\n<\/p>\n
Suzanne Somers, who gained fame playing a ditsy blonde on the sitcom \u201cThree\u2019s Company\u201d and then by getting fired when she demanded equal pay with the series\u2019 male star \u2014 and who later built a health and diet business empire, most notably from the ThighMaster, a workout device \u2014 died on Sunday at her home in Palm Springs, Calif. She was one day away from turning 77.<\/p>\n
The cause was cancer, R. Couri Hay, a spokesman, said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThree\u2019s Company\u201d told the story of two roommates \u2014 Chrissy Snow, a secretary, played by Ms. Somers; and Janet Wood, a florist, played by Joyce DeWitt \u2014 who rent a room in their apartment to Jack Tripper, a culinary student played by John Ritter<\/a>. Since their landlord would frown on an unmarried man living with two single women, the group pretends that Jack is gay. (High jinks ensue.)<\/p>\n By the show\u2019s fifth season, \u201cThree\u2019s Company\u201d was one of the nation\u2019s most popular sitcoms. During Ms. Somers\u2019s contract negotiations with ABC in 1980, it was widely reported, she asked for a raise from $30,000 to $150,000 \u2014 equal pay with the series\u2019 male star, Mr. Ritter. Instead of getting the raise, Ms. Somers was fired.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve been playing what I think is one of the best dumb blondes that\u2019s ever been done, but I never got any credit,\u201d she told The New York Times that year<\/a>. \u201cI did it so well that everyone thought I really was<\/em> a dumb blonde.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n In the years to come, she remained recognizable for frequent appearances in movies and on television, including the 1990s sitcom \u201cStep by Step\u201d and talk shows.<\/p>\n But her later reputation sprang just as much from her business acumen \u2014 which proved to be more formidable than ABC\u2019s executives appreciated in 1980.<\/p>\n She and her husband, Alan Hamel, made the ThighMaster one of the most recognizable products in infomercial history, thanks in part to Ms. Somers\u2019s many leggy appearances alongside the product. She said that she and her husband had earned<\/a> hundreds of millions of dollars from its sale.<\/p>\n Ms. Somers also wrote more than 25 books, several of them best sellers, which tended to focus on issues related to the body and aging.<\/p>\n Some of the methods she promoted \u2014 including bioidentical hormone replacement therapy, a treatment that she called \u201cthe juice of youth\u201d for menopausal women \u2014 were criticized<\/a> by doctors as unproven and possibly unsafe.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The foundation of her business efforts was the sex positivity that she had embodied since \u201cThree\u2019s Company.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cA sexual person,\u201d she told The Times<\/a> in 2020, \u201cis a healthy person.\u201d<\/p>\n A full obituary will be published soon<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n