‘Three’s Company’ sex symbol Suzanne Somers dies at 76
Suzanne Somers, who became a household name after starring on the hugely popular TV sitcom Three’s Company, died Sunday morning at her Palm Springs home, according to the New York Times. She was 76.
Somers died of cancer just one day shy of her 77th birthday, the actor’s spokesperson R. Couri Hay said.
“Suzanne Somers passed away peacefully at home in the early morning hours of Oct. 15. She survived an aggressive form of breast cancer for over 23 years,” Hay said in a statement to People that was shared on behalf of the actor’s family.
“Suzanne was surrounded by her loving husband Alan [Hamel], her son Bruce, and her immediate family,” the statement read. “Her family was gathered to celebrate her 77th birthday on Oct. 16. Instead, they will celebrate her extraordinary life, and want to thank her millions of fans and followers who loved her dearly.”
Somers played Chrissy Snow –the effervescent blond secretary – on “Three’s Company,” alongside John Ritter and Joyce DeWitt from 1977 to 1981. She was dropped during the show’s fifth season after a widely publicized salary dispute, in which she asked to paid as much as her male co-star Ritter.
The actor, who was born in San Bruno, Calif., in 1946, would then go on to star in the ABC sitcom Step by Step alongside Patrick Duffy. The show ran from 1991 to 1997.
In the 1990s her career became less
about acting and more involved with selling her signature products, including exercise apparatus – most famously, the ThighMaster – jewelry, sugarless chocolates and diet books.
In 2001, Somers revealed that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer. In an interview with The Times, she said she had surgery and radiation therapy, but declined to follow medical advice that she also have chemotherapy, electing
instead to undergo homeopathic treatments.
She announced in late July that the cancer had returned.
“I had breast cancer two decades ago, and every now and then it pops up again and I continue to bat it down,” she said in an Instagram post on July 31. “This is not new territory for me. I know how to put on my battle gear and I’m a fighter.”