‘Three’s Company’ Actress Jenilee Harrison Reveals Surprising Way She Landed Role in ‘70s Sitcom
Three’s Company was an instant hit when it premiered in 1977 with cast members John Ritter, Joyce DeWitt, and Suzanne Somers.
The risqué ABC sitcom followed the antics of three single roommates living in a two-bedroom Santa Monica, CA, apartment under the watch of strict landlord Stanley Roper (Norman Fell). But when Somers left the series halfway through its run, producers scurried to replace her bubbleheaded blonde character, Chrissy Snow.
Enter Jenilee Harrison, who was cast as Snow’s ditzy cousin, Cindy, with nary an acting credit to her name. The former Rams cheerleader, who had played a cheerleader in an episode of CHiPs one year prior, told Fox News Digital she was stunned to score the role of Cindy Snow after just one interview.
“When I was very young – like 19 years old… my agent called me and said, ‘They want to see you – they’re replacing Suzanne Somers on Three’s Company,” Harrison, 67, returned to the outlet. “I thought, ‘Oh geez, why am I even going to the interview? I’m not going to get a role like that.'”
But a faux pas on her way into the audition helped seal the deal. “When I showed up for the audition… I tripped when I was walking in,” Harrison said. “I fell over things and grabbed something or whatever. They instantly thought, ‘Oh, here’s our klutzy cousin girl’… How lucky I was.”
Harrison made her Three’s Company debut in the Season 5 episode titled “Chrissy’s Cousin” as her character moved in with roommates Jack Tripper (Ritter) and Janet Wood (DeWitt).
The actress told Fox News she was “welcomed with open arms” by the cast and was treated like a “little sister.”
While she nailed the role, Harrison’s run on Three’s Company was short-lived. By Season 6, her character Cindy moved out of the apartment for school at nearby UCLA, and Priscilla Barnes was cast as new roommate, nurse Terri Alden. Harrison only appeared in a handful of episodes that season. Her final appearance as Cindy was in the Season 6 episode “Janet Wigs Out.”
Harrison had no hard feelings about her character being phased out of the show. In a 2017 sitdown with Antenna TV she admitted, “I was really young when I got on that show, 19 or 20 years old. So I truly had a lot of naivete.”
