50 facts about Suzanne Somers, known for her television roles as Chrissy Snow on Three's Company and as Carol Lambert on Step by Step

Calling her a legend in the industry, on May 2, 2014, Direct Marketing Response inducted Somers into the infomercial Hall of Fame.

1. Suzanne Somers was born as Suzanne Marie Mahoney.

2. Somers is an American actress, author, singer, businesswoman and health spokesperson.

3. She is known for her television roles as Chrissy Snow on Three's Company and as Carol Lambert on Step by Step.

4. Suzanne Somers later became the author of a series of best-selling self-help books, including Ageless: The Naked Truth About Bioidentical Hormones (2006), about bioidentical hormone replacement therapy.

5. Suzanne Somers has released two autobiographies.

6. She also released four diet books.

7. Somers is also an author of a book of poetry.

8. Suzanne Somers has been criticized for her views on some medical subjects and her advocacy of the Wiley Protocol, which has been labelled as "scientifically unproven and dangerous".

9. Her promotion of alternative cancer treatments has received praise from Naturopathic health practitioners and criticism from the American Cancer Society.

10. Suzanne Marie Mahoney was born in San Bruno, California.

11. Somers was the third of four children.

12. She is from an Irish-American Catholic family.

13. Her mother, Marion Elizabeth (née Turner), was a medical secretary.

14. Her father, Francis Mahoney, was a laborer and gardener.

15. Suzanne Somers attended Capuchino High School, then she was accepted at San Francisco College for Women (commonly referred to as "Lone Mountain College"), a now-defunct single sex school which became a campus of the Jesuit University of San Francisco.

16. Suzanne Somers was a prize model on Anniversary Game (1969-70), where she met host Alan Hamel for the first time.

17. Somers and Hamel were married in 1977.

18. In 2001, she announced she had breast cancer.

19. Suzanne Somers had a lumpectomy to remove the cancer followed by radiation therapy but decided to forego chemotherapy in favor of alternative treatment.

20. On January 9, 2007, the Associated Press reported that a wildfire in Southern California had destroyed Somers' Malibu home.

21. Suzanne Somers began acting in small roles during the late 1960s and early 1970s (including on various talk shows promoting her book of poetry, and bit parts in movies such as the "Blonde in the T-Bird" in American Graffiti, and an episode of the American version of the sitcom Lotsa Luck as the femme fatale in the early 1970s).

22. Suzanne Somers appeared in The Rockford .

23. Suzanne Somers next guest starred on the 1977 episode "Cheshire Project" on The Six Million Dollar Man.

24. Suzanne Somers later landed the role of the ditzy blonde "Chrissy Snow" on the ABC sitcom Three's Company in 1977.

25. And also that year she was a celebrity panelist on Match Game, and was with Alan Hamel on Tattletales.

26. Calling her a legend in the industry, on May 2, 2014, Direct Marketing Response inducted Somers into the infomercial Hall of Fame.

27. During the 1980s, Somers became a Las Vegas entertainer.

28. Suzanne Somers was the spokeswoman for the Thighmaster, a piece of exercise equipment that is squeezed between one's thighs.

29. During this period of her career, she also performed for US servicemen overseas.

30. In 1987, she starred in the sitcom She's the Sheriff, which ran in first-run syndication.

31. In She's the Sheriff, Somers portrayed a widow with two young kids who decided to fill the shoes of her late husband, a sheriff of a Nevada town. The show ran for two seasons.

32. In 1990, Somers returned to network TV, appearing in numerous guest roles and made-for-TV movies, mostly for ABC.

33. Her roles in these, including the movie Rich Men, Single Women, attracted the attention of Lorimar Television and Miller-Boyett Productions, who were developing a new sitcom.

34. Suzanne Somers had starred in the film with Heather Locklear, who inadvertently directed the focus of both production companies to Somers due to Locklear's starring role on Going Places (from Lorimar and Miller/Boyett). For Lorimar, this was asking Somers back, since they alone had produced She's the Sheriff.

35. In September 1991, Somers returned to series TV in the sitcom Step By Step (with Patrick Duffy), which became a success on ABC's youth-oriented TGIF lineup.

36. A week after the premiere of Step By Step, a two-hour biopic of Somers starring the actress herself, entitled Keeping Secrets, was broadcast on ABC.

37. The movie chronicled Somers' troubled family life and upbringing, along with her subsequent rise to fame.

38. Playing off her rejuvenated career, Somers also launched a daytime talk show in 1994, aptly titled Suzanne Somers, which lasted one season.

39. Step By Step continued on ABC until the end of its sixth season in 1997, whereupon the series moved to CBS that fall for what turned out to be its final season.

40. With her sitcom now airing on CBS, Somers was chosen to co-host the network's revival of Candid Camera with Peter Funt, which began airing later that season.

41. From 1997-99, Somers cohosted the revised Candid Camera show, when CBS chose to bring it back with Peter Funt. Somers stayed for two years before PAX TV renewed the series without her.

42. In 2012, Somers began an online talk show, Suzanne Somers Breaking Through, at CafeMom. Three of the episodes featured a reunion with Joyce DeWitt, the two speaking with each other for the first time in 30 years.

43. In the fall of 2012, the Suzanne Show, hosted by Somers, aired for a 13-episode season on the Lifetime Network. Somers welcomed various guests covering a wide range of topics related to health and fitness. Repeats of the episodes air Wednesday mornings

44. On February 24, 2015, Somers was announced as one of the stars participating on the 20th season of Dancing with the Stars.

45. Her dancing partner during Dancing with the Stars was professional dancer Tony Dovolani.

46. Somers and Dovolani were eliminated on the fifth week of competition and finished in 9th place.

47. Suzanne Somers supports bioidentical hormone replacement therapy. Her book, Ageless, includes interviews with 16 practitioners of bioidentical hormone therapy, but gives extra discussion to one specific approach, the 'Wiley Protocol'.

48. A couple episodes of South Park have paid homage to Suzanne Somers; for instance, the episode Death reference Suzanne Somers as the actress that stars in the reruns of She's The Sheriff which replaced the Terrance And Phillip series that was protested by parents.

49. Another episode of South Park featured a product that endorsed this celebrity, but dubbed her name as "Susanne Somers" in which the product was "calf exerciser", in which Butters took the product name out of context when trying to care for calves (baby cows) since he didn't want them to turn into veal.

50. Suzanne Somers is also opposed to water fluoridation.

Source: Wikipedia.org