According to a statement sent to datewithhistory by her longtime publicist, R. Couri Hay, Suzanne Somers, the actress who lit up the small screen on “Three’s Company” and one of TV’s most famous fitness pitchwomen, has passed away. She died at the age of 76.
“In the early morning hours of October 15th, Suzanne Somers died peacefully at home.” The actress “fought off an aggressive form of breast cancer for over 23 years,” Hay said in a statement released on behalf of the actress’s family.
According to the statement, Somers “was surrounded by her loving husband Alan, her son Bruce, and her immediate family.”
On October 16, her family came together to celebrate her 77th birthday. Instead, they want to honor her amazing life and express gratitude to her many admirers, according to the statement. Somers said her breast cancer had returned in July.
“Since I’ve been absent from the office, several of you have inquired about the state of my health. “As you know, I had breast cancer twenty years ago, and it pops up every now and then, and I continue to fight it off,” she posted on Instagram. “I’m not treading on uncharted ground here. I’m a warrior who knows how to suit up.
In an interview with Larry King, she stated that she was first diagnosed with the condition in 2001.
Fabulous career in “Three’s Company”
Although Somers had a varied career spanning many decades, her most well-known performance was in the popular ABC comedy “Three’s Company,” which aired in the late 1970s and early 1980s, as Chrissy Snow.
She went on to write many more works, including the New York Times bestsellers “Sexy Forever” and “Knockout” and the international bestseller “Ageless.” Her association with ThighMaster, which made her a fitness star, also led to her hosting her own talk show and venturing into the health industry.
In the early 1960s, Somers started appearing in films without being acknowledged for his work. Her first acting credit was for the 1973 George Lucas film “American Graffiti,” for which she was credited as “Blonde in a T-Bird.”
Before her breakthrough role as Snow, Somers appeared in a number of television episodes in the early 1970s, including “One Day at a Time,” “The Love Boat,” and “Starsky and Hutch.”
Somers portrayed the upbeat typewriter receptionist for five seasons between 1977 and 1981, opposite the late John Ritter and Joyce DeWitt. The show was very popular and propelled Somers to fame.
“Being on the No. 1 show in the country, there was a collective consciousness because about half of everybody watching television on Tuesday nights was watching Three’s Company,” she said in a 2015 CNN interview. I count myself really lucky to have gotten in at that particular time.
In an interview from 2012, Somers stated she put in a lot of effort to give her perky blonde persona some depth.
“I realized something while I was on ‘Three’s Company.’ I was completely unemployed at the time I got the job, so I was thrilled to receive it, but I couldn’t stop thinking, “Ugh, dumb blondes are so irritating; how do I make her likable?” My best guess is that I was successful. People didn’t catch on to the fact that I was acting for a time.
Somers left “Three’s Company” in 1981 because she wanted a wage increase to equal that of Ritter, with whom she had worked the year before.
“I never intended to be this guy. I enjoyed playing Chrissy Snow on TV. The men were all making 10 to 15 times more than me, including John Ritter, and the network decided to make an example of me so that no other woman would have the audacity to ask for parity, she said in an interview with Entrepreneur in 2020. “I didn’t plan to be the unofficial first feminist when I demanded equal pay,” she said. I was sad when I lost my dream job, but hindsight is always 20/20. My husband and I had to start over after being evicted, but we vowed that we would never work for another person again.
When she left the show, she went on to become a well-known performer in Las Vegas. Somers, together with Frank Sinatra, was honored as Las Vegas’ Female Entertainer of the Year in 1987.
“Why was it so unjust what happened with me at ABC? Yep. It wasn’t fair, but life isn’t fair and you have to let the past be the past, she reflected.
Later, from 1987 to 1989, Somers appeared in the TV comedy “She’s the Sheriff” as Sheriff Hildy Granger. Somers was a popular face on television in the ’90s, appearing in a number of TV movies and guest-starring on series including ‘Full House,’ ‘The Larry Sanders Show,’ and ‘The Simpsons.
After finding success on “Three’s Company” in the 1980s, Suzanne Somers was able to replicate that success in 1991 when she was cast as Carol Foster Lambert on the family-friendly ABC comedy “Step by Step.” Somers continued to play Lambert until the series ended in 1998.
In addition, she was the anchor of “The Suzanne Show,” a morning chat program on Lifetime under her own name in which she discussed current topics in health and wellness.
Priority for family and health
Somers has worked hard to promote health and wellbeing outside of the entertainment industry. In the 1990s, Somers also had a second career as a fitness guru, appearing in an infomercial for ThighMaster.
Somers said in an interview years later that she had been showing off a new pair of Manolo Blahnik shoes to her husband when the idea for the infomercial first came to her.
“I came out of my dressing room in my underwear and asked my husband, ‘Like my new shoes?'” And he said, ‘Great legs!’ I exclaimed, “Oh my God, that is the advertisement!” If you remember, that was how we kicked off the commercial, and we went on to sell 10 million ThighMasters straight out of the gate,” Somer remarked.
Somers wrote over twenty books on health and wellness, several of which were bestsellers in the New York Times. She has collaborated on a number of all-natural cosmetics in recent years.
Somers wrote and talked much about reaching old age fearlessly.
“Today I love aging because I have found a new way to age,” she said to Palm Springs Life in 2015. “My weight has returned to what it was in my 20s, and my physique has improved since competing on this season of “Dancing With the Stars.” “Alan says it’s like having a mistress,” Somers said. “And that’s fine by me.”
Somers and Hamel, who have been married for 50 years, are still much in love with one another and are understandably proud of their children and grandchildren.
“Other than that,” she said, “my work in health is my greatest accomplishment.”
