The Untold Truth Of Suzanne Somers

On October 15, 2023, the world lost Suzanne Somers, who transformed a successful acting career into a massively lucrative health and wellness empire. Somers' big break came when she was cast in a dialogue-free, eye-candy role in "American Grafitti." That led to guest spots on various TV series until she landed the role that would change her life: ditzy Chrissy Snow on "Three's Company." The risqué sitcom became a smash hit, and Somers was its breakout star, until a contract dispute ended her time on the show at the peak of its popularity. Her next series, "She's the Sheriff," didn't last long, but she had better luck in the 1990s, enjoying a seven-season run in family sitcom "Step By Step."

After that, Somers backed away from Hollywood to focus on the business she'd been building, rebranding herself as a fitness leader. Harnessing the power of home-shopping TV channels such as QVC, Somers sold her own line of clothing, jewelry and the like before rebranding herself as a wellness guru and, as she grew older, a longevity expert. Throughout all these incarnations, Somers remained an enduring popular celebrity, writing dozens of books along the way — including several New York Times bestsellers.

She may have left acting behind, but her fans' support proved to be unwavering. As the world mourns this beloved celebrity, read on to discover the untold truth of Suzanne Somers.

Suzanne Somers burst onto the scene in George Lucas' 1973 paen to 1950s nostalgia, "American Grafitti," as a mysterious blonde woman behind the wheel of a gleaming Thunderbird.

"American Grafitti" put Somers on the map, but she nearly lost out on the part for a ridiculous but relatable reason. As she told the Television Academy Foundation, driving to a casting session in San Francisco required a 50-cent toll — which was 50 cents more than she could afford. After bluffing her way past the tollbooth without paying, upon arrival she was immediately discouraged. "I walk in and it's a sea of blondes," she recalled. "Every blonde that lived in that area was in that room that day ..."

Meanwhile, the auditions were behind schedule. "I almost left because my parking meter was running out, and I had no money to extend it," she told the New York Post. When she informed the casting director she had to leave, he stopped her, revealing that Lucas had chosen her photo out of hundreds, and wanted to see her. Asking if she could be bumped to the front of the line, the casting director did her a solid and brought her in to meet the director. "When I got in the room to see him, all he said was, 'Can you drive?'" she recalled. "I said, 'Yes.' That was it. I was shocked when my agent said I got the part."

Suzanne Somers was born Suzanne Mahoney, taking her new last name from Bruce Somers, whom she married after an accidental pregnancy at 17. "I married this young man for all the wrong reasons," Somers told the Chicago Tribune. "When I told my family on a Wednesday that I was pregnant, I was married on Friday, quick, quick, so that nobody in town would know." The marriage didn't last long. After her divorce, she eventually migrated to San Francisco, where she decided to give modeling a try. That didn't go nearly as well as she'd hoped, and she was constantly broke. 

Somers was just 19 when she met her future husband, Alan Hamel, when they briefly worked together on a TV game show, "The Anniversary Show," that was shooting in San Francisco. "He was the game show host and I was the prize model and I got fired after the first day because I kept looking at the wrong television camera," she told the Washington Post. 

Those were difficult years for a single mother trying to break into show business. Somers was struggling to get by when she was arrested in 1970 for writing bad checks, totaling about $100. She managed to avoid jail time by paying back the money, which took her about a year. "Everyone has ca-ca in their lives," Hamel told the Washington Post, looking back on his wife's arrest.

Suzanne Somers' showbiz career was sparked in an unusual way: by writing a book of poetry. She was just 23 when she penned "Touch Me: The Poems of Suzanne Somers." At the same time, she was still trying to launch an acting career. At one point, she met with actor Dom DeLuise about a show he was launching; she didn't get the part, but during that meeting — held in the NBC commissary in Burbank — "Tonight Show" host Johnny Carson and exec producer Fred DeCordova strode over to greet DeLuise. When they asked Somers what she did, she told them she was an actress and an author. "And that afternoon, I just sent everyone in the 'Tonight Show' office a copy of my book. I mean the guy that cleans up got a copy of my book," she told the Washington Post.

Later that week, she was invited to be a guest on the show, assuming it was because Carson had been moved by her poems. "But they read the back flap and saw that I was the blonde in the Thunderbird in 'American Graffiti.' And no one had ever known who that blonde was. So that was my introduction to television," she said. 

As Somers' fame grew, so did sales of the book. "One year I sold more poetry than Rod McKuen," she told the Washington Post, but downplayed the accomplishment by admitting, "It's a very low-key market ..."

That first appearance on "The Tonight Show" went so well that she was invited back. "Johnny Carson liked talking to me because I was so, uh, non-Hollywood," Somers told the Washington Post. "There was nothing slick about me at all. I really was just a small-town girl." Carson kept bringing her back, and she was soon a regular guest on the show — something that did not go unnoticed by Fred Silverman, who was then president of the ABC television network. Like Carson, Silverman loved Somers' unaffected personality, and kept her in mind for potential ABC projects that could be a good fit with her talents.

That fit came when ABC began developing "Three's Company," a new sitcom based on a British comedy called "Man About the House." In an interview with the Television Academy Foundation, Silverman recalled they'd had such difficulty finding the right actor to play Chrissy that, on the day before production was scheduled to start, the role still hadn't been cast. By that point, Silverman was so desperate he began fast-forwarding through the tapes of the various women who'd auditioned — including Somers. 

When she appeared onscreen, he recognized her from her "Tonight Show" appearances, and asked for the tape to be rewound so he could watch her audition. "And she was great — and she'd been passed on," he recalled. The next day, Somers was hired. "And she was terrific in that part," Silverman added.

"Three's Company" proved to be an out-of-the-box hit. After four successful seasons at the top of the ratings, Suzanne Somers asked to negotiate her contract. At the time, she told Fox News, she was earning $30,000 per episode — one-fifth of the $150,000-an-episode salary of co-star John Ritter. "And I was on the No. 1 show. It just seemed wrong because I was clearly being underpaid," she explained. 

The network, however, didn't see it that way. When she asked to receive the same salary was Ritter, she was offered an extra $5,000. Somers was eventually fired, with the PR spin machine creating a narrative that she was ungrateful, greedy, difficult to work with. "Now, I was out of work and labeled 'trouble' only because I wanted to be paid fairly for doing my job," Somers said. According to Somers' husband/manager Alan Hamel, she was a sacrificial lamb, fired to send a message to ABC's other female stars. "The network was will­ing to do this because earlier that year the women on 'Laverne & Shirley' had gotten what they asked for and they wanted to put a stop to it," Hamel told The Hollywood Reporter.

Suddenly, one of TV's hottest stars was persona non grata in Hollywood. "After I was fired, I couldn't get a job," Somers told InStyle in 2020. "And I still don't know what they told the cast, but everyone turned against me."

After her "Three's Company" firing, Suzanne Somers took an unexpected turn, from TV screens to the Las Vegas stage. As the Las Vegas Journal-Review recalled, her husband/manager Alan Hamel booked her at the Celebrity Room in the MGM Grand, where she sang, danced and schmoozed with the audience in her own nightclub act. This type of performing was entirely new to Somers, and the strategy was that she'd learn how to do it by doing it. Somers proved to be a quick learner. "I got a really good feel of how to work a crowd, how to understand if people were there after a long flight or were dragged there by their wives," she said. "What is the energy of the room? I got good at reading it. That was the art form for me."

Television may have abandoned her, but Vegas crowds loved her. "We did incredible business and my stage career was started," she said. She then launched into a two-and-a-half-year stint at the Las Vegas Hilton Theater, performing for 1,800 fans each night. "We did 2 two-hour shows, 7 nights a week. What a ride!" she wrote in a throwback Instagram post. Her Vegas success prompted a return to TV, with a 1982 variety special in which Somers and an array of guests performed for 9,000 sailors aboard a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier.

In 2015, Somers announced a return to Vegas with a new act, "Suzanne Sizzles."

While performing in Vegas, Suzanne Somers was approached by a group of investors looking to market a fitness device called the V-Bar, the invention of a Swedish physical therapist intended to help skiers recover from injuries. The product was renamed the Thighmaster, and began being marketed in the early 1990s via an onslaught of television infomercials featuring Somers as its pitchwoman. 

It didn't take long for Thighmaster to become a ubiquitous pop-culture touchstone that received no shortage of mockery from the late-night hosts of the era. Rather than take offense, Somers was thrilled to be the butt of the joke — as long as all that exposure continued to send Thighmasters flying off the shelves. "It doesn't matter to me as long as they mention it," Somers told Entertainment Weekly back in 1992.

During a 2020 appearance on the "Hollywood Raw" podcast, Somers was asked how much she'd earned from that single product. By that point, she noted, she and husband Alan Hamel had bought out their partners; as she explained, they were Thighmaster's "outright" owners. "We have a hundred percent," she declared. Figuring she'd probably sold about 15 million Thighmasters at $19.99 a pop, host Dax Holt crunched the numbers and estimated she'd earned close to $300 million on the Thighmaster alone, apart from all her other business ventures. "Yeah, but I spent a lot," Somers quipped while laughing. "You should see my clothes."

The early 1990s not only marked the beginning of Suzanne Somers' Thighmaster empire, it was also the time of her successful return to television in "Step By Step." Making its debut in 1991, the sitcom featured Somers co-starring with "Dallas" alum Patrick Duffy as a couple with a blended family. Part of ABC's TGIF Friday-night lineup (which also included "Full House," and "Perfect Strangers"), "Step By Step" proved to be a smash hit that ran for seven seasons. 

While Somers was an experienced TV comedy veteran, Duffy was not. "She was a mentor in the very beginning. She's sitcom gold," Duffy told Entertainment Tonight in 2021, detailing how Somers offered tips and hints that helped him find his comedic footing. Over the course of those seven seasons, Somers also became one of his closest friends. "If I ever needed something, I know I could pick up the phone and say, 'Suzanne, I really need help on this.' It would be there," he said. For Somers, the feeling was mutual. "We will always be dear friends," she told Yahoo! Entertainment.

After Somers' death, Duffy paid tribute. "As with everyone who knew her, I was stunned yesterday by the news that my dear and deep friend Suzanne had passed," he said in a statement to People, admitting that what he'll most miss will be "the phone calls, the emails, the visits, and the meals, and laughter."

Suzanne Somers' Thighmaster was more than a fad, and opened the door to a whole new career. After the cancellation of "Step By Step" in 1998, she shifted her focus from Hollywood to building on the personal brand she'd spent decades honing. As she told Barron's, that desire dated back to "Three's Company." When she saw women in the audience dressed like her character; she pitched producers on a line of Chrissy Snow clothing. "It was a no-brainer," she recalled. Her bosses balked, but Somers saw a squandered opportunity. "It was the most logical, in-your-face branding ever," she said. "That was the first time I thought to myself, "I could be a brand if I owned myself."

Then in her 50s, dealing with the inevitabilities of aging, Somers veered into the wellness lane, venturing into the realm of vitamins and supplements, in addition to organic cosmetics and skincare products. She also wrote books — more than 20 of them. As she entered her 60s, and then 70s, Somers tweaked her message to concentrate on remaining healthy and vibrant while aging. "I want women to know that it ain't over," she told the New York Post, "and that the choices you make today will determine how much fun you have going forward."

Despite being described as a wellness guru, Somers insisted that was never her intent. "I wasn't trying to be a guru," she told Closer. "I just was loving helping people feel better."

When it came to her role as a wellness guru promoting healthy aging, Suzanne Somers practiced what she preached. She proved that even further in 2015 when she signed on to compete on "Dancing With the Stars." According to Somers — who was then 68 — she'd been asked to participate in every previous season, but had turned down the opportunity because she'd been too busy. "Every so often, I love facing a challenge that scares me, and 'Dancing With the Stars' is my present challenge," she told The Hollywood Reporter at the time. "I always start slow and begin to move into new things gradually, and the better I get the more fun it is, and that's when I get turned on."

As Somers explained, she preferred not to focus on her competitors but on her own performance. Admittedly, she'd set a rather high bar for herself. "I will push myself to achieve a non-achievable goal: perfection," she added. "But if I can get as close as possible to that goal, I will feel satisfied that I gave it my all."

Somers didn't last long on the show. As ABC News reported, she was the fourth star to be eliminated that season. "My experience had nothing to do with whether I won or not; it had to do with me breaking out of my comfort zone ..." she told People after her exit.

In 2001, Suzanne Somers' annual mammogram was far from routine when a tumor was discovered. "When you hear those three words, 'You have cancer' — wow — that's coming face to face with your mortality," Somers told Yahoo! Lifestyle of receiving her diagnosis. She also greeted the news with her trademark sense of humor. "I thought, how ironic — I was known on 'Three's Company' as the Queen of the Jiggle," she said, joking about the key role that her breasts served in the sitcom.

She underwent a lumpectomy to remove the tumor, but took matters into her own hands when it came to subsequent treatment. When weighing the options she was given — which were radiation, chemotherapy or drugs — she embarked on a different path. "The idea of flooding my body with chemical poison just doesn't reckon with who I am," she said. As she explained during a 2001 appearance on "Larry King Live," she instead pursued alternative treatments, focusing on banishing all chemicals from her life and taking hormones.

In 2007, Somers revealed she was free of cancer, emphasizing that she was continuing hormone therapy.  "My doctors said that if I didn't lead a chemical-free life, supported by bio-identical hormones, I would not likely be here today," Somers told Entertainment Tonight.

One reason behind Suzanne Somers' success as an anti-aging wellness guru was that she personally exemplified the vibrant senior life she promoted. That was particularly true of pronouncements she made about her sex life with husband Alan Hamel — even more exemplary considering he was 10 years her senior. For example, in a 2019 interview with the Daily Mail, Somers — who was 73 at the time — revealed that she and Hamel were both taking a hormone supplement that made them so amorous they typically had sex twice a day. "I usually say I sleep through one of them," she joked, adding, "I'm kind of in that groove, like when you were younger and you're in the mood all the time."

Apparently, those hormones had grown even more effective with time. "At this stage of life, most people think that's over the hill. What time is it, noon? I had sex with him three times so far today," she quipped during a 2021 appearance on the "Let's Talk with Heather Dubrow" podcast, as reported by People. 

Of course, there was a lot more going on with the couple than surging hormones. As Somers told Yahoo! Life, they remained madly in love with each other, more than four decades after exchanging vows. "We are unbelievably happy and secure together," she said. "I love to please him. And that makes me feel very sexy when I'm pleasing him and same with him towards me."

In 2020, Suzanne Somers experienced a major setback to her own wellness when she fell at home. This was no minor tumble, but a fall down a flight of stairs that sent her crashing onto concrete. "I heard my neck break,"she told Closer. "I broke my whole right side — my neck, spine, hip, pelvis and knee." As she told her fans via Instagram, she underwent surgery to realign vertabrae that had been knocked out place, which had been the source of her severe neck pain.

Her recovery was long, and took a lot of arduous effort. "I had to go into rehab to learn how to walk again," she shared. "But I did!" 

Like every other obstacle in her life, Somers was determined to learn something from the experience. "You know, every bad thing that happens to you is an opportunity to look for the good," she explained, revealing that what she'd come to understand was to remain grateful for all that she had, not bitter about the problems she experienced. She simply refused to view her accident and its physical repercussions through a lens of negativity. "There's nothing, there's no payoff," she said. "So, I live in positives and try to speak in positives, because that's what I believe."

After being free of cancer for more than a decade, Suzanne Somers announced in July 2023 that the disease she thought she'd beaten had returned. "As you know, I had breast cancer two decades ago, and every now and then it pops up again, and I continue to bat it down," she wrote in an Instagram post.

In a subsequent statement to Entertainment Tonight, Somers confirmed that her breast cancer had recurred. "I do my best not to let this insidious disease control me," she wrote. "Like any cancer patient, when you get that dreaded 'It's back,' you get a pit in your stomach." Her husband, Alan Hamel, told Page Six that "on June 6, she got an all-clear, but cancer is tricky and we will now closely monitor everything going forward." 

Sadly, Somers was taken by the disease just a few months later, dying on the day before what would have been her 77th birthday. "Suzanne Somers passed away peacefully at home in the early morning hours of October 15th," her publicist said in a statement to People. "She survived an aggressive form of breast cancer for over 23 years."