Josef Sommer is an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 film actor.

He was born Maximilian Josef Sommer in Greifswald

Greifswald

Greifswald , officially, the University and Hanseatic City of Greifswald is a town in northeastern Germany. It is situated in the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, at an equal distance of about from Germany's two largest cities, Berlin and Hamburg. The town borders the Baltic Sea, and is crossed...

, Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 and was raised in North Carolina

North Carolina

North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...

, the son of Elisabeth and Clemons Sommer, a professor of art history at the University of North Carolina

University of North Carolina

Chartered in 1789, the University of North Carolina was one of the first public universities in the United States and the only one to graduate students in the eighteenth century...

. He studied at the Carnegie Institute of Technology

Carnegie Institute of Technology

The Carnegie Institute of Technology , is the name for Carnegie Mellon University’s College of Engineering. It was first called the Carnegie Technical Schools, or Carnegie Tech, when it was founded in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie who intended to build a “first class technical school” in Pittsburgh,...

. 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 1971 in Dirty Harry

Dirty Harry

Dirty Harry is a 1971 American crime thriller produced and directed by Don Siegel, the first in the Dirty Harry series. Clint Eastwood plays the title role, in his first outing as San Francisco Police Department Inspector "Dirty" Harry Callahan....

, Close Encounters Of The Third Kind

Close Encounters of the Third Kind

Close Encounters of the Third Kind is a 1977 science fiction film written and directed by Steven Spielberg. The film stars Richard Dreyfuss, François Truffaut, Melinda Dillon, Teri Garr, Bob Balaban, and Cary Guffey...

in 1977, and appeared in Witness

Witness (1985 film)

Witness is a 1985 American thriller film directed by Peter Weir and starring Harrison Ford and Kelly McGillis. The screenplay by William Kelley, Pamela Wallace, and Earl W...

opposite Harrison Ford

Harrison Ford

Harrison Ford is an American film actor and producer. He is famous for his performances as Han Solo in the original Star Wars trilogy and as the title character of the Indiana Jones film series. Ford is also known for his roles as Rick Deckard in Blade Runner, John Book in Witness and Jack Ryan in...

 (where he played a crooked police officer) and Moonlight and Valentino

Moonlight and Valentino

Moonlight and Valentino is a 1995 American dramedy film directed by David Anspaugh. The screenplay by Ellen Simon is based on her semi-autobiographical play of the same title staged at Duke University six years earlier.-Plot:...

with Elizabeth Perkins

Elizabeth Perkins

Elizabeth Ann Perkins is an American actress. Her film roles have included Big, The Flintstones, Miracle on 34th Street, About Last Night..., and Avalon...

. He appeared as President Gerald Ford

Gerald Ford

Gerald Rudolph "Jerry" Ford, Jr. was the 38th President of the United States, serving from 1974 to 1977, and the 40th Vice President of the United States serving from 1973 to 1974...

 opposite Gena Rowlands

Gena Rowlands

Gena Rowlands is an American actress of film, stage and television. The four-time Emmy and two-time Golden Globe winner is best known for her collaborations with her actor-director husband John Cassavetes in ten films, in two of which, Gloria and A Woman Under the Influence, she gave Academy...

 in the 1987 made-for-TV movie The Betty Ford Story

The Betty Ford Story

The Betty Ford Story is a 1987 television film directed by David Greene and written by Karen Hall. This biographical film was based on the book The Times of My Life written by Chris Chase and Betty Ford.-Cast:*Gena Rowlands as Betty Ford...

. He has also had starring roles in two short-lived series, Hothouse

Hothouse

Hothouse or Hot House or Hot house may refer to:* A heated greenhouse* "Hot House" , a jazz standard* Hot House , a 1995 album by musician Bruce Hornsby* Hot House...

(1988) and Under Cover

Under Cover (TV series)

Under Cover is an American secret agent drama series that premiered on ABC on January 7, 1991. The series starred Anthony John Denison and Linda Purl as Dylan and Kate Del'Amico, a husband and wife who share the same day job—as spies for a fictional US intelligence agency.Under Cover follows the...

(early 1990s). As of 2007, he has appeared, as a character actor

Character actor

A character actor is one who predominantly plays unusual or eccentric characters. The Oxford English Dictionary defines a character actor as "an actor who specializes in character parts", defining character part in turn as "an acting role displaying pronounced or unusual characteristics or...

, in almost 100 films. Some of his more famous roles have been as a crooked businessman or a corrupt politician.

External links