URBAN TV: The cast of Three’s Company held a mock “funeral” for Suzanne Somers when the actress officially left the show after a failed pay dispute with the show’s producers.
As the famous saying goes, “History is written by the victors” (and of course, the funny thing about this quote is that it is often attributed to Winston Churchill, the British Prime Minister during one of the greatest victories of the 20th Century, and thus history has been written in such a way that Churchill is credited with a lot of clever sayings that he didn’t actually come up with), and that’s as true of conflicts in entertainment as it is in the military.
For example, in the case of a salary dispute between an actor and a TV producer, whoever comes out of the dispute more successful is often considered the “right” person in the dispute, regardless of whether the facts are true or not.
In this case, we’re looking at Suzanne Somers’ controversial departure from Three’s Company, which I also wrote about in TV Legends Revealed recently. Whether she was right or wrong in the long run, in the short run, everyone turned against her but well, including the crew, which led to a dark joke.
WHY DID SUZANNE SOMERS LEAVE THREE’S COMPANY?
Of course, Suzanne Somers was one-third of the hit comedy, Three’s Company, about a young man who becomes roommates with two single young women in Santa Monica, California. The grumpy old landlord only allowed this arrangement to happen because the roommates lied and said the young man was gay. Along with John Ritter as Jack Tripper, the young man, and Joyce DeWitt as Janet Wood, one of the two female roommates, Somers played Christmas “Chrissy” Snow, the naive but beautiful blonde roommate.
As I noted in the previous footnote, despite being the least experienced of the original cast, Somers’ Chrissy became a major figure in popular culture. In 1978, the cast appeared on the cover of Newsweek for an article about sex on TV, and while the producers knew the photo shoot would focus on Somers, Ritter and DeWitt were not informed until after the shoot began.
The resulting cover was a bit of a shock at the time, and Somers always believed it led to a slightly cooler reaction from Ritter and DeWitt toward her afterward.
Before the fifth season began, her new manager (who was also her husband) tried to get Somers paid on par with Ritter. The producers offered her a small raise, arguing that Ritter’s deal specifically promised him to be paid the most out of all the cast members, and DeWitt’s deal promised her to get the same amount of money that Somers was making, so by giving Somers a little raise, they were giving DeWitt a little raise, too.
This is where you get into a case of “Who’s right?” because, well, Somers WAS a big star at the time, and a big part of why the show was so successful. Was it really unfair that she was getting paid closer to what Ritter was making?
On the other hand, the producers felt that Ritter was really the show, since it revolved around young men, not women, and that Somers was ultimately replaceable. Eventually, the show DID replace Somers, and it remained popular for a few more years before collapsing in its final season, but collapsing after eight seasons isn’t necessarily a sign of anything, since most shows were in trouble at that point.
However, the cast and crew of the show really didn’t like Somers and her husband trying to play games, like calling in sick right before taping an episode. Ritter, in particular, was furious with Somers, and DeWitt wasn’t too happy either (note that Somers didn’t want all three to be paid the same, just her and Ritter). Ritter felt that you should just do your job and let the agents negotiate. But of course, he has the privilege of saying so as the highest-paid member of the cast. In any case, the main thing to remember is that the cast and crew were not happy with Somers.
HOW DID THE THREE’S COMPANY “FUNERAL” FOR SUZANNE SOMERS?
In the end, a compromise was reached that Somers would be paid her old salary for the rest of the season, but she would only appear in one-minute segments at the end, while Chrissy would appear in short segments when she called her parents, scenes that would be filmed separately from the rest of the cast.
Below, courtesy of the awesome Three’s Company Twitter account, threescompanycollection, is a schedule for one of the seven episodes Somers appeared in Chrissy) during the 40th anniversary of Three’s Company a few years back (they had all appeared on a reunion TV special, so went on to her show afterwards). .
