Earlier today I was saddened to read my colleague Matt Funicello informing us of the passing of Suzanne Somers at 76 years of age. That's hard to process, Ms. Somers even being 76; it's hard for me to think of her as a senior citizen.
But then, these days, it's hard for me to look in the mirror and see a white-haired, white-bearded old coot instead of a 17-year-old kid with an Eddie Van Halen haircut.
Matt brought us the news and I'll let you read his story for the details; here's the main point:
Suzanne Somers, best known for her role in the iconic sitcom "Three's Company," died Sunday at 76, according to her publicist.
“Suzanne Somers passed away peacefully at home in the early morning hours of October 15th," R. Couri Hay said in a statement. "She survived an aggressive form of breast cancer for over 23 years. Suzanne was surrounded by her loving husband Alan, her son Bruce, and her immediate family. Her family was gathered to celebrate her 77th birthday on October 16th. Instead, they will celebrate her extraordinary life, and want to thank her millions of fans and followers who loved her dearly."
Somers became famous for playing, as she put it, “one of the best dumb blondes that’s ever been done.”
"Three's Company" made its television debut in the fall of 1976 when I was fifteen. It broke some rather interesting new ground in American television, portraying as it did a platonic cohabitation between a man and two (beautiful) young women, but also in Jack Ritter's comic portrayal of a man whom his landlord believes to be gay - the only reason the straight-laced Mr. Roper would allow the cohabitation in the apartment building he owned - but also in Ritter's brilliant back-and-forth between the "gay" Jack face presented to Mr. Roper, and the rather enthusiastically straight Jack around his roommates.
Ms. Somers played the somewhat ditzy-but-adorable Chrissy Snow opposite Jack Ritter's Jack Tripper and Joyce DeWitt's Janet Wood. The show became an overnight hit, at least with the guys I knew in high school. The "Chrissy or Janet" discussion quickly rose to be on a par with the classic "Wilma Flintstone or Betty Rubble" argument, although I confess it never quite reached the level of the "Ginger or Mary Ann" debate.
We had just seen Suzanne two years earlier in the theater, of course, as the famous "blonde in the T-Bird" who mystified a young Richard Dreyfuss in pre-Star Wars George Lucas' film "American Graffiti."
Her 1984 Playboy pictorial, of course, just added spice to the argument.
Suzanne didn't just do television, though; in the '80s, she also did shows for active U.S. servicemen, most famously on board the aircraft carrier Ranger.
We talk often about benchmark events that thumbtack certain memories down in our minds. Too often those are bad things; I remember, for example, where I was when I first heard that President Reagan had been shot, and I was sitting in a college classroom when someone burst in to tell us of the Challenger disaster. We all have those memories; my mother used to describe laying on the floor of her parent's farmhouse reading a book when she was 13 years of age. Nearby, my grandfather was in his favorite chair listening to the Sunday symphony on the radio when the announcer broke in to inform the world of the attack on Pearl Harbor.
There are good benchmark memories, too, of course. Suzanne Somers, in her great, light-hearted, simple portrayal of a pretty, slightly ditzy, rather innocent, and yet very sexy girl, was one of the more pleasant touchstones for us boys of the '70s.
Suzanne and her co-star Joyce DeWitt were part of a culture that gave us "Petticoat Junction," the famous "Farrah Fawcett red swimsuit" posters, and rock & roll acts like The Bangles and The Go-Gos - it was a great time to be a young man in America, where every evening television brought us a wealth of pretty girls, gifting us many callipygian memories.
And now, today, just as I remember my mother knew a few moments of reflective sadness when she read of the death of Gregory Peck, I feel what I am sure is that same kind of reflective sadness; too many of the people I remember, people who I associated with the light, happy fun of those years, are slowly leaving us. Younger generations will have their own benchmarks, of course; we have this past week seen one of the worst kind, but they will have memories of the best kind, as well, just as we young men of the '70s have Suzanne Somers and the others like her, who amused us, entertained us, and gave us something to argue about at school the next day.
That's a wheel that never stops turning.
RIP, Suzanne. We'll always remember you at your best: Young, beautiful, and fun. Thanks for the memories, thanks for making us laugh, and thanks for adding your own sweet part to the great landscape that is America.
