 |
Josef Sommer | |
|---|---|
| Born | Maximilian Josef Sommer June 26, 1934 Greifswald, Germany |
| Education | Carnegie Mellon University (BFA) |
| Years active | 1971—2010 |
Maximilian Josef Sommer (born June 26, 1934) is a retired German-American stage, television, and film actor.
He was born 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) 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 (where he played a dirty cop), Target (1985), Malice (1993), Patch Adams (1998), and X-Men: The Last Stand (2006). He appeared as President Gerald Ford opposite Gena Rowlands in the TV movie The Betty Ford Story (1987). In 1974, he appeared in the role of Roy Mills on The Guiding Light , and played George Barton in the 1983 TV version of Agatha Christie's Sparkling Cyanide . He had starring roles in two short-lived series: Hothouse (1988) and Under Cover (1991). As of 2007, he had appeared in almost 100 films. Some of his more famous roles were as a crooked businessman or a corrupt politician. Sommer displayed humanity without being seen on screen when he lent his talents as the poignant narrator in Sophie's Choice (1982).
He played a rare leading role—opposite Dracula's widow, played by Sylvia Kristel, as the film noir-esque detective in the quirky horror comedy Dracula's Widow (1988).
Silkwood is a 1983 American biographical drama film directed by Mike Nichols, and starring Meryl Streep, Kurt Russell, and Cher. The screenplay by Nora Ephron and Alice Arlen was adapted from the book Who Killed Karen Silkwood? by Rolling Stone writer and activist Howard Kohn, which detailed the life of Karen Silkwood, a nuclear whistle-blower and a labor union activist who investigated alleged wrongdoing at the Kerr-McGee plutonium plant where she worked. In real life, her inconclusive death in a car crash gave rise to a 1979 lawsuit, Silkwood v. Kerr-McGee, led by attorney Gerry Spence. The jury rendered its verdict of $10 million in damages to be paid to the Silkwood estate, the largest amount in damages ever awarded for that kind of case at the time. The Silkwood estate eventually settled for $1.3 million.
Zakes Makgona Mokae was a South African-American actor of theatre and film.
E. G. Marshall was an American actor. One of the first group selected for the new Actors Studio, by 1948 Marshall had performed in major plays on Broadway.
Francis Xavier Aloysius James Jeremiah Keenan Wynn was an American character actor. His expressive face was his stock-in-trade; and though he rarely carried the lead role, he had prominent billing in most of his film and television roles.
Kenneth Marine Kercheval was an American actor, best known for his role as Cliff Barnes on the television series Dallas and its 2012 revival.
Reni Santoni was an American film, television and voice actor. He was noted for playing Poppie on the television sitcom Seinfeld, Tony Gonzales in Cobra, and Chico González in Dirty Harry.
Michael Pataki was an American actor of stage, film and television.
Thomas Ernest Aldredge was an American television, film and stage actor.
Howard Vernon, born Mario Walter Lippert, was a Swiss stage and film actor who appeared in films by Jean-Pierre Melville, Sacha Guitry, Fritz Lang, Roger Vadim, Jean-Luc Godard and Jesús Franco.
Hamilton Camp was a British-born actor and singer, who relocated to the United States with his family when he was a young child. He is known for his work as a folk singer during the 1960s, and eventually branched out into acting in films and television.
Arthur Edward Spence Hill was a Canadian actor. He was known in British and American theatre, film, and television.
William Berger, also known as Bill Berger and Wilhelm Berger, born Wilhelm Thomas Berger was an American actor, mostly associated with Euro and spaghetti Westerns.
Anthony Higgins is an English stage, film and television actor. His credits include A Walk with Love and Death (1969), Taste the Blood of Dracula (1970), Hadleigh (1976), The Eagle of the Ninth (1977), Love in a Cold Climate (1980), Quartet (1981), The Draughtsman's Contract (1982), Lace (1984), The Bride (1985), Young Sherlock Holmes (1985), Napoleon and Josephine: A Love Story (1987), Sherlock Holmes Returns (1993), Nostradamus (1994), Peak Practice (2000), Chromophobia (2005), Heroes and Villains: Napoleon (2007), Lewis (2009), Malice in Wonderland (2009), Bel Ami (2012), and Tutankhamun (2016).
Horace Raymond Huntley was an English actor who appeared in dozens of British films from the 1930s to the 1970s. He also appeared in the ITV period drama Upstairs, Downstairs as the pragmatic family solicitor Sir Geoffrey Dillon.
Charles John Hallahan was an American film, television, and stage actor. His films include Going in Style, and Nightwing (1979), The Thing (1982), Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983), Vision Quest and Pale Rider (1985), Cast a Deadly Spell (1991), and Dante's Peak (1997). On television he appeared in The Rockford Files, Happy Days and Hawaii Five-O, played Chet Wilke in Lou Grant (1979–1982), M* A* S* H and Hill Street Blues (1981), The Equalizer (1985), and as Capt. Charlie Devane in Hunter from 1986 to 1991.
William Leroy Prince was an American actor who appeared in numerous soap operas and made dozens of guest appearances on primetime series as well as playing villains in movies like The Gauntlet, The Cat from Outer Space and Spontaneous Combustion.
David Marshall Grant is an American actor, singer and writer.
Donald Moffat was a British–American actor with a decades-long career in film and stage in the United States. He began his acting career on- and off-Broadway, which included appearances in The Wild Duck and Right You Are If You Think You Are, earning Tony Award nominations for both, as well as Painting Churches, for which he received an Obie Award. Moffat also appeared in several feature films, including The Thing (1982), The Right Stuff (1983) and, in a rare leading role on film, as a tenuously-recovering alcoholic in On the Nickel (1980). Moffat also made guest appearances in numerous television series, including such shows as Little House on the Prairie, Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, and The West Wing. He also was a principal in the 1993 TV miniseries Tales of the City.
Herbert Fux was an Austrian film actor and politician. He appeared in more than 140 films between 1960 and 2007.
Alexander Lockwood was an American actor. He appeared in numerous films and television shows throughout the 1930s to the 1980s.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |
