Wissenswertes

He has played 3 different historical American presidents; Gerald Ford in The Betty Ford Story (1987), Franklin D. Roosevelt in The Kennedys of Massachusetts (1990), Woodrow Wilson in The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles - Paris, May 1919 (1993) as well as 1 fictional president in X-Men: The Last Stand (2006).

Appears with Michael Murphy in Der Strohmann (1976) and 30 years later in X-Men: Der letzte Widerstand (2006).

Father, Clemens Sommer, was a professor of history at the University of North Carolina.

Starred in two unrelated TV movies dealing with the Kennedys: "The Kennedys of Massachusetts" in which he played Franklin Roosevelt, and "A Woman Named Jackie" in which he played Joseph Kennedy Sr.

In 1982, appeared in two films with Meryl Streep: sharing scenes with her in In der Stille der Nacht (1982) and narrating her character story in Sophies Entscheidung (1982). The following year they co-starred in Silkwood (1983).

The hugely popular NHL team, Anaheim Ducks, got their name from his character, Mr. Gerald Ducksworth, in the movie the Mighty Ducks.

He appeared with three of the five actors who played Jack Ryan (as of 2019): Harrison Ford in Der einzige Zeuge (1985); Alec Baldwin in Malice - Eine Intrige (1993) and Ben Affleck in Der Anschlag (2002) - the latter being a film from the Ryan franchise.

He was awarded the 1980 Outstanding Performance for "The Lady and the Clarinet" at the Mark Taper Forum Theatre in Los Angeles, California.