Josef Sommer

Josef Sommer (born June 26, 1934) is a German-American stage and film actor.

Life and career

He was born Maximilian Josef Sommer in Greifswald, Germany, and raised in North Carolina, the son of Elisabeth and Clemens Sommer, a Professor of Art History at the University of North Carolina.^[1] He studied at the Carnegie Institute of Technology.^[2] He has a daughter, Maria.

Sommer made his acting debut at the age of nine in a North Carolina production of Watch on the Rhine. He made his film debut in Dirty Harry (1971), Close Encounters Of The Third Kind (1977), and appeared in Peter Weir's thriller Witness (1985) opposite Harrison Ford (where he played a crooked police officer) and Moonlight and Valentino (1995) with Elizabeth Perkins. He appeared as 38th President Gerald Ford opposite Gena Rowlands in the made-for-TV movie The Betty Ford Story (1987). In 1974, he appeared in the role of Roy Mills on CBS television daytime drama The Guiding Light. He has also had starring roles in two short-lived series, Hothouse (1988) and Under Cover (1991). As of 2007, he has appeared, as a character actor, in almost 100 films. Some of his more famous roles have been as a crooked businessman or a corrupt politician. Yet, Sommer displayed abundant humanity without being seen on screen when he lent his talents as the poignant Narrator, Stingo as an adult, in the acclaimed tour-de-force Sophie's Choice (1982), for which Meryl Streep won an Academy Award for Best Actress.

Though a much-respected and lauded thespian of more than one performing art, this seasoned character actor got the chance to play a rare leading role—opposite the titular-titled, eponymous character played by Sylvia Kristel—as a film noir-esque detective in the quirky, little-seen, tiny cult horror comedy Dracula's Widow (1988), a role that Sommer truly appeared to have relished, as reflected by his creatively colorful and enthusiastic performance.

References

External links

• Josef Sommer at the Internet Movie Database