Suzanne Somers on asking for equal pay from ABC in 1980: ‘I was responsible for scaring the networks’

“Being fired from ‘Three’s Company’ took [a lot of] work from me … to not be angry,” Suzanne Somers recently told Yahoo Entertainment. Somers played the bubbly, bouncy blonde Chrissy Snow alongside John Ritter and Joyce DeWitt in the hit ABC show that aired from 1977 to 1984. She says she initially signed on for the show for $3500 a week which, for her at the time, was a lot of money. “I was thrilled,” she said. Over the years, she would receive raises but she never made anything close to what Ritter did. Her star continued to rise, so in 1980 when it came time to negotiate her contract for the fifth season, she asked for a raise from $30,000 an episode to $150,000 - which was what Ritter was making. “So my husband [Alan Hamel] goes in to renegotiate on my behalf,” Somers recalled. But what they weren’t aware of was that months earlier ABC was forced to give raises to the female leads of Laverne & Shirley (Penny Marshall and Cindy Williams). “You can’t really fire Laverne or Shirley on Laverne and Shirley,” Somers said. So, as Somers tells it, ABC had already steeled themselves against forking out more money for another female star. And not only did ABC deny her desired salary - they also fired her from the show. “[Alan] said, ‘You’re out, they’re making an example out of you,’” Somers said.