Suzanne Somers

The Blonde in the White Thunderbird

Suzanne Somers needed no dialogue to get Hollywood's attention. In 1973, she appeared for just a few seconds behind the wheel of a Ford Thunderbird in American Graffiti. That fleeting image of an unreachable woman was enough for George Lucas to put her on the industry's map.

But her real battle wasn't in movies; it was in television. In 1977, she took on the role of Chrissy Snow in Three's Company. She played the naive blonde everyone expected, but behind the cameras Somers was calculating every step of her career with a coolness unusual for a newcomer.

Television in the late 1970s was a hostile environment for actresses who demanded equal pay. During the fifth season of the series in 1980, she asked for a raise. She wanted to earn $150,000 per episode to match the salary of her co-star John Ritter. ABC flatly refused.

That standoff ended in her being fired on the spot.

The industry punished her with years of being shut out, because no studio wanted to hire a woman labeled as difficult. So Somers decided that if she couldn't be a mainstream network star, she would work on her own to build an empire of her own.

The ThighMaster Empire

She moved to Las Vegas and signed a multimillion-dollar contract to perform in casinos. There she learned that direct contact with the public was worth more than any applause in a recording studio. In 1990, she bought the rights to an exercise device called the ThighMaster.

And the gamble paid off.

She sold millions of units through television infomercials. Somers realized before anyone else that her face was a brand capable of selling health, beauty and optimism. That business brought her far greater profits than she could ever have dreamed of in 1980s television.

In 1991, she returned to scripted television with the series Step by Step. She played the mother of a large family in a family sitcom that stayed on the air until 1998. She was no longer the explosive blonde of her early career but a maternal figure who connected with middle-class American audiences.

She managed to make the public forget her past as a rebellious salary-fighter.

The Medicine of Controversy

Her life took a major turn when she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2000. From that moment on, she devoted much of her time to writing books about alternative hormone treatments and organic diets. She published more than 25 titles that sparked intense debate within the international medical community.

Her critics accused her of promoting pseudoscience, but her fans bought every volume she released with absolute loyalty. In 2005, she lost her Malibu home in a wildfire, and that event reinforced her public message about letting go of material things and nurturing spiritual health.

Somers never stopped working on her image. In 2015, she took part in Dancing with the Stars to show that her vitality was still intact despite the passing of time. She kept up her supplement and exercise routine until cancer returned aggressively in the final years of her life.

She died on October 15, 2023, at her home in Palm Springs. She was 76 years old and left an estimated net worth of $100 million, derived from her image rights and wellness products.