Suzanne Somers passed away last week at age 76. The Three’s Company star had breast cancer for many years, and in the end, it took her life.
In an interview with Larry King in 2001, Somers revealed that she had breast cancer and had been receiving treatment for a year. However, she stated that she refused to go through with chemotherapy and instead did alternative treatments.
Speaking with the Daily Mail, a source close to Somers reveals new details about the late actress’ cancer treatments. And it turns out her friends begged her to go down another path.
Suzanne Somers was born Suzanne Marie Mahoney on October 16, 1946, in San Bruno, California. She was raised by her mother and father and attended catholic high school.
Suzanne Somers
However, she was not to stay there for long. Somers had written explicit love letters, which the nuns discovered, and she was expelled. Instead, she graduated from Capuchino High School in San Bruno.
Suzanne Somers was early interested in acting and appeared in a production of Guys and Dolls during high school. One night, celebrity gossip columnist Walter Winchell was in the audience and saw Somers’ outstanding performance.
“You’re going some place, sister,” he told her.
Suzanne Somers landed a small role in George Lucas’ film American Graffiti, which would change her entire career for the better. Her one line, “I love you,” became somewhat legendary.
“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.”
Following American Graffiti, 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.
Success and bitter ending on ‘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.
Suzanne Somers’ life changed while on Three’s Company, starring alongside John Ritten, Joyce DeWitt, and Don Knotts. She appeared in 100 episodes of the show, but her time there abruptly ended.
In 1981, the discussion about equal salary between men and women wasn’t particularly a hot topic – or even a topic at all. However, Somers wanted it to be different. She landed herself in hot water over her salary, as she asked the producers for a 500 percent raise. Instead of the $30,000 she earned weekly, she wanted $150,000, equal to her male co-star John Ritter.
Instead of meeting her demands, Suzanne Somers was fired. Her career had worsened because of her demands on Three’s Company. The following situation didn’t improve either, as no one wanted to hire her.
“Here I was on the number one show, and I couldn’t even get an interview because I was considered trouble,” Somers told CNBC.
Somers turned to a new career as an entrepreneur and an author, becoming well-respected and earning great success in both fields.
However, Suzanne Somers fought another battle for a very long time: Cancer.
Suzanne Somers’ long struggle with cancer
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.
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.”
“”I didn’t want chemotherapy”
“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…”
“I didn’t want chemotherapy.”
Later, it turned out that Suzannee Someres had already undergone cancer treatment while on Three’s Company. During her days portraying Chrissy Snow, Somers said she was treated for cancer three times.
“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,” she continued, adding that she also had malignant melanoma in her back in her 30s.
Suzanne Somers lived with her cancer, and just months ago, it appeared as if it was gone. Her husband, Alan Hamel, told Page Six in July that the cancer had returned at the beginning of the year but that she appeared to move in the right direction.
Meanwhile, in a separate statement to CBS, Somers opened up about being cancer-free.
“As one of millions of cancer patients, we do our best not to let this insidious disease control us. I find bliss in each day,” Somers said.
Suzanne Somers dead at 76
Sadly, her breast cancer came back. On October 15, Suzanne Somers passed away aged 76.
“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,” Somers’ longtime publicist R. Couri Hay wrote in a statement on behalf of the actress’ family.
“Suzanne was surrounded by her loving husband Alan, her son Bruce, and her immediate family,” the statement continued. “Her family was gathered to celebrate her 77th birthday on October 16th. Instead, they will celebrate her extraordinary life, and want to thank her millions of fans and followers who loved her dearly.”
Further, Hay told People, “There were all these plans, and she was always working and dreaming and had brought her family into the business, and the grandchildren and step-children were all part of the business,” adding that Suzanne was “very engaged right to the end.”
Earlier this year, Somers said they had “used the best alternative and conventional treatments to combat it.”
But now, a source close to the late Three’s Company star shares that many around her didn’t like it.
Somers’ friends tried to convince her to ditch her alternate approach to cancer treatment in favor of chemotherapy, the Daily Mail reported.
Suzanne Somers friends ‘begged’ her to go through with chemotherapy
“She was advised by several people to consider the more conventional approach, but she did not listen,” a source close to Somers told the Daily Mail. “She really only found out that the cancer was back at the beginning of summer so she didn’t have that long to really do anything other than accept it. “
The source continued, “She has always rejected chemo, so it wasn’t even an option. Her friends and loved ones urged her to reconsider so many times during her cancer battles and at the end. She never regretted her decisions, and she was prepared to go. She believed that she lived a life beyond her wildest dreams and truly made a dent in the world.”
Moreover, the source said that Suzanne realized the end was near and could say goodbye to her loved ones just days before passing.
“The timing of her passing was a blessing because her loved ones were there. “She was able to say her goodbyes to everyone she loved, which was so many people. She was accepting of her fate and went with dignity.”
In an emotional interview with NBC News, her husband, Alan, recalled Suzanne Somers’ final moments.
“We were in bed together, and her breathing was erratic, and I had been talking to her for hours,’ he said.
“There was no response except when I kissed her, she responded, and then around five o’clock in the morning, she was gone.”
Rest in peace, Suzanne Somers. Please share this article to honor her legacy.
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