Actress and author Suzanne Somers in Toronto on Oct. 1, 2013.Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press
Suzanne Somers, the effervescent blonde actor known for playing Chrissy Snow on the television show Three’s Company and who became an entrepreneur and New York Times best-selling author, has died. She was 76.
Ms. Somers had breast cancer for over 23 years and died Sunday morning, her family said in a statement provided by her long-time publicist, R. Couri Hay. Her husband Alan Hamel, her son Bruce and other immediate family were with her in Palm Springs, California.
“Her family was gathered to celebrate her 77th birthday on October 16th,” the statement read. “Instead, they will celebrate her extraordinary life, and want to thank her millions of fans and followers who loved her dearly.”
In July, Ms. Somers shared on Instagram that her breast cancer had returned.
“Like any cancer patient, when you get that dreaded, ‘It’s back’ you get a pit in your stomach. Then I put on my battle gear and go to war,” she told Entertainment Tonight at the time. “This is familiar battleground for me and I’m very tough.”
She was first diagnosed in 2000, and had previously battled skin cancer. Ms. Somers faced some backlash for her reliance on what she’s described as a chemical-free and organic lifestyle to combat the cancers. She argued against the use of chemotherapy, in books and on platforms like The Oprah Winfrey Show, which drew criticism from the American Cancer Society.
Ms. Somers was born in 1946 in San Bruno, Calif., to a gardener father and a medical secretary mother. Her childhood, she’d later say, was tumultuous. Her father was an alcoholic, and abusive. She married young, at 19, to Bruce Somers, after becoming pregnant with her son Bruce. The couple divorced three years later and she began modelling for The Anniversary Game to support herself. It was during this time that she met Mr. Hamel, who she married in 1977.
She began acting in the late 1960s, earning her first credit in the Steve McQueen film Bullitt. But the spotlight really hit when she was cast as the blonde driving the white Thunderbird in George Lucas’s 1973 film American Graffiti. Her only line was mouthing the words I love you to Richard Dreyfuss’s character.
At her audition, Mr. Lucas just asked her if she could drive. She later said that moment “changed her life forever.”
Ms. Somers would later stage a one-woman Broadway show entitled The Blonde in the Thunderbird, about her life, which drew largely scathing reviews.
She appeared in many television shows in the 1970s, including The Rockford Files, Magnum Force and The Six Million Dollar Man, but her most famous part came with Three’s Company, which aired on ABC from 1977 to 1984 – though her participation ended in 1981.
On Three’s Company, she was the ditzy blonde opposite John Ritter and Joyce DeWitt in the roommate comedy. In 1980, after four seasons, she asked for a raise from $30,000 an episode to $150,000 an episode, which would have been comparable to what Mr. Ritter was getting paid. Mr. Hamel, a former television producer, had encouraged the ask.
“The show’s response was, ‘Who do you think you are?’” Ms. Somers told People in 2020. “They said, ‘John Ritter is the star.’”
She was promptly phased out and soon fired; her character was replaced by two different roommates for the remaining years the show aired. It also led to a rift with her co-stars; they didn’t speak for many years. Ms. Somers did reconcile with Mr. Ritter before his death, and then with Ms. DeWitt on her online talk show.
But Ms. Somers took the break as an opportunity to pursue new avenues, including a Las Vegas act, hosting a talk show and becoming an entrepreneur. In the 1990s, she also became the spokesperson for the ThighMaster.
The decade also saw her return to network television in the 1990s, most famously on Step by Step, which aired on ABC’s youth-targeted TGIF lineup. The network also aired a biopic of her life, starring her, called Keeping Secrets.
Ms. Somers was also a prolific author, writing books on aging, menopause, beauty, wellness, sex and cancer.