Somersville

 To be completely honest, I should probably apologize to those closest to Suzanne Somers for my treatment of her over the years. I used her as a punchline for countless bits, playing heavily on her public persona, mostly focusing on the "dumb blond" she portrayed on countless television appearances. 

And then there was the Thighmaster. I can ask forgiveness in matters connected to certain stereotypes and taking the easiest possible path to the jokes concerning her onscreen portrayals, but I don't think I can be held accountable for making fun of Ms. Somers' affiliation with this fitness contraption that became a staple of infomercial watching during the nineties. 

Suzanne Somers passed away last weekend at the age of seventy-six just one day shy of her seventy-seventh birthday celebration. Instead, her family gathered to celebrate her life and accomplishments, perhaps most notably living with breast cancer for more than twenty years. She became famous during the heyday of "jiggle TV," as one of the stars of ABC's most obvious example of the genre Ms. Somers quickly rose to fame and what might have been fortune. Except that's not how contracts worked back then. After four seasons, Suzanne decided she should be making the same as her male co-star, John Ritter. She staged her own strike, appearing only in end-of-episode tags that were filmed separately from the rest of the cast. Eventually, tensions between her and the rest of the production led to her being fired. She never got the raise she had requested. Consequently, she missed out on the bonanza of spinoffs and additional buckets of money. She sued ABC for two million dollars, but was eventually awarded only thirty thousand dollars for the episode that she "missed." 

Which might have been the end of her career. Instead, she kept working during the eighties as an entertainer in Las Vegas, a stand that culminated in the fire that burned down the Hilton. Not her fault, but that left her free to pursue the lead role in the new syndicated series, She's The Sheriff. When that show finished its run, she moved back to ABC to star in Step By Step, a warm-hearted family comedy that had her starring with Patrick Duffy. Without a lot of discussion about their relative paychecks. 

By the beginning of the twenty-first century, Ms. Somers had taken her act to the talk shows she hosted and wrote a pair of autobiographies, as well as becoming quite the entrepreneur. Health, beauty, and fitness, with the Thighmaster leading the way. After being set adrift by ABC so many years ago, she made quite a life for herself. She stomped on the Terra and helped make the world better in her own way. 

Oh, and she was in American Graffiti. For that alone she will be missed. Aloha, Suzanne.