Suzanne Somers Cause Of Death Finally Revealed

The Step by Step star had been battling breast cancer for over two decades and finally succumbed to the disease just shy of her 77th birthday. Along with the cause of death, Somer’s death certificate also noted that the actress had been suffering from hydrocephalus—a condition where the ventricles in the brain swell from excess spinal fluid—for over a year when she died.

While the breast cancer spreading to her brain is still considered what caused her death, the hydrocephalus—as well as another underlying condition of hypertension—certainly didn’t help. According to Suzanne Somer’s death certificate, a biopsy was conducted post-mortem to determine the cause of death, but no autopsy was performed.

The actress underwent surgery earlier this year to have a shunt intended to siphon out some of the fluid implanted in her head. Unfortunately, as indicated by Somer’s death certificate, the surgery was ultimately unsuccessful.

Suzanne Somers’ first big break in Hollywood was as the mysterious Blonde in the white Thunderbird from the pre-Star Wars George Lucas blockbuster American Graffiti (1973). Somers played an ethereal blonde beauty that Richard Dreyfuss’s character Curt chases after over the course of a night in 1962 California. The role, while small, would cement Suzanne Somers as one of Hollywood’s most prominent blonde bombshells.

It would be another five years before Suzanne Somers would land the role that made her a household name, the ditzy blonde Chrissy Snow on the classic 1977 sitcom Three’s Company. The series’ entire premise—John Ritter pretends to be gay so that he can live with two young women—wouldn’t fly today for more than a few reasons. Still, Three’s Company did at least succeed in showcasing Suzanne Somer’s comedy ability—something she put to good use over a decade later on her second big sitcom, Step by Step.

Step by Step featured Suzanne Somers as Carol Foster Lambert, wife of Patrick Duffy’s Frank Lambert. The sitcom was a modern take on the Brady Bunch, with Somers and Duffy both bringing kids from a previous marriage into a brand new living arrangement. The show ran from 1991 to 1998 and was a staple of ABC’s TGIF programming block for nearly a decade.

From the end of Step by Step until the time of her death, Suzanne Somers mostly appeared on various television shows as herself, either as a talk show guest or sometimes in a humorous cameo. Outside of television and film work, Somers was an author and health and fitness advocate. Her biggest claim to fame outside of work on Three’s Company and Step by Step was promoting the home exercise device ThighMaster. Suzanne Somers appeared in commercials and infomercials selling the ThighMaster all throughout the ’90s.

Somers was recently buried at Desert Memorial Park in Cathedral City, California, as part of a ceremony handled by a funeral home in Palm Springs, California.