Suzanne Somers

Suzanne Marie Somers (née Mahoney; October 16, 1946 – October 15, 2023) was an American actress, author, and businesswoman. She played the television roles of Chrissy Snow on Three's Company (1977–1981) and Carol Foster Lambert on Step by Step (1991–1998).

Somers wrote more than 25 books, including two autobiographies, four diet books, and a book of poetry. She was also well known for advertising the ThighMaster, an exercise device. While 14 of her books were best sellers and most were focused on health and well-being, doctors criticized her promotion of bioidentical hormone replacement therapy and alternative cancer treatments.

Suzanne Marie Mahoney was born in San Bruno, California, on October 16, 1946 as the third of four children in a working-class Irish-American Catholic family. Her mother, Marion Elizabeth (née Turner), was a medical secretary, and her father, Francis "Frank" Mahoney, loaded cases of beer onto boxcars, and was a laborer and gardener. Her father was an alcoholic and was abusive, and Somers often worried that he would kill her.

Somers first attended Mercy High School in Burlingame, California, but had trouble with her schoolwork because of dyslexia and her father's all-night rages, and she would often fall asleep in class. At school, she performed the lead role in a production of H.M.S. Pinafore She was expelled at age 14 for writing sexually suggestive notes to a boy that were never sent.

At age 17, Suzanne's father ripped off her prom dress and told her that she was "nothing," and she responded by hitting him in the head with a tennis racket.

In 1964, Somers graduated from Capuchino High School in San Bruno, where she won the "Best Doll Award" for her role in the senior musical Guys and Dolls and helped organize her class's senior ball. She then attended San Francisco College for Women (Lone Mountain College), a college run by the Catholic Society of the Sacred Heart order, but withdrew in 1965 when she learned that she was pregnant. She married her child's father, Bruce Somers, days later at age 19. Her situation led to low self-esteem. She was arrested for check fraud and her car was impounded.

"I made my living by making chocolate desserts and selling them to restaurants in Sausalito, California, and by making children’s dresses and selling them on consignment to little children’s stores."

Somers began acting in small roles during the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Somers modelled for Grimme Modeling Agency in San Francisco.

After divorcing in 1968, Somers worked as a prize model, on Anniversary Game, a game show, based at KGO-TV in San Francisco, hosted by Alan Hamel and produced by Circle Seven Productions.

From 1971 to 1973, Somers was a panelist on the Alan Hamel-hosted Mantrap, a weekday daytime panel show, from BCTV in Vancouver for CTV Television Network stations in Canada, and syndicated in the United States.

Somers supported bioidentical hormone replacement therapy. Her book Ageless includes interviews with 16 practitioners of bioidentical hormone therapy but focuses on one specific approach, the Wiley protocol. A group of seven doctors, all of whom practice bioidentical hormone therapy to address women's health issues, issued a public letter to Somers and her publisher, Crown Publishing Group, stating that the protocol is scientifically unproven and dangerous and citing Wiley's lack of medical and clinical qualifications. Somers appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show and was praised by Winfrey for her views, but negative press coverage followed.

In April 2000, Somers was diagnosed with breast cancer. She underwent a lumpectomy and radiation but declined chemotherapy. In November 2008, Somers announced that she had been diagnosed with inoperable cancer by six doctors, but she learned a week later that she was misdiagnosed. During this time, she interviewed doctors about cancer treatments and these interviews became the basis of her 2009 book Knockout about alternative treatments to chemotherapy. In the book, Somers promoted alternative cancer treatments, for which she was criticized by the American Cancer Society, and alternative medical providers such as Stanislaw Burzynski, who has been disciplined by the Texas Medical Board for misleading cancer patients.

In regard to the water-fluoridation controversy, Somers called fluoride a "toxic waste by-product of the aluminum manufacturers."

In January 2013, Somers suggested that Adam Lanza may have been driven to commit the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting because of the level of toxins in his diet and his exposure to household cleaners.

Somers married Bruce Somers on April 14, 1965, and they had a son in November 1965.

In 1968, after divorcing, Somers moved into an apartment in Sausalito, and got work as a prize model on The Anniversary Game, a game show hosted by Alan Hamel. Although he was already married, they began dating; she had an affair with him that led to an abortion. In 1971, her six-year-old son, Bruce Somers, Jr., was struck by a car. The resulting trauma led her to seek therapy for both herself and her son. On November 19, 1977, Somers and Hamel married, and bought a 25-acre estate in Palm Springs, California. In 2021, they sold it for $8.5 million.