Detailed Biography

Suzanne Somers is an American actress, author and businesswoman, best known for her television roles as Chrissy Snow on Three's Company and as Carol Lambert on Step by Step.

Somers later became the author of a series of best-selling self-help books, including Ageless: The Naked Truth About Bioidentical Hormones , a book about bioidentical hormone replacement therapy. She has also released two autobiographies, four diet books, and a book of poetry entitled "Touch Me" . She currently features items of her design on ShopNBC.

Personal life

Born Suzanne Marie Mahoney in San Bruno, California, Somers was the third of four children in an Irish Catholic family. Her mother, Marion Elizabeth , was a medical secretary, and her father, Francis Mahoney, was a laborer and gardener.

In September 1964, she was accepted at San Francisco College for Women 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 by Bruce Somers, whom she married, giving birth to Bruce Jr. on November 8, 1965. She left her husband three years later and began modeling. In 1971, her son was severely injured when he was hit by a car.

In 1968, Somers met her future husband Alan Hamel while working on a game show. The couple married in 1977, and Hamel became her business manager.

In 2001 Somers announced that she had breast cancer, having a lumpectomy to remove the cancer followed by radiation therapy, though she decided to forego chemotherapy in favour of alternative treatment.

On January 9, 2007, the Associated Press reported that a wildfire in Southern California had destroyed Somers' Malibu home.

Career

Early acting roles

She began acting in small roles during the late 1960s and early 1970s before landing the role of the ditzy blonde "Chrissy Snow" on the ABC sitcom Three's Company in 1977.

Three's Company

At the beginning of the fifth season, Somers demanded a hefty raise from $30,000 to $150,000 an episode and 10% ownership of the show's profit. Those close to the situation suggested that Somers' rebellion was due to husband/manager Hamel's influences over her. When ABC denied her request, Somers boycotted the second and fourth shows of the season, due to several excuses such as a broken rib . She finished the remaining season on her contract, but her role was decreased to 60 seconds per episode. After her contract was terminated, she sued ABC for $2 million, claiming that her credibility in show business had been damaged. It went to an arbitrator who decided that Somers was owed only $30,000 for a missed episode she had not been paid. Other rulings favored the producers. Somers has said she was fired because she asked to be paid as much as the male actors on the show like Alan Alda of MASH, and Carroll O'Connor of Archie Bunker's Place.

Before the feud with Three's Company producers and ABC had even ended, rival network CBS knew that Somers was ultimately going to be available. 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 indeed available , CBS gave Somers – and the public – a timeframe in which to expect the show to hit the air, but due to a change in administration at CBS's entertainment division in early 1982, the brass ended up passing on the project. Also, Somers claimed in her book After the Fall , that the producers of Three's Company kept sending "cease & desist" forms to CBS stating that Somers could not use any of her Chrissy Snow characterization, and that chilled the creative process.

Spokeswoman for the Thighmaster

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. During this period of her career, she also performed for US servicemen overseas.

Playboy pictorials

Somers appeared in two Playboy cover-feature nude pictorials: in 1980 and 1984. The 1980 pictures were taken years before, when Somers was a struggling model and actress and did a test photoshoot for the magazine.

She's the Sheriff

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.

Step by Step

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 , 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.

Candid cohost

From 1997–99, Somers cohosted the revised Candid Camera show, when CBS chose to bring it back with Peter Funt. Somers stayed for two years before PAX TV renewed the series without her.

The Blonde in the Thunderbird

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 was cancelled in less than a week after poor reviews and disappointing ticket sales. Somers blamed the harsh reviews and told the New York Post: "These men 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."

Controversial advocacy of bioidentical hormone therapy

Somers is also a supporter of bioidentical hormone replacement therapy. Her book, Ageless, includes interviews with 16 leading practitioners of bioidentical hormone therapy, but gives extra discussion to one specific approach, the 'Wiley Protocol'.

Television work