Suzanne Somers (born October 16, 1946) is an
American actress, author, and businesswoman. Best known for her role as the ditzy blonde
Chrissy Snow on the ABC sitcom
Three's Company, she also had a noted starring role on the sitcom
Step by Step as Carol Foster Lambert. She later capitalized on her
acting career by also establishing herself as an author of a series of self-help books. She
currently features items of her design on the Home Shopping Network.
Background
Somers was born Suzanne Marie Mahoney, the third of four children in Frank and Marion Mahoney's Irish Catholic household in San Bruno, California. Her
father was an alcoholic who could become violent on occasion, as Somers recounted, often forcing her to hide in her closet. She
suffered from dyslexia and was a poor student. After being expelled from parochial school for
having love notes in her locker, Suzanne went to Capuchino High School. Due to his
drinking problem, her father was too inebriated to attend Suzanne's high school graduation in June 1964.
In September 1964, she was accepted at San Francisco College for Women (commonly referred to as "Lone Mountain College") on a
music scholarship, a Catholic school that is now a campus of the University of San
Francisco. She left during her Sophomore year, after becoming pregnant. She gave birth to her son Bruce Jr. on November 8,
1965, after marrying the boy's father, Bruce Somers. She left her husband three years later and began modeling. In
1971, her son was severely injured when he was hit by a car. Also at this time, Suzanne was
arrested for writing a bad check to pay her rent. (Her mugshot would appear years later when she was on "Three's Company." But
the negative publicity quickly subsided once Suzanne explained about her emotional and financial difficulties of having her son
in the hospital.)
She began acting in small roles during the late 1960s and early 1970s (including on various talk shows promoting her book of
poetry, and bit parts in movies such as the "Blonde in the T-Bird" in American
Graffiti, and an episode of the American version of the sitcom Lotsa Luck
as the femme fatale in the early 1970s) before landing the role of the ditzy blonde
"Chrissy Snow" on the ABC sitcom
Three's Company in 1977. At the
beginning of the 1980-81 season, Suzanne
demanded a raise from $30,000 an episode to $150,000 an episode and 10% ownership
of the show. When ABC refused, Somers boycotted the second and fourth shows of the season, claiming illness. She finished the
remaining season on her contract, but her role was cut back to 1 minute per episode. After her contract expired, she sued ABC for
$2 million, claiming that her credibility in show business had been damaged. It went to an arbitrator who decided that Suzanne
was owed only $30,000 for a missed episode.
- Further information: Three's Company: Cast changes
By this time John Ritter and Joyce DeWitt were not
talking to Suzanne because of the contractual dispute she started. There is a rumor, that when John and Joyce carried Suzanne out
of the apartment (they did this for a scene) they dropped her on the ground purposely. John Ritter and Joyce DeWitt deny this
rumor. On September 11, 2003, Suzanne was informed of John Ritter's death by his widow
Amy Yasbeck .
In 1968, Suzanne won a job as a prize model on the short-lived game show, The Anniversary Game hosted by her future husband, Alan Hamel, who
was married at the time. The two began dating, and Suzanne became pregnant while Hamel was still married. They decided that
Suzanne should have an abortion, which she did, suffering severe bleeding for several days. She has been married to Hamel since
1977. Hamel was her business manager during the failed negotiations which led to her leaving Three's Company.
Before the feud with Three's Company producers and ABC even
ended, rival network CBS knew that Somers was going to be available in the end. They eventually
signed her to a contract and a development deal for her own sitcom, which was going to be called The Suzanne Somers Show
in which she played an "over-the-top" airline stewardess. Once she was finally available, CBS gave Somers- and the public- a
timeframe in which the show was supposed to premiere, but due to a change in administration at CBS's entertainment division in
early 1982, the brass ended up passing on the project. Also, Suzanne claimed in her book After
the Fall (1998) that the producers of Three's Company kept sending "cease & desist" forms to CBS stating that
Suzanne couldn't use any of her Chrissy Snow characterization, and that chilled the creative process.
During the 1980s, Somers became a Las Vegas
entertainer. She was the spokeswoman for the Thighmaster, a piece of exercise equipment that
is squeezed between one's thighs. Thighmaster was one of the first products responsible for
launching the infomercial concept. As well, she performed for U.S. servicemen
overseas.[1][2] She graced the cover of Playboy with a full nude pictorial
twice : in 1980 and 1984. The 1980 pictures were taken years
before, when Suzanne was a struggling model and actress, unlike the 1984 pictorial.
At the height of her exposure as official spokesperson for Thighmaster infomercials,
Somers made her first return to a series, although not on network television. In 1987 she starred
in the sitcom She's the Sheriff, which ran in first-run syndication. Somers
portrayed a widow with two young kids who decided to fill the shoes of her late husband, a sheriff of a southern town. The show
ran for two seasons. In 1990, Somers returned to network TV, appearing in numerous guest roles and
made-for-TV movies, mostly for ABC. Her roles in these, including the
movie Rich Men, Single Women, attracted the attention of Lorimar Television and Miller-Boyett Productions, who were
developing a new sitcom. For Lorimar, this was asking Somers back, since they alone had produced She's the Sheriff.
In September 1991, Somers bounced back to series TV by starring in the successful sitcom
Step By Step (with Patrick
Duffy), which ran for seven seasons. Playing off her rejuvenated career, Somers also launched a daytime talk show in
1994, albeit briefly, aptly titled Suzanne Somers. During Step By Step's final
season, on CBS, she began co-hosting Candid Camera
with Peter Funt. A made-for-TV-movie starring Somers (based on her first autobiography,
Keeping Secrets) was made about her life and growing up with an alcoholic father. She has released two autobiographies,
two self-help books, four diet books, and a book about hormone replacement
therapy.
As a business executive Somers has created a multi million dollar lifestyle empire. Through her companies ELO Somers and Port
Carling Inc, of which Somers serves as president, Somers has created hundreds of personally branded fashion, diet, beauty and
exercise products which are marketed through the Home Shopping Network, her
website and through Suzanne, a direct sales organization in the vein of Avon or Tupperware.
Somers announced in spring 2001 that she had breast cancer and she was treated with conventional
surgery and radiation therapy. Instead of pursuing elective chemotherapy after her
treatment, Somers chose an alternative therapy using mistletoe injections.
Somers is also a supporter of bioidentical hormone replacement
therapy and a spokesperson for the Wiley
Protocol. Her book, Ageless,[3] includes
interviews with 16 leading practitioners of bioidentical hormone therapy, but gives extra discussion to the Wiley Protocol.
July 12,
2005: Somers is given an award for "Patriotic Civilian
Service" for past
USO tour performances for overseas U.S. troops. The
ceremony came after a special performance of
The Blonde in the Thunderbird, done specially for U.S. military service
personnel and their family members.
In summer 2005 Somers made her Broadway debut in a
one-woman show, The Blonde in the Thunderbird, a collection of stories about her life and career. The show was supposed to
run until September, but negative publicity and disappointing ticket sales caused a late July closing. Somers blamed the harsh
reviews (the New York Times: "...a swan dive into narcissism";
New York Post: "smug and remorseless") and told the Post: "These men [New York
critics] are curmudgeons, and maybe I went too close to the bone for them. I was lying there naked, and they decided to kick me
and step on me, just like these visions you see in Iraq."
On January 9, 2007, the Associated Press reported that a
wildfire in southern California had destroyed Somers' Malibu home, and all she had
left was the clothes on her back.[4] Appearing on
television, Somers told reporters they planned to rebuild.[5] In March 2007, On the Ellen DeGeneres Show, Somers
explained that she found her wedding band from her husband of 29 years while sifting through ashes of her home.
Somers has recently admitted in interviews that if there was ever a movie made about the life of Johnny Cash, she'd love to
play his wife, June Carter Cash. When told Reese Witherspoon won the Oscar for famously playing that exact role in 2005's Walk
the Line, Somers replied, "I have not seen any movie made after late 1994."
Her Work on HSN
Somers has presented several items on the Home Shopping Network, some
categories include:
- Jewelry
- Fashion
- Somersize items
- Beauty
Television work
Filmography
Books
- Somers, Suzanne (2006). Ageless: The Naked Truth About Bioidentical
Hormones. Crown Publishing Group. ISBN 0-307-23724-9.
- Somers, Suzanne (2004). The Sexy Years: Discover the Hormone Connection - The
Secret to Fabulous Sex, Great Health, and Vitality, for Women and Men. Crown
Publishing Group. ISBN 0-609-60721-9.
- Touch Me: The Poems of Suzanne Somers. Workman Pub Co (1980) ISBN 0-89480-141-4
References
- ^ O'Connor, John J., "TV:
Suzanne Somers Plays for G.I.'s", The New York Times, January 3, 1983.
- ^ Zielsdorf, Bruce E., "Armed
Forces 'Salute' Suzanne Somers on Broadway", July 12, 2005.
Army Public Affairs (press release)
- ^ Somers, Suzanne (2006).
Ageless: The Naked Truth About Bioidentical Hormones. Crown Publishing
Group. ISBN 0-307-23724-9.
- ^ http://www.breitbart.com/news/2007/01/09/D8MHU6K01.html
- ^ http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=2782998
External links
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