Suzanne Somers

Suzanne Marie Somers (née Mahoney; October 16, 1946 – October 15, 2023) was an American actress, author, and businesswoman. She played the television roles of Chrissy Snow on Three's Company (1977–1981) and Carol Foster Lambert on Step by Step (1991–1998).

Somers wrote more than 25 books, including two autobiographies, four diet books, and a book of poetry. She was also well known for advertising the ThighMaster, an exercise device. While 14 of her books were best sellers and most were focused on health and well-being, doctors criticized her promotion of bioidentical hormone replacement therapy and alternative cancer treatments.

Early life

Suzanne Marie Mahoney was born in San Bruno, California, on October 16, 1946 as the third of four children in a working-class Irish-American Catholic family. Her mother, Marion Elizabeth (née Turner), was a medical secretary, and her father, Francis "Frank" Mahoney, loaded cases of beer onto boxcars, and was a laborer and gardener. Her father was an alcoholic and was abusive, and Somers often worried that he would kill her.

Somers first attended Mercy High School in Burlingame, California, but had trouble with her schoolwork because of dyslexia and her father's all-night rages, and she would often fall asleep in class. At school, she performed the lead role in a production of H.M.S. Pinafore She was expelled at age 14 for writing sexually suggestive notes to a boy that were never sent.

At age 17, Suzanne's father ripped off her prom dress and told her that she was "nothing," and she responded by hitting him in the head with a tennis racket.

In 1964, Somers graduated from Capuchino High School in San Bruno, where she won the "Best Doll Award" for her role in the senior musical Guys and Dolls and helped organize her class's senior ball. She then attended San Francisco College for Women (Lone Mountain College), a college run by the Catholic Society of the Sacred Heart order, but withdrew in 1965 when she learned that she was pregnant. She married her child's father, Bruce Somers, days later at age 19. Her situation led to low self-esteem. She was arrested for check fraud and her car was impounded.

Career

Early career

"I made my living by making chocolate desserts and selling them to restaurants in Sausalito, California, and by making children’s dresses and selling them on consignment to little children’s stores."

Somers began acting in small roles during the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Somers modelled for Grimme Modeling Agency in San Francisco.

After divorcing in 1968, Somers worked as a prize model, on Anniversary Game, a game show, based at KGO-TV in San Francisco, hosted by Alan Hamel and produced by Circle Seven Productions.

From 1971 to 1973, Somers was a panelist on the Alan Hamel-hosted Mantrap, a weekday daytime panel show, from BCTV in Vancouver for CTV Television Network stations in Canada, and syndicated in the United States.

In 1973, Somers appeared in bit parts in movies, such as the "Blonde in the white Thunderbird" in American Graffiti' and an uncredited role as a "pool girl" in Magnum Force.

In 1974, Somers appeared in an episode of the American version of the sitcom Lotsa Luck, based on the British sitcom On the Buses, as the femme fatale. It led to her first appearance, 21 February 1974, on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, promoting her book of poetry. In 2009, Kristen Wiig gave a reading of excerpts from Suzanne Somers' book of poetry Touch Me, for Celebrity Autobiography (KUSH). Later that year, Somers made an appearance in The Rockford Files and did an audition to guest host AM San Francisco on KGO-TV alongside Jim Lange.

Somers also had a guest-starring role on The Six Million Dollar Man in the 1977 episode "Cheshire Project". She played a passenger on the first episode of The Love Boat and made a guest appearance in a 1976 episode of One Day at a Time.

Three's Company

After actresses Suzanne Zenor and Susan Lanier did not impress producers during the first two pilot episodes of the ABC sitcom Three's Company, based on the British sitcom Man About the House, Somers was suggested by ABC president Fred Silverman, who had seen her in her initial appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. Silverman hired her the day before the taping of the third and final pilot commenced. Somers portrayed Christmas "Chrissy" Snow, who exemplified many blonde stereotypes and was employed as an office secretary. At first, Somers made $3,500 per week from the show.

The series co-starred John Ritter and Joyce DeWitt in a comedy about two single women living with a single man who pretended to be gay in order to bypass the landlord's policy of prohibiting single men sharing an apartment with single women. The program was an instant success in the Nielsen ratings, eventually spawning a short-lived spin-off series, The Ropers, loosely based on the British sitcom George and Mildred, starring Norman Fell and Audra Lindley.

When Three's Company began its fifth season in late 1980, Somers demanded a salary increase "from $30,000 an episode to $150,000 an episode, equal to what Ritter was making and comparable to the salaries of other male sitcom stars at the time" as well as 10% of the show's profits. DeWitt and Somers were paid the same, less than Ritter, but DeWitt also had a "favored nations" clause in her contract, which guaranteed she received equal terms to other cast members. Somers' request was influenced by her second husband and manager, Alan Hamel.

"The night before we went in to renegotiate, I got a call from a friend who had connections high up at ABC, and he said, 'They’re going to hang a nun in the marketplace, and the nun is Suzanne,' The network was willing to do this because, earlier that year, the women on Laverne & Shirley had gotten what they asked for, and they wanted to put a stop to it. They’d destroy the chemistry on Company to make a point." — Alan Hamel, 2015

ABC was willing to offer only a $5,000 per episode raise. Somers then refused to appear in the second and fourth episodes of the season, citing excuses such as a broken rib. She finished the remaining season on her contract; however, her role was reduced to just 60 seconds per episode, with her character appearing in only the episode's closing tag in which Chrissy calls the trio's apartment from her parents' home. After ABC fired her from the program and terminated her contract, Somers sued the network for $2 million, saying her credibility in show business had been damaged. The lawsuit was settled by an arbitrator who decided Somers was owed only $30,000, due to a single missed episode for which she had not been paid. Future rulings also favored the network and producers. Somers said she was fired for asking to be paid as much as popular male television stars.

After Three's Company

During the 1980s and 1990s, Somers was a spokesperson for Polaris Vac-Sweep automated pool cleaner.

In 1983, through her Hamel/Somers Productions, she signed a deal with Columbia Pictures Television.

Somers and her Three's Company co-star, John Ritter, reconciled their friendship after 20 years of not speaking to each other, shortly before Ritter's death in 2003.

Somers appeared in two Playboy cover-feature nude pictorials, in 1980 and 1984. Her first set of nude photos was taken by Stan Malinowski in February 1970 when Somers was a struggling model and actress and did a test photoshoot for the magazine. She was accepted as a Playmate candidate in 1971, but declined to pose nude before the actual shoot. During an appearance on The Tonight Show in 1980, she denied ever posing nude, except for a High Society topless photo. This prompted Playboy to publish photos from the 1970 Malinowski shoot, without her permission. Somers' original motivation for posing nude was to be able to pay medical bills related to injuries her son Bruce Jr. suffered in a car accident. By the time the photos were published, her son was 14 and Somers feared seeing his mother posing nude would be difficult for him. Somers sued Playboy and settled for $50,000, which was donated to charity, with at least $10,000 of it going to Easterseals. The second nude pictorial by Richard Fegley appeared in December 1984 in an attempt by Somers to regain her diminished popularity after the Three's Company debacle in 1981. Despite her anger and the earlier lawsuit, Playboy approached her earlier that year to pose nude a second time. Initially she was angered again, but eventually agreed after discussing it with her family. She felt she would have a better chance to control the quality of the photos the second time, and having such control was an important condition that Somers attached to posing. Despite Somers' earlier belief that her son would not want to see his mother nude, her then 18-year-old son did view the second pictorial.

In the 1980s, Somers lived in Las Vegas and was an entertainer, headlining at the MGM Grand for two years until the theater burned down and then at the Las Vegas Hilton for another 2+1⁄2 years. In 1986 the Las Vegas critics voted her Female Entertainer of the Year.