Three's Company, Step by Step, and Thighmaster
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$100 Million
"I do good in the world, at least I try to. I speak on behalf of women, and I know I have made the lives of women happier as a result of teaching them what I have learned relative to true health rather than disease care."
Suzane Somers has essentially lived two full careers in the spotlight, first as one of biggest icons of television in the 1970s, and then as an iconic spokeswoman and health and fitness guru from the 1990s and on, starting with her work endorsing the Thighmaster, with which she remains as synonymous as does George Foreman with his namesake grill.
Whether you know Somers from her work on classic sitcoms, her appearances on late-night infomercials and daytime TV spots, or her later work on shows like Dancing with the Stars, Suzanne has been a household name to three generations, and shows no signs of slowing down any time soon.
From Cheerleader To Hollywood
There is a general knowledge that I am multi-dimensional, that when you are creative you do a lot of things."
Born to Marion Elizabeth and Francis Mahoney in San Bruno, California, Suzanne Somers came into this world under the name Suzanne Marie Mahoney, taking the last name of Somers after marrying Bruce Somers in 1965. Although the two would split well before Suzanne's breakthrough role, you could say that "Suzanne Somers" had a nice ring to it, so Suzanne kept it as her stage name.
Suzanne attended Capuchino High School and Mercy High School in the town of Burlingame, where she was a cheerleader, showing an early inclination towards the spotlight. She would then go on to the San Francisco College for Women, a Catholic school, run by the Society of the Sacred Heart. At just nineteen she would marry Bruce Somers and have a son, Bruce Jr., in November 1965.
Given her natural charm and good looks, it's no surprise that she would be fast-tracked on the road to stardom. Suzanne began her career in entertainment and modeling as a prize model on the game show Anniversary Game (1969-70) where she would meet future husband, host Alan Hamel, eventually marrying in 1977. A true storybook ending, Somers and Hamel remain married to this day.
As with many actresses, Somers featured in a number of small parts in between her early model work and her breakthrough role, picking up a part here and there but not yet making her mark on the industry. These included the beautiful blonde girl in the white Thunderbird that Richard Dreyfuss obsesses over in the George Lucas feature, American Graffiti (1973), and a number of small background and featured roles in movies like Magnum Force (1974) and shows like The Rockford Files (1974).
It was only a matter of time before Somers appeal would land her a defining role, and it finally happened in 1977 with the debut of Three's Company (1977-84), where she would play the bubbly Chrissy Snow alongside John Ritter and Joyce DeWitt. The show featured the three as roommates sharing a Santa Monica apartment, with Don Knotts co-starring as their nosy landlord, Ralph Furley. The show's humor often relied on innuendo and misunderstanding to get a laugh out of the audience, and would become one of the landmark sitcoms of its era, defining much of the style and culture from the late 1970s to the mid 1980s.
Although backstage drama resulted Somers leaving the series after five of eight seasons, she would eventually make up with co-star John Ritter.
"There's Dick Van Dyke and John Ritter, the two greatest physical comics of our generation."
Health And Fitness Guru
By the 1990s, it was getting to be a little uncanny that Somers still looked so amazing for a woman now getting into her forties, and it only stood to reason that she would have to become a health and fitness guru, sharing her secrets with the public. "I actually have never been to a gym. I haven't had time. I have been working for the last 25 years. I just don't have time to put on a little outfit and go to the gym and work out and clean up and come home."
In the early 1990s she would be contacted by the makers of the Thighmaster to feature in their infomercials and TV ads, launching her career as a fitness expert and TV spokeswoman, going on to endorse a number of As Seen On TV products. Anyone who watched TV in the early 1990s should remember the classic commercial and Somers' tagline: "We may not have been born with great legs, but now we can look like we were." And of course, nobody can forget the iconic Thighmaster pose, with Somers laying on her side, head resting in her hand, and squeezing the spring-loaded fitness contraption between her legs.
Somers' role as Thighmaster spokeswoman actually helped to boost her acting career, which had been relatively quiet since she'd left Three's Company. In the early part of the decade she would lead the TGIF sitcom Step by Step (1991-97) with Patrick Duffy in a modern take on The Brady Bunch, lead a sitcom of her own, The Suzanne Somers Show (1994-95) feature in a number of small roles on shows like Full House (1994) and host a late-nineties reboot of Candid Camera (1998-2000). In the mid-1990s she was also featured as herself in a cameo in John Waters' dark-humor cult classic Serial Mom (1994), as the actress who would portray the titular mother in a TV-movie adaptation.
Somers is known today as an evangelist of hormone replacement therapy, citing the treatment in her book Ageless (2006) as having been critical to her battle to overcome cancer. She hosted a Lifetime Network talk show in 2012, The Suzanne Show (2012) where she discussed health and fitness topics with guests. And for anyone who wondered if "she's still got it," she proved all doubts wrong on the twentieth season of Dancing with the Stars (2015), making it to week five and finishing in ninth place with partner Tony Dovolani.
"What I really need is for people to know that I don't just do this, I do this and this and this and this. We all have creativity in us, and we all are multi-dimensional, and we are all interested in a lot of things, and that women are fabulous. We can handle a lot of things."
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