Josef Sommer
| Josef Sommer | |
|---|---|
|
Josef Sommer as District Attorney William T. Rothko in Dirty Harry | |
| Born |
Maximilian Josef Sommer June 26, 1934 Greifswald, Germany |
| Years active | 1971—present |
Josef Sommer (born June 26, 1934) is a German-American stage and film actor.
Early life
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.
Career
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) and appeared in films such as The Stepford Wives (1975), Close Encounters Of The Third Kind (1977), Still of the Night (1982), Silkwood (1983), Peter Weir's thriller Witness (1985) opposite Harrison Ford, Target (1985), Malice (1993), Patch Adams (1998), and X-Men: The Last Stand (2006). 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, and played George Barton in the 1983 TV version of Agatha Christie's Sparkling Cyanide. 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.
Filmography
- Dirty Harry (1971)
- Man on a Swing (1974)
- The Stepford Wives (1975)
- Close Encounters Of The Third Kind (1977)
- Oliver's Story (1978)
- Hide in Plain Sight (1980)
- Absence of Malice (1981)
- Rollover (1981)
- Hanky Panky (1982)
- Still of the Night (1982)
- Independence Day (1983)
- Silkwood (1983)
- Iceman (1984)
- Witness (1985)
- D.A.R.Y.L. (1985)
- Target (1985)
- The Rosary Murders (1987)
- Dracula's Widow (1988)
- Chances Are (1989)
- Bloodhounds of Broadway (1989)
- Shadows and Fog (1991)
- The Mighty Ducks (1992)
- Malice (1993)
- Nobody's Fool (1994)
- Strange Days (1995)
- Moonlight and Valentino (1995)
- The Chamber (1996)
- The Proposition (1998)
- Patch Adams (1998)
- The Next Best Thing (2000)
- Shaft (2000)
- The Family Man (2000)
- The Sum of All Fears (2002)
- Searching for Paradise (2002)
- The Elephant King (2006)
- X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)
- The Invasion (2007)
- Stop-Loss (2008)