After the Fall: How I Picked Myself Up, Dusted Myself Off, and Started All Over Again - Hardcover

Somers, Suzanne

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0609603124 ISBN 13: 9780609603123

Publisher: Crown, 1998

Synopsis

In this moving and inspiring follow-up to her New York Times best-selling memoir, Keeping Secrets, Suzanne Somers revisits her years before and after Three's Company and reveals with fearless self-examination how the dizzying rise and fall of her television career mirrored the chaos and conflict in her personal life.  
        With her usual candor and perspective, Suzanne takes readers inside the rehearsal hall of Three's Company and offers a never-before-seen look at the competition, jealousy, and greed that accompanies a hit TV show. As the lovable
Chrissy Snow, Suzanne Somers became the toast of Hollywood, with all its glittery perks. Yet all was not perfect, she confesses. Simultaneously, her professional success and her relationship with her husband, the love of a lifetime, were being sorely tested as they attempted to blend their families together and were forced to deal with the anger and resentment of their mutual children.
        When she became the first female star to ask for the same pay as male television stars, Suzanne was fired from Three's Company and the once-
welcoming doors to the most powerful offices in Hollywood slammed shut. For the better part of the next decade, she was unofficially blackballed from television because of this incident.
         In this insightful memoir, Suzanne tells all, from the heady days of stardom to her fall from grace and the grief that followed, to her eventual resurrection as an entrepreneur, best-selling author, and, once again, beloved TV star. Every reader who's ever experienced loss or felt a great opportunity slip through his or her fingers can relate
to Suzanne's story of how she fought back, won
control over her own destiny, and learned lessons along the journey.

About this title

Review:

You have to admire a book with the prologue: "My goal in life is to become the person my dog thinks I am." Suzanne Somers's third book, After the Fall chronicles how she became blackballed from Hollywood after demanding a raise for her role on Three's Company. While she was only asking for pay equal to that of male TV stars of that era ($150,000 a week), she was promptly canned from the show and had difficulty finding acting work for the next decade. Simultaneously, Somers was dealing with her new husband's chilly treatment toward her son from her first marriage, Bruce, and Bruce's reaction to having a stepsister and a stepbrother.

Somers's descriptions of the star-studded Hollywood parties can occasionally become too heavy-handed, and it can be hard to sympathize when Somers says she had to cut back her lavish spending, such as on her $1,500-a-day personal hair stylist and makeup artist. However, readers interested in behind-the-scenes descriptions such as those of inflamed egos on the set of the show, the intricacies of the filming of a Barbara Walters interview, and the drama of choreographing a Las Vegas show will find this book a revealing read, especially given its 16 pages of pictures.

From the Back Cover:

What could be worse than losing the number one television show in America? Not losing it. Had I continued playing Chrissy Snow on Three's Company, the humongous hit TV show, I would not be the Suzanne I am today--a person
I am happy to be.
        I had been moving full speed in America's fast lane. Life was great. Nothing could stop me now, I thought. Money was plentiful; work was coming at me like bullets on an artillery range. I could pick and choose. I was dancing in the big time.
        Then one day while my life was "speeding along the highway," someone opened the back door of the car and kicked me out. Suddenly I found myself sitting on the side of the road all alone, watching a cloud of dust as the car sped on without me.
--From the Introduction

About this edition

• Publisher: Crown
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0609603124
• ISBN 13: 9780609603123
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 308