Suzanne Somers has passed away. The actor is perhaps best known for her role on the iconic sitcom Three’s Company, which ran for eight seasons between 1977 and 1984. She played Christmas “Chrissy” Snow for the first five seasons before being fired amid backstage drama after she was refused a raise by producers. Although she was replaced by Jenilee Harrison as Cindy Snow, who was then replaced by Priscilla Barnes as Terri Alden, of those three her name is still the one that is most synonymous with the show, which also starred John Ritter and Joyce DeWitt as her roommates.
Per The Hollywood Reporter, Suzanne Somers has died of breast cancer, which she had been living with for 23 years. She passed away shortly before her 77th birthday, which would have taken place on October 16. She is survived by her husband of four-and-a-half decades, TV host and producer Alan Hamel, whom she met when they worked together on the game show The Anniversary Game in the late 1960s when she was working as a prize model. Read a statement from her publicist R. Couri Hay below:
Suzanne Somers passed away peacefully at home in the early morning hours of Oct. 15th. She survived an aggressive form of breast cancer for over 23 years. Suzanne was surrounded by her loving husband Alan, her son Bruce, and her immediate family. Her family was gathered to celebrate her 77th birthday on October 16th. Instead, they will celebrate her extraordinary life, and want to thank her millions of fans and followers who loved her dearly.
Suzanne Somers’ Legacy Remembered
Suzanne Somers has had a wide-ranging career that extended far beyond her star-making turn on Three’s Company, which earned her a Golden Globe nomination in 1979. After departing the show in 1981, she went on to find success on television over the years. However, her first return to regular television work came in the largely maligned She’s the Sheriff, which ran for two seasons beginning in 1987.
Although She’s the Sheriff didn’t pan out, Somers pivoted almost immediately to the 1991 sitcom Step By Step. She played Carol, the single mother of three children, who married Frank (Patrick Duffy), a single father who also had three children. The comic travails of their suddenly double-sized family were documented over the course of the show, which also starred Staci Keanan, Brandon Call, Angela Watson, and Bronson Pinchot and lasted for seven seasons with a total of 160 episodes.
After the end of Step By Step, Suzanne Somers only took on three further projects, eventually ending her acting career with a role in the 2001 movie Say It Isn’t So. However, she remained in the public eye, becoming an author of diet and self-help books (one of which was touted by Kim Cattrall’s Samantha Jones in Sex and the City 2), as well as two autobiographies and a book of poetry. She will be sorely missed by her family, friends, and fans, whom she entertained for many years in a wide variety of mediums.
