'Three's Company' actress Suzanne Somers dies at 76 - Good Morning America
By: Good Morning America
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Suzanne Somers, the actress best known for her roles in TV comedies including "Three's Company" and "Step by Step," has died, her longtime publicist announced Sunday. She was 76 years old.
"Suzanne Somers passed away peacefully at home in the early morning hours of October 15th," R. Couri Hay said in a statement. "She survived an aggressive form of breast cancer for over 23 years. Suzanne was surrounded by her loving husband Alan, her son Bruce, and her immediate family. Her family was gathered to celebrate her 77th birthday on October 16th. Instead, they will celebrate her extraordinary life, and want to thank her millions of fans and followers who loved her dearly."
A private family burial will take place this week, Hay said, and a memorial will be held next month.
Born Suzanne Marie Mahoney on Oct. 16, 1946, in San Bruno, California, Somers got her acting start in the late '60s and early '70s with small roles and bit parts in films like the 1968 Steve McQueen action classic "Bullitt," and Clint Eastwood's "Magnum Force" in 1973. That same year, she also had a brief but memorable appearance in the George Lucas-directed "American Graffiti," credited as "Blonde in T-Bird" who silently mouths the words "I love you" to star Richard Dreyfuss before driving away.
Somers also appeared throughout the 1970s on hit TV shows including "The Rockford Files," "One Day at a Time," "The Six Million Dollar Man," "The Love Boat" and "Starsky & Hutch." However, her big break came when she was cast as the ditzy Chrissy Snow on the ABC sitcom "Three's Company" opposite Joyce DeWitt and the late John Ritter. The series, based on the British sitcom "Man About the House," revolved around the antics of three single roommates - Somers' Chrissy, Ritter's Jack Tripper and DeWitt's Janet Wood - living together platonically.
"Three's Company" was a hit, running for eight seasons between 1977 and 1984 and spawning several spinoff series. It also made Somers a sex symbol and household name. Before the show's fifth season, Somers famously demanded a raise from $30,000 an episode to $150,000, equal to what male co-star John Ritter reportedly was making then. When producers refused, Somers claimed health issues and declined to appear in two show episodes. Despite her popularity, her role was drastically reduced for the remainder of the season and she was fired when the season ended in 1981. Somers sued the show's producers for $2 million in response but received only a small fraction of what she asked.
Widely criticized in the popular press for her "Three's Company" demands, Somers found it difficult for several years to secure acting, other than an occasional TV movie. She also starred on the short-lived, critically drubbed syndicated sitcom "She's the Sheriff" from 1987 to 1989. Somers also headlined a series of one-woman shows on the Las Vegas strip in the 1980s, which she reprised in 2015.
To further help make ends meet, in 1990, Somers became the commercial spokesperson for the Thighmaster, a piece of personal exercise equipment meant to be squeezed between one's thighs to develop leg and hip strength. While the ubiquitous infomercials, featuring Somers in heels and a leotard, were widely lampooned, the product was a success, selling millions of units and earning Somers induction into the Direct Marketing Response Alliance Hall of Fame. Under her own business shingle, Somers ultimately began selling her own successful lines of personal products, including skin care, makeup, hair care and health products.
Ten years after she was fired from "Three's Company," Somers scored her next big television role, when she was cast on ABC's "Step by Step" alongside "Dallas" alum Patrick Duffy. Similar to the plot of "The Brady Bunch," the sitcom starred Somers and Duffy as Frank and Carol, two single parents who married and blended their families, which consisted of three children each. Somers remained on this show, which was part of ABC's TGIF lineup until it changed networks for its final season, for its entire seven-season run, which ended in 1998.
Somers worked sporadically in television in the years after "Step by Step" ended, including brief forays into talk. She gave Broadway a shot in 2005 with her one-woman show "The Blonde in the Thunderbird"- a reference to her cameo in "American Graffiti" more than 30 years earlier - featuring a collection of stories about her life and Hollywood career, but it closed after less than a week of performances due to poor ticket sales and bad notices. She also competed on season 20 of "Dancing with the Stars" in 2015 alongside her professional partner, Tony Dovolani, placing ninth.
Somers battled breast cancer multiple times throughout her life. She was first diagnosed with the disease in 2000 during a routine mammogram and subsequently underwent a lumpectomy and radiation therapy for treatment, as well as seeking out alternative therapies. The actress opened up about additional bouts with breast cancer in 2023, telling ABC's "Good Morning America," "every now and then it pops up again, and I continue to bat it down."
"This is not new territory for me. I know how to put on my battle gear and I'm a fighter," she continued at the time, adding that her husband had "been by my side every step of the way."
Somers wrote numerous books, including memoirs, ones focused on health and wellness, cookbooks and even a collection of poetry. Her most recent was "Two's Company: A Fifty-Year Romance with Lessons Learned in Love, Life & Business," published in 2017.
Somers was married twice. Her first marriage, to Bruce Somers, produced her only child, Bruce Jr., and ended in divorce in 1968 after three years. She met her future husband, Alan Hamel, in 1969 when she was a prize model on "Anniversary Game," the short-lived game show he was hosting. The two married in 1977 and remained together until her death.
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Suzanne Somers passed away from breast cancer, during Breast Cancer Awareness month. She was one day shy of 77, and had fought breast cancer for 23 years.
RIP Suzanne, you were both smart and funny.
RIP... May the winds be always at your back.
RIP to a exceptional talent and performer. Sincere condolences to her family and loved ones.
RIP Suzanne. Will we ever see a day when a medical scientist will do to eradicate cancer what Dr. Jonas Salk did for polio?
I don't know, Buzz. Cancer is still so much a mystery, and has so many causes. But she fought the good fight against it for a long time.
My sister-in-law fought breast cancer for 35 years until she succumbed to it.
I'm sorry for your family's loss.
Thank you. She was a special person - had a beautiful operatic voice and had a Bachelors degree in music from Boston College . My brother never remarried and still uses the email address that contains both their names.
RIP ! Enough said
Ah! The great ones! Suzanne Somers, great entertainer, great pitch/sales/CEO woman too! You gave it your all. You really did and I adored you for it. Watching you from a distance. . . you 'rocked' it every which a way, Ms. Somers. What a public life! So many things done well and to perfection.
Another great light has blown out of this world.
So sad that Suzanne Somers lost her long fight against breast cancer. RIP.
I always hated "Three's Company". I always found it to be tiresome and boring. Not for the actors / Actresses. John, Suzanne and Joyce are great performers. The writers just seemed to be trying to hard.
But to fight cancer for 2 decades and continue to work is one hell of a fight. She was determined and very good at everything she put her mind to.
I think I might have seen two episodes. I agree completely. (For me it was Joyce)
For me, it was like they tried too hard to be funny and the end result was that it just wasn't.
Being honest, I did not enjoy the plot of Three's Company. The whole homosexual trying to date the girls through hijinks was strained. However, somebody enjoyed it enough to make it highly rated. And, for that I give Suzanne Somers her due as the "dipsy" blonde love interest prevalent at the time. She played it well.
Also, Three's Company was one in a series of sit-coms which I thought overused the laugh track. Laugh tracks was the reason I 'left' sit-coms and can't stand the genre to this day. I guess at some point I out-grew that type of production.
Later in life we see Ms. Somers was anything but dipsy. She demonstrated she had the wherewithal and smarts to be a self-made woman.
I'm not downplaying the show. It just wasn't for me. She did play the role well to the point she was almost believable. On what I did see of the show, there was that "dipsy" blond thing you mentioned but there was always something deeper in the character that showed it's face now and then.
I was never a fan of the laugh track. I always thought it pretentious in that it told people when to laugh and eventually become very over used. It wasn't genuine.
I agree. She may have started as the stereotypical "typical blonde", in the long run she successfully fought against being type cast into those roles and ventured into business outside of acting.
I understand she was quite a singer/live performer too.
Her style wasn't what I like. My taste in music is a bit on the dark side. But I'm not going to denounce her abilities or anybody other performers just because I don't like them. We all have our own tastes.
RIP, Ms Somers. thanks for the giggles