Suzanne Somers, best known for starring in Three’s Company as Chrissy Snow, has died at age 76, on the eve of her 77th birthday. She died peacefully at home.
Somers battled breast cancer multiple times throughout her life. She was first diagnosed with the disease in 2000 during a routine mammogram and subsequently underwent a lumpectomy and radiation therapy for treatment, as well as seeking out alternative therapies.
After first being noticed in a white Thunderbird in George Lucas’ American Graffiti in 1973, she also appeared on 70’s shows “The Rockford Files,” “Magnum Force” and “The Six Million Dollar Man,” “One Day at a Time,” “The Love Boat” and “Starsky & Hutch.” Somers then spent 1977 to 1981 playing dumb blonde Chrissy, and was fired “for having the audacity to ask to be paid commensurate with men.”
Somers had demanded a five-fold increase in her salary to $150,000 per episode and a 10% cut of the show’s profits. Co-stars John Ritter and Joyce DeWitt were infuriated.
Somers then leveraged her celebrity to launch a successful business career centered around wellness. She became the spokeswoman for the leg-toning ThighMaster. She’s authored 27 books, largely on the topic of natural health.
Her ideas about medicine were not always embraced by professionals. Her embrace of bioidentical hormone replacement therapy as a treatment for menopause came under fire; after she survived stage II breast cancer in 2000, she promoted alternative medical treatments in her book “Knockout,” drawing fire from the American Cancer Society.
In 2018, Somers came out in support of Donald Trump. Sad.
“I’m happy about him. I’m happy that the economy is doing so much better,” she said in a video to TMZ following Trump’s first year in office. “And now my career is over!” she laughed.
She also spoke out against the Obama administration in 2014, saying, “This has been the most divisive of all the administrations that I’ve ever experienced in my lifetime. And it’s become divisive in the industry that if you’re not part of the group, you should probably keep your thoughts to yourself.”