Suzanne Somers had a long and successful career as an actress, entrepreneur, and author. The Three’s Company star tragically died in 2023, after a long battle with cancer, which she had been living with for years.
Somers chose not to go through with chemotherapy but instead relied on alternative medication and treatments.
Even so, her friends reportedly begged her to reconsider her decision. Sadly, it was too late, and she passed away on October 15, 2023. The death certificate obtained by USA Today painted a new picture of what killed her.
Suzanne Somers went from unknown to a star in a very short period. After appearing in plays in high school, she got her first significant role in the 1973 George Lucas film American Graffiti, in which she had a single line: “I love you.”
“This is a life-changing moment. Five seconds on film that will never be forgotten,” she said, adding that Lucas told her, “Everybody will always remember the mysterious blonde in the Thunderbird.”
Suzanne Somers
Not long after, Suzanne Somers got a gig at The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, where she began reading poetry in front of a national audience every month. She credited herself as the “Mysterious Blonde in the Thunderbird.”
It was difficult to miss Suzanne Somers, and this one TV executive didn’t either. He offered her a role in a new television series called Three’s Company. She was cast as Chrissy Snow and helped the series become a television mega-hit.
“I am really proud of creating that dumb blonde cause she had a moral code. She was lovable,” Somers explained.
However, Somers’ time on Three’s Company got an abrupt ending. She felt, rightly so, that she should get equally paid as the male leading actor, John Ritter, on the show, asking the producers for a 500 percent raise. Instead of the $30,000 she earned weekly, she wanted $150,000.
Instead of getting a raise, Suzanne Somers didn’t get paid at all. Why? She was fired.
“When I got fired, I thought, ‘I should never have asked. Why did I ask? Why did I think I could get paid what men are being paid? Who did I think I was?” she said.
“Rather than thinking, ‘Hey, c’mon. I have the highest demographics of any woman on television. I’m on the No. 1 show. I’m doing the heavy lifting, too,’ I went right into low self-esteem. I hid in my house for a year in absolute grief.”
Somers got some other roles, including starring in She’s the Sheriff for 44 episodes, after Three’s Company, but her passion had shifted. Instead, she went on to release books and become an entrepreneur, earning herself a fortune. At the time of her passing, Suzanne was said to have a net worth of $100 million.
Suzanne Somers – cancer
But while Suzanne Somers created a business empire, there was one other severe thing that she was fighting.
In 2001, Somers revealed on Larry King Live that she had been receiving treatment for breast cancer for about a year. She explained that doctors discovered the cancer in April 2000 during a routine mammogram.
“In the last year I have been battling and surviving breast cancer, and I was in that clinic, and it all has to do with my breast cancer,” Somers told Larry King. “But it just, you know – I have had such an honest relationship with the American public. I mean, I have written books on alcoholism, and blending families, and they have been with me on my ups and downs and sides. And this was just one of those things – I think the most shocking words I ever thought, I never thought, I would ever in my life hear someone say to me that you have breast cancer. And it was – it has been so…”
Somers continued, “I was in such shock. I’m very strong, and I was in such shock because I have always taken care of myself, and, I just thought, it would never happen to me, but I think that is what everybody thinks; it won’t happen to them. And, what’s interesting is what you learn about yourself when you are diagnosed with cancer. And cancer is not for sissies.”
While Somers said it took a couple of days to realize she had cancer, she decided to go “to war.” The actress gathered the doctors to get their views on how she would progress, and they said chemotherapy was the best way forward.
Suzanne Somers skipped chemotherapy for alternate treatments
However, Suzanne didn’t want to and turned to other alternatives.
“As I’m hearing the common course of treatment, I – I don’t want to lose my hair, but that was the least of my worries was losing my hair. But I – I don’t like what that drug does to people. What I have seen… Chemotherapy. I have seen people under treatment, there is, you know, I know it helps people. I know it helps.”
“It does [work for breast cancer], but I decided to find alternative things to do,” she continued. “Because I have done so much work in my books about hormones, and that hormonal balance is why people gain or lose weight, and, it was my belief that a balanced environment of hormones prevents disease. And the first thing they said to me, we are taking of off all hormones. I said no, I’m going to continue taking my hormones, which is the first thing against the common course…”