In 1980, Suzanne Somers was part of a winning cast on the ABC hit comedy Three’s Company. Consequently, the actor asked the network’s executives for a raise
Viewers loved her naïve and goofy Chrissy Snow character on the show. Somers assumed asking for a pay hike would not be out of line since she’d helped make the show a success.
Before Knotts left the show, he tried one more time to get Griffith to have him stay but this time with a stake in the ownership of the show. The show’s ownership belonged solely to Andy Griffith and show producers Sheldon Leonard and Danny Thomas.
According to de Visé, “Don had told Andy he was ready to continue on the Griffith Show – if he could be Andy’s partner.”
Griffith said, “I wasn’t going to share the ownership of the show 50-50 with him. It was my show.”
Knotts left to pursue his film career having tried to make a go of it with Griffith.
Knotts was there for Somers
As de Visé wrote about this time during Three’s Company, “Don empathized with Somers, who was, in his view, being punished for seeking a raise, a scenario Don himself had experienced a decade earlier with the producers of The Andy Griffith Show.”
In particular, Knotts refused to exclude Somers as the rest of the cast reportedly was.
“He didn’t like the way the rest of the cast was shunning her. One day, he strode up to John and Joyce and said, ‘Excuse me, I’m going to talk to Suzanne.’ Later, Don traveled to Las Vegas to help Somers launch her solo act.”