Actress Suzanne Somers, best known for playing a bumbling blonde on “Three’s Company,” died early Sunday morning after a decades-long battle with cancer. She was 76.
Somers’ longtime publicist confirmed her death to Page Six.
“Suzanne Somers passed away peacefully at home in the early morning hours of October 15th. She survived an aggressive form of breast cancer for over 23 years,” said R. Couri Hay.
“Suzanne was surrounded by her loving husband Alan, her son Bruce, and her immediate family.”
The “Step by Step” star was due to turn 77 on Monday.
Hay said Somers’ family will gather Monday to “celebrate her extraordinary life.”
A private family burial will take place this week, with a memorial to follow next month.
A source close to the family told Page Six that Somers “died in her new ‘all green home’ in Palm Springs, in her sleep with her loving husband by her side.”
The source added that Somers’ longtime husband, Alan Hamel, 87, had recently gifted her a handwritten poem wrapped in pink peonies, which had been her favorite flower.
Born Suzanne Marie Mahoney on Oct. 16, 1946, the California native played Chrissy Snow on the 1970s sitcom “Three’s Company” and Carol Foster Lambert on the ’90s family comedy “Step by Step.”
Somers also found fame as an infomercial spokeswoman for the Thighmaster.
She authored several self-help books, including 2006’s “Ageless: The Naked Truth About Bioidentical Hormones.” However, her promotion of hormone therapy landed her in hot water with medical professionals who called the treatments “lacking of evidence for safety or efficacy.”
Somers’ passing comes mere months after she revealed her breast cancer had returned.
She was diagnosed with breast cancer in her 50s after battling skin cancer in her 30s along with “severe hyperplasia” in her uterus.
“Even when I was Chrissy on Three’s Company, I had had cancer three times,” Somers told CBS News in 2020.
“They call it severe hyperplasia in your uterus. I didn’t make a big deal about it. In my 30s, I got a malignant melanoma in my back. People just wanted to protect Chrissy Snow. Creating her was actually intellectual. How do I make her likable and loveable … dumb blondes are annoying. I gave her a moral code. I imagined it was the childhood I would’ve liked to have had.”
Somers was born the third of four children to Marion and Francis Mahoney, and she often spoke about her difficult childhood.
“I am a child of an alcoholic… and when you live with violence or addiction or alcoholism of any kind, you handle it one of who ways: you either crumble and just can’t handle it, [or go into crisis mode],” Somers told Fox News in 2021.
“When you go into crisis mode, you become very calm. You assess the situation and try to calm it all down.”
She had bit roles in the ’70s, including in 1973’s “American Graffiti” and on “The Rockford Files” and “The Six Million Dollar Man.”
She landed her breakout role as the giggly, short-shorts-clad Chrissy — one of two women living with Jack Tripper (played by John Ritter), a goofy guy who pretends to be gay to appease their landlord — on “Three’s Company.”
The show premiered on ABC in 1977. Somers eventually saw her role diminished amid contract disputes.
“I got fired from ‘Three’s Company’ for having the audacity to ask to be paid commensurate with men. They were making 10 to 15 times more and John [Ritter] was making much more than me,” Somers told CBS News.
“They had designated John the star, as my star rose and started competing with John’s star, it made them mad at me. It made them mad when I was on every magazine cover and John wasn’t. We were all on the cover of Newsweek. That was a fiasco that day. The producers didn’t tell any of us that Newsweek wanted to feature just Chrissy and nobody told me either.”
She exited the show in the 1980 season and appeared in two Playboy cover-feature nude pictorials in the ’80s.
She made her big return to network TV opposite Patrick Duffy in “Step by Step,” a sitcom about blended families that aired from 1991 to 1998.
She also co-hosted “Candid Camera,” led the Lifetime talk show “The Suzanne Show” in 2012, and competed on “Dancing with the Stars” in 2015.
Somers and Hamel tied the knot in 1977. She has a son, Bruce, 57, from her marriage to Bruce Somers, which ended in 1968. She was also a stepmom to Hamel’s children, Stephen and Leslie Hamel.
Somers is survived by six grandchildren including granddaughter Camelia, 28, an actress known for her work on “The Bold and the Beautiful.”
