12 Actors Who Screwed Up Their Big TV Chances By Getting Fired

6. Suzanne Somers - Three's Company

In the late 70s, Three's Company was one of the hottest shows on television. John Ritter may have been the star, but Suzanne Somers soon became an overnight success playing the stereotypical dumb blonde Chrissy Snow. Audiences loved Somers, and she was considered the break-out star of the series. Because she wasn't the star, she didn't get paid as much as Ritter. Once her character became popular, Somers says she wanted equal pay with Ritter and other male Hollywood stars of the time. After the fourth season ended in 1980, Somers demanded that her pay be increased from $30,000 an episode to $200,000 an episode. In addition, she demanded ten percent of the show's profits. When the network refused to budge, Somers began missing tapings of Three's Company at the beginning of the fifth season. Jenilee Harrison was brought in to replace Somers as Chrissy's cousin, Cindy, with an explanation that Chrissy was visiting relatives in Fresno. Somers was retained on the show during the fifth season but usually in brief telephone conversations of a minute or less at the end of each episode, all of which were filmed at a different location from the rest of the cast, who were bitter at Somers for disrupting production of the show. Somers was fired at the end of the fifth season and her highly publicized salary dispute prevented her from landing her own series on CBS.