nine years of Latin and six years of ancient Greek, which you needed at the time to be able to study medicine. Quite honestly, the first few movies I made, I always thought “Okay let’s make this movie and I’ll get a little bit of money, and then I don’t have to work on the side and I can pay for my studies.” My dad passed away when I was 15 and we were living on like 70 marks a month, which was like 25 bucks, you know? So actually I never thought about that because I wasn’t a movie fan, I never really was, I’m still not today. I like to see a good movie now and then but I don’t go out of my way to the movie theater; now I get them all sent by SAG so I can see most of them on a big TV screen, which is not a movie screen of course. I never even thought about that, I really honestly did not. I just knew it was tougher for somebody who looked nice to be critically better acclaimed than an Anna Magnani who looked like Anna Magnani (laughs) and threw tantrums and screamed and did things. People thought that was great; but on the other hand I never thought about it in the beginning. Later on, yes, about ten years into the career, I thought about it much more. Even the movie with Dean Martin, The Wrecking Crew – it was a nice part and I had a wonderful death, I could die very nicely and all that – but that was another one where he had a beautiful lady on his arm. So in the beginning I never thought about that. I thought that’s the way it has to be, I did my job and went home, and did the next movie. MP: After your appearance in The Prize with Paul Newman and Edward G. Robinson, you won a Golden Globe Award for Most Promising Newcomer Actress. Was that significant for you, personally or professionally? Elke: No, what was significant to me was that I had the chance to work with Paul Newman, who I absolutely adored and was also not disappointed. I wasn’t really disappointed in any of my costars, they were all fantastic besides one – his name is Jack Palance, who did not behave like a nice person, not towards me but towards Lee J. Cobb, who was in the movie [They Came to Rob Las Vegas] as well. He was bad; he was really bad and uncomfortable. Everybody else was great. And Paul and Eddie G. Robinson – they were wonderful. Also we rehearsed that movie on the soundstage like a play before we started shooting, so we knew all of our moves; Mark Robson was the director, and it was a fantastic experience and really beautiful, really incredible. MP: I recently watched Lisa and the Devil and that was one of two films you did with director Mario Bava, the other was Baron Blood. In Lisa and the Devil, your character had very little dialogue, so your role was mainly comprised of emotions and a lot of facial expressions. Were those Bava films difficult for you to do? Elke: No, very easy. Bava was like a papa to me, he was really like a papa to all of us. We ate together and we talked together and he was very, very good, extremely articulate in what he wanted you to do, and you did it. You know, in a way – when you’re on stage it’s a different story – but in a way, when you do movies - even in my last one, it was my 95th I just finished in Europe – I like being directed, I like it very much. Of course your own personality plays a big part in it but when I trust the director, which was not always, not in every picture, but you do what he asks you and you play it until he’s happy. And with Bava it was a cinch, it really was. MP: So he interacted well with his cast? Elke: Very, very. He really was like a papa figure – great sense of humor, great buddy, and very good director. What was funny about The Prize, which I meant to say before, was - Pandro Berman, who was the producer, we always had lunch at MGM in the commissary – one day he asked whether he could have lunch with me, I said “Sure, of course, we’re there every day anyhow”. All these ladies walked by with the long legs and 64 teeth and loads of hair and all that (laughs) – he had seen a movie which I did called The Girl and the Prosecutor and he had seen that at some foreign thing here. So anyhow, I said “Look at all these women, my God, 64 teeth, long beautiful legs, no gap in the middle of their teeth and so much hair. Why did you pick me?” He said, “Honey, you won’t see it yourself but surely everybody else sees it. If you look on that screen when we see rushes, there’s an aura about you which none of these have. It doesn’t matter how beautiful they are; it doesn’t matter. There’s just something around you which is great.” So they gave me a little thing to stick between the gap in my teeth in front. I’m more like a country girl, you know; I hate makeup, I hate [having] my hair done and all that. So I had to put it in before we were shooting and three times I ate an apple and I swallowed it (laughs)! After the third time they gave up. They said “That’s it! Jesus Christ Elke! Take the little thing out after the scene!” Anyhow, [there were] cute things like that but everybody was extremely kind and I think I learned to really appreciate what I was being offered and what I was doing. But it took me a while because I thought after five or six pictures at the beginning, I’m going to go back to study medicine anyhow.