The ugly realities of 1970s television.
Three’s Company was an unexpected hit for ABC and both John Ritter and Suzanne Somers were top celebrities in the American media market. Sommers and her husband Allan Hamill saw this and decided (somewhat correctly) that she deserved a salary increase that was either comparable with Ritter’s pay or even higher as she was a primary reason that viewers watched the program. They decided to get tough with the upcoming contract negotiations.
Unfortunately for the Hamills, ABC was rather greedy and shortsighted. The network assumed (incorrectly) that they could just hire “any old blonde” and the audiences would be satisfied by that. Things grew ugly as the network began to set the various actors against one another, and then exiled Sommers to an offscreen role while they attempted to “negotiate” her salary demands. In the end, no deal was able to be reached and Sommers left the program.
At the time, ABC wasn’t too worried as again they misjudged just how popular Sommers was with audiences, and just how weak the rest of the cast was without her to play off.They found one new blonde, and then another when that one didn’t work. They gave Ritter a fiancee, they added veteran sitcom actor Robert Mandan to the cast, and they attempted to do more with costar Joyce DeWitt. All of it was to of no avail as the ratings for the program began to slip. The series eventually was cancelled after spinning off what they believed to be a continuation (Three’s A Crowd) where Ritter proved that he was unable to carry the load by himself as it was canceled after a single season.
Ritter and DeWitt allowed their egos to overrule their basic judgment and they grew angry at Sommers instead of remaining united and saving what turned out to be their most successful acting venture. While Ritter was able to craft a minor feature film career, directed some television series, and then was the leading actor of the series Eight Simple Rules (the series where he was employed until his untimely death), DeWitt’s career following Three’s Company went into a tailspin from which it never recovered. Had they taken a firmer stance, they might have all been able to have successful careers whenever the show left the air.
Sommers career also suffered, although with sitcoms Step by Step, She’s the Sheriff, her exercise video and equipment business, and her television talk show, she was able to carve out what may have been an even more successful career than she might have had she remained on Three’s Company. While her and DeWitt made a big splash about reconciling, the reality was that Sommers didn’t need to as the general public had largely forgotten who Joyce DeWitt even was.
ABC got greedy and it thought that it could replace Suzanne Sommers with any blonde who walked in off the street. They set the performers on the show against one another, and the result was that a valuable property declined and was cancelled after two additional cast changes for Sommers’ role. Upon reflection,giving Sommers a partial pay raise could allowed the series to continue and it would have made it far more valuable in syndication than it became due to the turmoil and casting changes.
