American actress of films and TV series who is usually cast as the sexy dumb-blonde. Her first appearance was on “American Graffiti” before she became involved in her first big TV series, “Three’s Company,” which started in 1977. She lost the role when she requested a raise from $30,000 to $150,000; she was, instead, replaced.
Suzanne was the third of four kids born to a brewery worker and a secretary. Her dad’s alcoholic raging abuse was a family secret and the child grew up in fear. Shy and skinny, she was a bed-wetter until high school. She started college but her education was cut short when she got pregnant and married her beau, Bruce Somers, in April 1965. Her only child, Bruce Jr, was born that November and the young couple divorced in 1967.
Suzanne was determined to be an actress, through modeling. She appeared in a nude (but unrecognizable) cover for Newsweek in March 1970, but financially stressed, was arrested in August 1970 for writing bad checks. Pregnant again, she reluctantly decides on an abortion.
In 1971, Suzanne’s six-year-old son was hit by a car. When he had therapy to deal with nightmares, Suzanne began to examine her own dysfunctional childhood. In 1973, she began to get small TV and roles. It was in 1977 that her big break came with the role of the ditzy Chrissy on the sex-farce sitcom “Three’s Company.” The show was an instant hit with its premier in March 1977.
She married Alan Hamel that year and he became her manager.
In 1979, she signed a $3 million contract with CBS for the “Suzanne Somers Show,” which never materialized. After her failed TV show attempt, her Playboy nude photos appeared in the February 1980 issue. She made commercial endorsements for athletic equipment, played a few Vegas gigs and authored two collections of verse. In 1984, her career stepped up with her most recent TV series, “Step by Step.” She appeared again in Playboy in the December 1984 issue, looking buff.
In 1988 she had a best selling autobiography named “Keeping Secrets,” about growing up with an alcoholic dad. Her second book “How I Picked Myself Up, Dusted Myself Off, and Started All Over Again” addresses an affable, introspective memoir of a sitcom survivor and entrepreneur. With candor, she explores how she coped with her rise to stardom, alienation from castmates and rapid loss of popularity. In 1992, her book, “Wednesday’s Child” profiled other celebrities raised in dysfunctional families, and in that year, was given the Humanitarian Award from the National Council on Alcoholism. She was happy to report that her entire family were recovering from addiction, and she herself never did drink.
Somers became a best-selling health and fitness guru with her exercise products, the ThighMaster and ButtMaster and author of three healthy diet books in the late ’90s. Her good health did not prevent her from an all-too common ailment, breast cancer. In April 2000, she had a small tumor removed, followed by radiation therapy. A proponent of alternative medicine, she decided against chemotherapy in favor of a herbal remedy.
Prior to a promotional tour of her new book, “Eat, Cheat and Melt the Fat Away,” Somers jump-started her own fitness with liposuction on 2/20/2001 to enhance her own svelte outline.
Link to Wikipedia biography