Suzanne Somers

On exceeding expectations and making the most out of any opportunity

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Yeah. So I was at a party recently and you're talking,
you're socializing, you have a drink, and you're excited to
have a drink someone as you're thirsty, you want water,
but like the drinks there, and to me, a margarita
and water feel just as good in the moment, not

(00:25):
quite the next day, but literally in the moment. A
frozen margarita is like I've been on the Star Wars
desert for ten years and it tastes just as good
as water, which is why I wake up with a
neck ache, a headache, a body ache, because I just
don't like water. So when you don't like water and
when you do like alcohol, you know, it's it's not

(00:45):
that great to mix them because you're already a thirsty,
dehydrated person, you know, and then you drink the alcohol.
So anyway, I went to this party recently with this
sort of fancy, high end caterer and they were serving
wine and I was drinking, and I and drinking water,
and you're talking, and so you're not you know, you
kind of are always aware. You're gon at a restaurant
of like the waiter who wants to keep filling your

(01:08):
glass because they want you to order another bottle of wine,
which is sort of a scam to me where if
you go out of your girlfriends and you order one
glass of wine at the bar, they give you one glass,
you finish it. You know what you're doing. You could
have water in between, you could sip it, you could
ic it, you could plub soda it. It's your body
or your wine, your choice. Then you get another one.
When you're at a party or restaurant and they're topping
you off, it's fucked for everybody. I'll tell you why

(01:31):
you're not sitting there like with a measuring stick, counting
what you're doing. So now you're drank one glass of wine,
you're a little ready, a little buzzed. So now you
don't have the wherewithal to be talking to the person
behind you who's pouring that glass of wine, and you're
now you could drink like five drinks when you normally
would drink two in a night. And topping off should

(01:51):
be banned. Like topping off you're having a part, if
you're having a party, if you're at a restaurant, if
you're on a first date, if you're on a blind date,
if you're on an online eight. That's how you get
into serious situations. That's how you're having sex on the
first date. That's how you end up in frat houses
when you're you know years old. Do not allow topping off.

(02:14):
It's just ruins your next day. If you're over thirty five,
your whole weekend is blown. That's on a Friday night.
So I had a recent experience where a cater kept
topping me off and I knew it, but in the moment,
it was like, I think the game was moving too fast.
I was probably in a conversation. I didn't want to
scold a topp er offer and look at the messa
got me in, So just let the person know, no,

(02:34):
thank you. I just would rather just like finish each
class and then we can have a little discussion and
circle back and park that for now, because topping off
is no good and also expensive makes you order more
wine than you need. My guest today is Susanne Summers.

(02:55):
She's an actress, New York Times bestselling author and entrepreneur.
America fell in love with her on Threes Company, and
through her career spanning decades beyond that. She's actually in
the Infomercial Hall of Fame. She has sold more than
ten million thigh Masters now. Her brand includes wellness, makeup,
cleaning products, and so much more. She is a force.

(03:15):
There is basically nothing she hasn't or can't do. Today
we're talking about why ignorance is sometimes the best business
secret and how to turn any negative situation into an opportunity.
We have so much income and you are going to
love this one. I certainly did. Hi. Hi. Finally, it's

(03:42):
so terrific to get to do this with you for
so many reasons that you're not aware of that. I'm
so in tune with what you've done and so excited
for this conversation. Um, so we'll go on this journey
and and and and see if the preconceived notions I
have about you are true. So welcome, well, thank you,

(04:06):
and I admire you too, you know, I love um
you take an opportunity and then fly with it, like
you know Housewives of New York. When I first started,
there was a lot of kind of feeling about it,
and you just made that show fly. So you're my
kind of girl. I feel that that's what you did.
And of a cute show, I mean a cute, successful,
innovative show. So you where did you grow up? I

(04:28):
grew up in northern California, very middle class little town
called San Bruno. And really all I ever wanted to
do was get out of San Bruno. I just I
knew there was something beyond where I was living. It
was a very very blue collar, middle class. My father
was the baseball coach, and and the town drunk. Well,

(04:49):
how can someone young in a town like that? One?
That's all that you know? Was it TV? Was it movies?
Was it magazines? What was it that made you think
there were a bigger world out there? I you know,
I've I've thought about that, um, because nobody had pursued
any kind of big dreams in my life. My father,

(05:11):
um did. My father was all city baseball in San Francisco,
and there was a lightweight fighter and champion and all that,
and he was being scouted for the San Francisco Seals,
which at that time was the Major League baseball team.
And then, as happened with so many men of that generation,

(05:33):
World War two came and they were whisked away, and
when they came back, they lost their window of opportunity.
And in losing that window of opportunity, he ended up
putting cases of beer onto a box card for a living.
He must have hated it, must have hated it. And
he would come home from work every day because he
worked in a brewery just drunk and then drink whiskey
all night and get ship faced. And and um, I

(05:56):
loved him, as you do when you're a child. But um,
it was a miserable existence. And so I had to
hide in the closet, in fact, all of us did.
On the really bad nights. My mother would come round
us up in that voice, get in the closet, Get
in the closet, getting the closet. And you know, it's
interesting how you take things as normal when that's what

(06:18):
you're living with. And we go and all huddled together
in this cedar closet we had. We had a chest
there that my brothers and sister and my mother and
I would sit. And at times he make his way
upstairs and bang on the door looking for us. It
was like the monster out there. So what do you
do when you can't cope? When you're a kid, You dream?

(06:42):
And I used to uh dream that I was on
a big stage and that I was famous, and I
was singing, and my mother was in the front row,
and she was finally proud and happy. I think it
was the dream of a little girl who wanted I
wanted to help my mother so badly, but what can

(07:03):
you do your your impotent? Maybe that dream is more
potent than we think. I remember giving the commencements um
speech at National University, and I remember saying that the
dreams we had as children were us talking to ourselves
about the possibility about ourselves. Some of us tuned into

(07:24):
that and some of us don't. I guess I tuned
into that because it came true. Um many years later,
I was starring on the in Las Vegas, on the
MGM Grand Stage, my own show, the Suzanne Summers Show,
with the twenty five piece orchestra and twelve dancers and
ten costume change and guess who was in the front row. Wow,

(07:46):
there was my mother and she was proud and she
was happy. And by then my father had sobered up.
So it's been a journey that had to be a
lot to heal and repair. I wrote several books um
about in the Child of the Alcoholic, and in fact
started the Adult Shoulder of Alcoholics movement. What is that?
That's we're the kids who grow up with alcoholics, but

(08:07):
we don't drink alcoholically, but something's not right with us?
What's wrong? And when I wrote that book Keeping Secrets,
I was done at the large audiences people adults starving
for clarity. They look seemingly okay, but what is wrong
with them? And it was a very potent experience I lectured.

(08:30):
I still lecture on that from time to time, but
it's moved on into my other areas of passion. I
relate to that. I relate to that a lot. I
grew up in a house where you're walking on eggshells
and always walking in on something and complete rage and
breaking everything in the house, and you become a person
that's sort of just like a little just a little fraid,
a little like manic, a little, you know. And I

(08:53):
was talking to my therapist today about this. It just
came up because I know somebody personally who has that
greek and you meet other people and my and I said,
this other person, I know that streak. And I'm a
very strong personality, meaning I'll say what I think to someone,
but I might not say what I think to someone
who I know has that nasty streak because you just

(09:16):
see it come out and it is my mom, my mother.
I mean, it's my mother, like you know, just in
screaming or something irrational. And she said to me, Um,
we subconsciously are attracted to those people. Not meaning all
my friends are like that, but there are some people
that we will be attracted to you in our lives
that bring that up. And you probably have had that too.

(09:38):
There's someone around you that has had something that reminds
you of that experience, right. I think we're attracted to
that because we're trying to figure out how to get
out from underneath it, how to resolve it. When I
first met my husband as a twenty year old, UM,
but he was my second husband who I'm still married to,
Alan Campbell. Uh, he was quite control in the early years,

(10:02):
quite controlling, and Um, we fought and fought and fought.
We fought over his control issue, both of our control issues,
because somewhere deep inside me, I no longer want to
be controlled ever again. And then of course we were
blending families, and we were the first generations that blended families.
That was so difficult. Um. But what I did with

(10:25):
my husband, what we did with one another, we we
never quite figured out what we were really arguing about
until in my therapy session came up we're arguing about
a level playing field. I just wanted a level playing field,
and we achieved that. And um, we achieved that. I
forgave my father fully. Fully you can't kind of you know,

(10:48):
Oh it's okay, now you have to kind of sense.
That's why I gave a little backstory on what what
made them that way, and then it's much easier to
forgive them. Yes, you put yourself in their shoes, and
you think maybe I would have been the same way.
So that's the that's the definition of compassion. But okay,
so you're you're a little girl and you're trying to
come out from something and survive something and be something

(11:12):
and prove something. And um, how did you create your
first success? How did you get the Three's Company gig?
I want to know, Um, did you have a feeling
that that was going to be a successful show where
this was just getting a paycheck getting a gig and
you're just a young actress. Well, I have to roll
back a little bit. I um getting pregnant as a teenager, Um,

(11:35):
first time I ever had sex? If that was at
what age? At eighteen. Well, okay, I gave birth one
month after my nineteenth birthday. At that time, remember when
girls had to get married, and just the fact and
more control. I'm now married to a really nice guy.
I mean, it really wasn't his fault. He should have

(11:56):
been getting married at twenty years old and I should
have been getting married at eighteen years old. Um, but
I felt trapped and choked. Yet I had this baby
I've got. I fell in love the moment they pulled
Bruce from my my loins. It was just, man, that
mother's love thing is something so incredible. So I divorced

(12:19):
uh that year, and it was a shameful thing. A.
Now I had to I was the daughter sound drunk. Um,
I had to get married and then I was the
first one I knew up to get a divorce. Triple crown.
Great start, great start. Yeah. So I had I had
this thing about me and I just had to make

(12:39):
a living. I wasn't getting any child's order, alimony or anything.
And um, I m started working extra in movies and
like the I was if there's an A B in
a C, a fashion model. I was between B and C.
I was too short and busty, and I usually got
the standing in front of the show lay or smoking

(13:01):
the not smoking smoking the cigarette, and um, really I
got Three's company because I love Dallen Hamill. Why I
He was living in Los Angeles the day that I
met him. I was twenty years old, and it was
like in the comic books, Boying just incredible. Um, and

(13:22):
we're living in different cities. But he had to come
up to San Francisco every week because he was doing
one of his series out of kgot V in San Francisco.
And so I read in the Trades, don't know where
I got the trades, you know there are no accidents,
and it said they're looking for a guest star for
the Dom Delouis Show next Tuesday, two o'clock NBC, Burbank.

(13:48):
The description was small town girl doesn't know who she
is and doesn't know what she looks like. And I'm
smartness to go that is so me. I don't know
who I am, I don't know what I looked at.
I don't know anything. So I told Alan, because I
wasn't bluffing, it was reality. I didn't know I needed
an agent. I didn't know anything. When you don't know
anything you can kind of bombard your way in. Well,

(14:11):
that's a great note for people, because ignorance is bliss.
If I ever knew how crowded and competitive the cocktail
liquor space was, I wouldn't have even done it. I
didn't even I just had an idea. I walked forward.
So sometimes it's not good to know too much. Analysis
is paralysis. Sometimes I love I love both of those sayings.
Ignorance is bliss is what I was looking for to

(14:32):
so um. I said to Alan, I've got this interview
at NBC Burbank on Tuesday at two o'clock. And he said, well, great,
I'll pick you up an airport, which is really all
I wanted, with that great kiss in the car when
you haven't seen each other for a week, and he
drove me over to Burbank. Against ignorance is bliss. The
guard says, what are you here for. I said, I'm
here for the Dom Delawi show. And I said it
was such confidence because I didn't know I needed an

(14:53):
agent to set it up or anything. And the guard said, oh, okay,
you can park over there. So I park over there,
or Alan parks over there, and I go into where
the interview is and they're all these girls there and
they look like me, only they're all much betch better
looking blonde beauties. And I kind of watched what they
were doing. And they went up to the receptionist and
signed in, and then the receptionist handed them the script.

(15:15):
So I walked over. I signed in, the receptionist hand
the script um then I was called in to read.
And when I finished reading for a guy by the
name of Sam den Off. So eventually I worked on
another series with years later. Uh. When I finished, he said,
very nice, he said, I'm gonna and I thought, well, yeah,
of course, I'm a small town girl. I don't know
who I am and I don't know what I looked

(15:35):
by me said I'm going to give you a call back,
and I said, well, thank you. So I go to
the receptionist and I said, I've got to call back.
That's Beginner's a luck. I mean, it's not luck, but
that's I mean, I've auditioned in my life. I've never
had that experience. That's unbelievable, I think because I so
believe that who they described was me. So I just
I just was that person. And so I said to

(15:56):
the receptions. Um, what is the call back? And she's
looked at me strange. She said, well, they're going to
call you back. I said one. She said I don't know.
I said, well like today. She said, oh yeah today.
I said, well where, And now she's getting irritated with
me because I'm her problem. These words changed my life.
She said, I don't know. Why didn't you go a

(16:16):
wait in the commissary. That's what changed my life. So
I go over to the commissary. It's down about three
o'clock and I'm sitting there all by myself. I didn't
buy anything because I didn't have any money, and I'm
sitting there alone and over there walks in Johnny Carson
and I said, oh my god, there's Johnny Carson. And
I'm sitting there and I thought, oh my god, Johnny

(16:36):
Carson is walking over to me. Oh my god. Stop
and he says, hey, little lady, what are you doing here?
And I said, I have a callback. I had some
wing going right, like oh what I said for the
dom Dellwi showing oh he's a good friend of mine.
I hope you get it. So, um, I didn't have
an eight by ten, but I have written the Book

(16:58):
of Poetry nineteen, This is All Night, and seventy three,
and I got somehow got this book of poetry written.
And when you're a sad and thoughtful child, you right,
you're right, You're right, You're right, You're right. That's funny.
Do you write more than you read? Um at the moment, yeah,
although I don't know now. I read medical books. I
just I devoured them because I need to be up

(17:20):
on all that. But I'm also passionate about that anyway. Um,
I just hand Johnny Carson this book of mine because
it had a picture of me on the front. That
was Wednesday three, I don't remember the month, Friday night,
and that week I made my television national television debut
on The Tonight Show, and I thought, oh my god,

(17:42):
they must have loved my poetry. So I didn't own
a dress, as you can imagine, So I went out
and I wrote it, wrote a bad check for a
a dress, seventy five dollars. But when you're you know,
twenty years old, seventy five dress looks great on you.
And um, I'm standing behind that thing was curtain, and
I hear Johnny Carson say, well, we've all been wondering

(18:07):
who the mysterious blonde in the Thunderbird was, and I thought, oh,
it's not the poetry. I only had one credit. I appeared,
you know, in a five seconds spot in American Raffeitti.
He said, well we found her, and the curtain opened
and the audience went. I hadn't even seen American graffitti
at that time. I didn't know that how iconic it

(18:28):
became and still is to this day. And I went
out and nervously giggled and answered literally everything. You know,
he said, when you get to town, I said today.
I was like a little kid. You know, if you
talk to a kid on the phone, but what are
you doing? They go talking on the phone. He likes me,
and he started having me on every month to read

(18:50):
him poetry, and my little Book of Poetry became the
best selling book of poetry in America next to Rod
McEwen in nine seventy three. Oh my, On one or
many of those times, the president of ABC, Fred Silverman,
as he tells me, was watching and they had cast
Chrissie Snow the part. I eventually had on three company

(19:12):
with two different actresses, and they neither of them tested
well and Fred Silverman told me, he said, I got
the girl. I see her on the Tonight show all
the time. And so that's how I got called in
for Three's Company. No training had the leading guys and
dolls in high school. That was about it. Um. I
think what happened on Threees Company is day one. I

(19:33):
sat there and I thought, I just got a fess.
I said, I am, I don't even know how I
got here. I've never studied acting, but I learned real fast.
And I think that pissed everybody off because Joyce had,
you know, gone to U C l A and she
won all the awards, and John, you know, was highly
credentialed and studied. Um, so when the show took off

(19:54):
and I kind of emerged along with John as you
know what that show is about. Because I got it
right away. I figured out what it was. It created
attention on the set um, not with John, but with Joyce,
if I recall, and I don't like to put words
in her mouth, but that's what I picked up. And um,

(20:17):
and I don't blame her here. I am no, no,
I've never studied anything, and she's all she's done is study.
To this day, I'm sure she still takes classes or
teaches or whatever. She's technically great, But isn't that a
lesson in people going with their instincts something? It's back
to paralysis. I mean analysis is paralysis, meaning you know,
there are many trained actors that are very resentful of

(20:38):
the whole reality television space because it seems like a
free ride. But you know, I've done shows that are
not in reality television, and not that they haven't been
as good there. There. It is an art form in
and of itself, whether respected or not. Everything now can
be creation. And that's so interesting what you're saying, Like
it doesn't there doesn't have to be a guide book
for everything, which can be liberating for people. Hard is

(21:00):
the guide book in my opinion. Hard. You definitely were
taking it seriously. You're probably on time, knowing all your
lines and had your act together. No I did, and
and and uh you know like you you uh took
took that reality environment and what you knew what to
do and what to do in reality is how do

(21:21):
you achieve being yourself? Well, you just said that you
got what it was. So for people at home, it
doesn't matter if you're talking about an office or a
job or a new problem. You got what what? That's
what just jumped off the page. You've got what? Oh
I understand, I'm not. I'm not stuck in it, like
my face so deep into it that I don't understand
what it is overthinking it. Because that's how I would
be an actress. I would be overthinking it. I would

(21:43):
be too, I would be joystill, I would have a
difficulty to be just free. But for some reason, you
were young and ignorance against was bliss and and and
like me in the liquor business, you just understood what
the gig was and what the energy, and you didn't
overthink it, but you took the brass tacks of it
very seriously. And also, I'm working with two real genius
comic actors. I remember it took me to a year two,

(22:07):
but the show was already number one, so they were
liking what I was doing. But it was all kind of,
you know, by the seat of my pants. But by
year till watching John one day and I had nirvana.
I thought, oh, comedy is musical. I am musical. It's
set up, set up, beat, And then I created I
because I remember thinking, oh, dumb blondes are so unlikable.

(22:29):
I created a dumb blonde that was likable and lovable.
She had a moral coach. She'd never lied, she'd never
take away your husband or boyfriend. She was easily shocked
um and people got who she was. And I gave
her a posture, you know, with the shoulders up and
the knees in. And when I watched little girls, they
were always twiddling their fingers. So Chrissie Snow twiddled her fingers,

(22:53):
you know, all the time while she was thinking, and
people just started um anticipating what she was going to
do next. When we would do a show on Friday nights,
they would laugh before I would say it or do it.
And that's when I knew I've I've handled this. But then,
you know, year one, I I don't I signed on
for anything. If you don't want to pay me, don't

(23:15):
to pay me. But by year six, I, you know,
became aware I'm on the number one show. I have
the highest demographics of any woman in television. And the
men are making ten to fifteen times more than me,
are they ten to fifteen times funnier or better than me?
And so my contract was up. I had to renegotiate.

(23:36):
My husband went in on my behalf and um I
was waiting at home. Uh, because there was no cell
phones at the time. Imagine, and I hear the front
door open real slow. That's not a good sign. I
hear coming up the stairs very slowly. That's not good.
I would meet him at the landing and he looks
at me. He said, you're out. I said amount. He said,

(23:57):
you were fired within the first five minutes I was there.
He said, they're gonna make an example of you. So
no other woman has the audacity to ask you take
commensurate with them in you're on six seasons and then

(24:21):
you were upset. I bet you could have gone back
in some way if you put your tail between your legs,
but you decided to jump and fly. So I want
to hear sort of about that ar because that's not
easy for people when you have a safety net. People
on housewives are making a lot of money now, and
I could go back tomorrow. I still choose to separate myself,
to grow and to not be there. You know, you

(24:43):
still respecting where I came from. So I want to
hear about that arc for you and what that feels
like and what that is and that takes courage. And
by the way, your idea for skinny girls, that was
just inspired. Um, you know, it's all about having a
great idea. I wanted to go back to I didn't
want to be fired. I was devastated. But they slammed

(25:05):
that door, and then, like with mom fury that the
whole cast and crew and everybody involved with that show,
uh turned on me and shunned me. I remember walking
down Rodeo Avenue one day and the wardrobe by who
we worked out the Prissie snow look, you know, with
the ponytails and the short shorts and the suspenders and

(25:26):
the knee socks and all that. We had so much
fun doing that. He saw me turn the other way
across the street. I'm thinking, well, so, I don't know
what the producers told um, the cast and crew, but man,
did they work against me. The the producer, because when
I came in it was Nichols Ross and West Mickey Ross. Um. Interesting,

(25:49):
he kind of looks like my husband looks today. His
hair was kind of silver and curly, that great way
that men's hair gets in the tan and then and
got muscles and all that. Uh, Nicky wasn't anything like that,
but reminds me of it. And uh, he became when
I said I don't know what I'm doing, he took
me under his wing. I remember watching the Olympics when

(26:11):
you're Nadia Koma Niche and her coach, and she wouldn't
do anything without looking at him, for she would go
flip and turn and do and then she turned to
look at him and he'd be seeing. He'd go like this,
and so Lippy Ross would do that with me. He would,
you know, I do a scene. I then I booked
to him and he'd go like this, or he'd go
thumbs up. One day after I heard you know, oh

(26:32):
this is music, I didn't need him anymore and it
made him so angry with me. And then I married
Alan Hamill. And what I realized in retrospect, because it
was Alan Hamill negotiating with this guy over my contract,
this guy had fallen in love with me the way
of father desires his daughter but knows it's wrong that
he didn't come on to me. But in retrospect, if

(26:52):
I think about how he was with me, controlling back
to the control, yeah, exactly was there there you go,
and I've fell right into it. So Um, that's why
I couldn't go back. It was because it was ego,
egos ruining the best deals, as you know, and everybody's
egos were out of whack. Uh. In fact, I was
cleaning out a raw yesterday because I'm moving from my

(27:13):
house of forty five years, and I found a letter
that I wrote to John after that of why what John?
You and I and we it was so great and
we were the greatest sparring team. It was like a
ping pong ball game. He'd banged across the table and
I bang it back and what happened and why? But
but I didn't think about until yesterday. Newsweek, remember when

(27:38):
Newsweek was the biggest magazine in the country. Weekly came
to put Three's Company on the cover, and the producers,
who were just jerks. They should have just been open
with everybody. We all go down there and they want
me and my little Chrissie Teddy at which I still have.
By the way, one of the things I did take. Um,
he the photographer sets us up, uh, and he keeps

(28:02):
putting me in the middle and kind of in the
highest spot in the middle, and I'm uncomfortable, and I
can tell the other two are getting angry and I'm no,
So I moved to the side and let Joyce be
in the middle of the tug for take a couple
of pictures. Okay, Joyce, you go down here today and
get in the middle, and I then do it with John.
Put John in the middle, and well it comes out.
The magazine comes out. At that time, it was the

(28:22):
highest selling cover of Newsweek. I'm wearing this little blue
teddy with the strap hanging off, and John was biting
one shoulder, and Joyce was kind of down at my hip,
and it was clearly I was the center stage. That
were never quite the same after that, So that when
I then got up in the and asked to be paid,

(28:42):
you know, commensurate with the men I'll be at, my
contract was up. I had to renegotiate. I think it
was easy for everyone to fall in anger with me.
Joyce had been angry all along, or how dare you?
I'm all, I've got all the credentials, Pseudo and John,
and I'm supposed to be the star of the show.
And what I said in the letter yesterday that I
was reading that is what thirty five years old. I

(29:05):
keep stuff um, there was room startom. There's a room
for everybody with Starter. Because you're only a start You're
completely unique. So I don't know something. I'm terribly wrong.
None of them ever talked to me again. One month
before John Ridder died, I'm at the beauty salon and
I'm in the shampoo bowl and the receptionist comes up
and she says, you have a phone call. And I said,

(29:26):
thank you. Can you take a message? She said, well,
it's John Ridder. Huh. So I go to the phone
with my dripping head and um, I said John, And
he said, hey, babe, I forgive you. So I had
a moment of whoa, whoa, you forgive me? And then
I thought, put on your big girl pants, Suzanne, So
I said thank you. So what he was calling about

(29:49):
was he was doing that TV series Eight Simple Rules,
and he said, we have a scene we want to do.
It's a night I'm having a nightmare and in my nightmare,
you enjoyce app here. And I said, you know, there's
been a longing for the two of us to reunite.
I don't think that longing. It really encompasses that I'm
your nightmare, right right, I said, But I would love

(30:13):
to work with you again. Why don't we find a project?
And we talked for a while and you said yeah,
And then a month later he died. So I did
have resolution with it. First of all, play cating to
people that are jealous of you and trying to eat
level the playing field, which you said in a different way,
though it doesn't. Now you're spending your energy trying to

(30:33):
like water yourself down and darm yourself down to what's
going on. You were not always going to get the
chance to be successful at things. I've failed at more
things than I've succeeded at. But it's very uncomfortable to
work when you're aware that the elephant in the rooms
people are envious of you, and then you are also
aware that when you left, the secret sauce was missing,
and so are they. That drives them crazy even more.

(30:55):
I left, the ratings car went down a lot. They
begged me back. Then the cast want to be back.
We've been through similar things, So I would say advice
is probably like for people just too. You have to
play your own game and just be a good person,
but you can't control what other people are thinking and doing,
especially when you're thriving, you are extremely astute. The secret sauce,

(31:16):
I've never thought of it that way, but that is
it messed up the recipe. I watched it, and I
watched the other pretty cute, dumb blonde come in, and
it just wasn't the same. She was lovely. It just
was what it was. But that was your moment in time.
And had you focused more on everybody else being jealous
and making them feel better, you probably wouldn't have succeeded.
So then nobody's going to do well. So if you're

(31:37):
at work and you're thriving, be a team player. Be
kind to other people, but run your own race. And
Allen and I were such a strong team, and he
had He's such a visionary and he always sees everything
many years down the road. I remember when I opened
in Vegas and I had all the you know, the
twenties five piece orchestra and the the twelve dancers and

(31:58):
the ten costume changed and it was such a sick
sets I remember whatnot. I came off stage and he said,
I see a time when it'll just be you out
there by yourself. I thought, not when? When? Why? And
now I mainly go out solo by myself when your
whole career seems like a solo act. For sure. Yeah,
if I'm doing my nightclub act like I had a
residency in Vegas two years ago and I loved it

(32:18):
at the West Gate. I had my piano, drums, bass, um,
two horns and um, incredible sounded lights and a seven
D fifty seat room, nice intimate room. I loved, loved it.
But I remember when I being out there thinking, here,
I am all by myself, just as Alan always said.

(32:40):
But in the Three's Company days, I slash. We saw
Three's Company as a business bonanza. And I went to
the producers and I said, you know, Christie Snow should
be a Saturday Morning animated cartoon. Wow. And then I
went another time. I said, Chrissie Snow wears these distinct clothes.

(33:02):
We should do a line of clothing. Oh wow is right. Wow.
I'm an entrepreneur like you. And I remember this guy
Nicky Ross got screamed at me. He said, this is
not about business, It's about this show. And I thought,
with gods, show business, and so it's interesting. After I
got fired and I became a Vegas headliner, Um, I

(33:27):
started writing books during the day because I had nothing
to do during the day. And then this woman presented
us with the device and it was called a v Toner,
and Alan and I are looking at this device as
she's describing for your upper body and for your pectorals
and shoulders and everything, and I said, would that work

(33:50):
on the inner thighs? And she said, oh yeah, she said,
but it's you know, people are more concerned about those shoulders.
I said, not women. Women don't like those jig leave thighs.
So we decided to We named it the thigh Master.
We decided to run with it. So one night, I'm
in my dressing room and I bought a pair of
I'm sure you have two those Manola blonde shoes. Perfect.

(34:13):
They're just nude, perfect pointy toe, the perfect total leavage,
the right arch, the perfect sized heel, and they make
your legs look amazing. So but they're what at that time,
five dollars and I'm in my dress whom I thought,
Oh god, Alansman, I think I'm so stupid for spending
almost six hundred bucks on a pair of shoes. So
I walked out of my dressing room with my broad

(34:33):
underpants and I said do you like my new shoes?
And he looks me up and down. He has this
great radio voice and those great legs, and I said,
that's the commercial. And that became the commercial, the commercial
that sold ten million thigh maunters and masters in County.
UM started on those shoes. So I was able to, uh,

(34:55):
you know, write them off, go up my leg. I
wore a blue lea hard and I had the red
brend blue thime Master and gave the little pitch. And
it was at a time when people weren't doing commercials,
celebrities weren't doing commercials. Um late night talk shows were

(35:15):
doing thime Master jokes. I mean David Letterman was doing
thime Master jokes for a while, Carson was doing thi
Master jokes, and Late j Letto was doing thime Master jokes.
And at the momentum just kept kept. You know, you
have the right name, It's like it's like skinny wow.
When you get the right name, it catches the imagination
of the public. So we have so much in common.

(35:36):
I've never I've never interviewed someone that I that I
can like find something that is a connective piece. Where
when I came out with the cocktail. As a woman,
every publicist used to say when you were taking pictures,
put your cocktail down. You can't be holding a cocktail
a picture. Now every single celebrity is holding a cocktail.
So you you know the form and grill was after

(35:57):
you assume yes, yeah, okay, so that was revolutionary. I mean,
you know, there were those like infomercials, but it wasn't
people that we knew of from TV. So was that?
So I now know that you're entertaining and your vegas
and your shows are your more your passion and you
being a woman is where all of that sort of

(36:17):
medical knowledge comes from in that experience, But it feels
like you really are absolutely an entrepreneur at heart. And
was that your biggest financial hit by far? When you're
an entrepreneur, as you know, you hope for a time master,
I've got another. I've got a hit right now. If
you listen, if you listen to the language of the people,

(36:42):
they tell you what they want. And I have these
spacebook live shows, and um, all the compearing is I'm
loaded and constipated, and I'm tired, and my hair is
stringy and my skin doesn't look good. And it was
clear because I had I had written a book called
Toxic about what all the toxins are doing to our

(37:06):
GI tracks, and then I wrote the next book followed
that theme, and UM, so we created a product called Renew.
It's not everything in it that you didn't have today
or I didn't have today, And for lack of a
better description, all the different things that are in it
all from nature worked like speckle on those holes in

(37:26):
the g I track and kind of seal up the leaks.
There are recipes on there, but even you can even
put it with water. I have it with My favorite
one is UM frozen banana, A spoonful of chocolate UM,
some organic yogurt, coconut milk and chocolate almond milk and
two spoons of this, and you whip it all together.

(37:48):
And it's so easy to get all your vitamins down
that way because it's thick, but it's tasty and and
good for you. It's amazing. It's amazing. I love that
I went to school for food and healing. I'm a
natural food chef, so I love all of this, and
I love that you care about all this and that
you're so health focused but in a balanced realistic way again.
I remember the Susanne. You had the Susanne Summer's Diet,

(38:11):
which was like a more modern healthy version of the
Atkins diet where people were just like eating their weight
and steak and bacon and it was crazy steak, bacon
and cheese, which was not healthy at all. And then
you came out in a more reasonable way about food
combining Yah, high fat, high vegetable, high protein, but good fat. Yeah,
including butter as long as organic. Right, Yeah, I remember

(38:33):
it was great. I remember that. Yeah, I've been following
you for years without even sort of I forgot that
I was I would try that diet. Yeah. Keeping your
cards close to the vest seems like it's been something
that you've definitely done in your career, and I think
that that's important, important for people. Meaning you aren't telling
everybody your whole plan. You just were sort of keeping
your head down. Not only in your character Chrissy, but

(38:54):
as a professional, do you um consider what percentage do
you consider yourself lucky and what percentage smart? I think
anyone who hits it as an entrepreneur or a star
in a television series, it's right time, right place, right look,
and luck. Luck always plays it. There are a lot
of people, you know who've got everything going for themselves

(39:15):
who have never had that luck. But it's not that
I didn't pursue it like you. You've pursued yours, you know.
Um uh, I'm struck by how a student you are,
that you're you've got what are you like, fifty years old? Yes,
I just turned fifty. Um, you've got perspective of someone

(39:35):
more my age. Um. Yeah. It takes a long time
to get that perspective, to be able to look down
on things like, ah, yeah, I've been there that I know, yes, yes, yes,
and figure out how it worked in the whole scheme
of things. Well, I had a crazy life too. I
was literally I was going into nightclubs and when I

(39:57):
was thirteen years old, like literally and going into so yeah,
it's with fourteen. I kind of had a crazy stuff
going on my house and I was five, six and seven,
and like you know, I'd be calling the cops. And
it's interesting. This show is the best thing I've ever done.
I love it so much because I get to have
a conversation like this and my fiance. This morning, I
was talking to Susanne Summers today and He's like, I

(40:18):
love the variety of people because it's unpredictable. I literally
could have Hillary Clinton, you, and then someone that is
running Comcast that no one's ever heard of. But I
find their story interesting because it's about being an entrepreneur
and had a breakthrough in a corporate environment. So to
be able to speak to people like you, and also
to talk to this audience a little bit about me

(40:40):
through you, like through the guests, I get to explain
a little bit of what I've been through. I'm never
really talking about myself. It's more about like connecting to
you and then then then them getting a little information
about me, um and relationships. One thing. Sorry, I've been
very aware of you for a long time, but today's
the day I got I get you, I get you

(41:01):
who you are, and I'm really really pleased to meet you.
Well me too, say likewise, that's and that's been an
amazing gift for me, just meaning some fascinating people and
being like, wow, we just we just turned their whole
career into some anecdotal thing and then you That's what
the show is about. Hearing like the blood, sweat and tears,
the hard work, the simplicity of why you're successful, even
though it's it's not that complicated. It's just these tools

(41:23):
that other people can have for themselves and make their
own tool box. Don't you find in the careers that
we have, they're cyclical, they're high, they're low, they're high,
they're low. You learn the most about yourself and where
you want to go next in during the low times,
right for most people spend those loads of times feeling
sorry for themselves. I use it as prep time because
I always know go up again. But I don't know

(41:44):
about you, but I can feel when it's going to
start to dip. And now I'm not dipping so much anymore.
When I feel that slide, I think I've gone as
far as I can go to this one. I turned
to the right or to the left and reinvent. Don't
you crazy? I call it the wool was like, you know,
you don't want to get too high in your own supply.
Things are going too well. It's not that you're negative,
but it's like, please, don't everybody think I'm so great

(42:07):
or I'm doing things that are so great. Like I
wanted to quiet down a little, and then the wolves come,
and but that's when the muscle was weak, and you
need to learn how to be fit. And that's when
you're like, Okay, let me hold this steering wheel. Not
too tight where I can't move, and not too loose
where I let go. Let me steer the car. And
that's when you learned. That's what you were just describing
like And so now you're right, you could sort of

(42:28):
feel it. They're not big jerk emotions. You're just kind
of riding a difficult highway. I could not. That's that
was like beyond exactly. And I've been on the verge
of cancelation and I've had crazy things happen. And during
the during the pandemic with us trying to get ppe, uh,
you know, being over my skis with millions of dollars

(42:50):
and people trying to scam us, and you know, really
having to like kick in. You're dealing with governments, dealing
with Governor Cuomo, and you're like, I'm in the big
leagues now I cannot screw up. That's when you really
find out what you're made of, you know. So I
love that you just said that you have gotten yourself
into a position that I've gotten myself and I'll be
in a different arena. You now know you can call anybody. Yes,

(43:14):
you're like my soul mate. This is so weird. I
always say that because you don't always need all the
agents you can. If you want to get him, you
want to do something a Netflix, you would probably call
Ted Sorrandos. He may not know you, but he knows
who you are. He'll take your call. I sat next
to him at the dinner party several years ago and
I didn't know who he was, and he wasn't introduced
to me, but he's my dinner partner. And I said,
what do you do? He said, I'm with Netflix, and

(43:36):
I went, oh, I'm glad I can't get mine to work.
And I saw've got Ted Surrandos saying, well, you gotta
get the box to do the stuff. I didn't know
he owned Netflix. Um, what is your uh, your rose
and your thorn of your career? Not your life of
your I've only took more questions, but one is rose

(43:56):
and thorn of your career? He rose? Um, hm, the
rose is always on stage. The last time I was
on stage here, right before the pandemic. There's a great
theater down here in the desert called the McCallum, and
there's a Leon Russell song that I sing and I
sing it to my husband, although I don't say that
to the audience. And I talked about lyrics is poetry

(44:20):
and that Leon Russell has written some of the most
beautiful songs, and the song that I sang is a
song for you. I've been so many places in my
life and time, and I've sung a lot of songs.
I've made some bad rhyme, I've acted out my life
on stages with ten thousand people watching. But we're alone,
and I'm singing this song for you. I don't know.

(44:41):
I was on stage and you could not hear a
pin drop. It's the most quiet experience I've ever experienced
personally in a theater. Because I think setting it up,
I said, you'll all, here's something different these lyrics. It
means something different to all of this, and I could

(45:03):
tell they all went within and when I finished, there
was a silent pause and then all of a sudden
everyone stood up and gave me a standing ovation. So
that's my wow, that was my favorite moment on stage.
So the so it sounds like you have a tremendous
I talk a lot about quote unquote successful relationships, meaning

(45:26):
successful relationships between successful people. And so before I was
going to ask if you've worked on it, But from
all the people that have been on here, I've gotten
different pieces of advice on relationships from give them a
long leash, to let them, you know, be who they are.
I'm who I am. We have date nights. We don't
do this. We don't expect for it to be. We

(45:48):
don't care what other people think or what optics are.
So what would you say about having a quote unquote
successful relationship. I've been with him now for fifty four years.
I am in love, in love. I wonder how many
times we tell each other we love each other throughout
the day. We sleep wrapped in one another's arms. I

(46:10):
have a terrible accident this year. I broke my neck
and my spine and my hip, and he took care
of me in the most tender, loving way. He lifted me,
He did everything for me for months because I was
They had said you need to get a have her
stay in some assistant living or get her live in nurse,

(46:34):
and Alan said, I'm the nurse. I'm the nurse. So
I've always loved Alan, but I'm more in love he Uh,
I know he adores me and I adore him, and
I love feeding him. I'm a real good cook, so
I cooked great meals for him and I there's no
one I would rather be with. You think as you

(46:55):
get older, um, you know it's uh, you don't give
to get, but when you give, you get. And so
these Facebook live shows that I do during the week
three Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and uh, Allen, you know the
the New Home Studios. It's like it's me and Alan
and then my daughter in law who's the president of

(47:17):
our company. She's on speaker phone, but he comes over
and he gets on camera, and the women love him.
And he's kind of a bad boy and he never
says what you're supposed to say, always says what he
wants to say. He just doesn't b s and he's
never going to be s A. Oh they just wish
they had someone like him. But what I what I
get out of these shows? Besides I get to teach,

(47:38):
I get to tell them about hormones. I get to
talk about my organic skin Caroline, how important I think
it is not to put chemicals on your skin or
in your body at all. And but what they see
is this relationship. I realized I touched his base all
the time, and we say nice things to one another,
and he leans in and he he jokingly is always

(48:01):
snicking my hair. Kind of a take on Biden. That's funny.
That's putting good out in the world, isn't it? Well?
It is? But has it always been like that? Has
it grown? Have you? Okay? That's what I think. That's
what people need to hear. That what you haven't been
madly in love for fifty years, like like a fairy
tale that you took work that you've either been through

(48:22):
therapy that you didn't you took them for granted or
vice versa, like you know, or unless it was just
a love affair from the day one, and then we
all can go seeal the windows and turn on the gas.
But whatever whatever it is, it was, honestly, it was
love at first sight. I told my mother and the
man I'm got married. It took ten years before we

(48:43):
got married. They were too. They were the sexiest, most romantic,
most tumultuous ten years. And then in the last of
those few years where we started bringing the families together,
his two children with my son man, there's no kid
who wants a new parent. I don't care how nice year,
They don't want a new character. So my son was
resenting him because my son was used to getting all

(49:05):
his attention from me and vice versa. And so that's
when we fought, because you feel protective of your own
kid and you know you're not understanding him, and well,
you're not understanding my kids. It wasn't until we actually
got married that they finally realized that we were a
united front, that they weren't going to break us up.
And then we worked real hard on becoming a real

(49:28):
family and achieved it. So it was a lot of work.
It's a process that blending that is a process. It's
something to get through, and it doesn't last forever. You've
been together fifty years. That was literally probably what seven
to ten years of your life. Yeah, and usually, if usually,
most people don't make it through that because nobody knew
what they were doing. We should have all been in therapy.
And eventually one of my my stepdaughter had a drug

(49:51):
problem and she had to be in the care unit,
and as a part of the care unit, the whole
family has to check in for a week. And that
was a very very valuable family weak where everybody got
to have their moment in front of a neutral arbitrator
across from whoever they were having the issues with and

(50:11):
say exactly what they felt. Nobody's feelings were hurt because
the therapist would go out. Now you have to hear
what he's saying. Listen and listen to the tone, look
at his body language. I firmly believe that all negatives
are opportunities. If you choose to look at it that way,
you can either say poor me, why me? Or you
can look at it say how can I use this

(50:32):
to grow spiritually and emotionally, Because it's not the problems
in your life that define who you are, and how
you respond to the problems in your life zactly define
who you are as a person. And I learned to
sell my problems. I realize I'm not unique. You and
I have the same problems, and so many people out there,
men and women. And so when you have gotten on

(50:52):
the other side of your issue, if you have a
louder voice like you do and I do, and you
can share you know what it was like, what it became,
and what it's like now. And now I'm experiencing bliss.
They want what you have and it makes going through
the experience worthwhile, not only for yourself but for those
who learning growth from it. Wow, that is an amazing

(51:14):
place to stop. I could talk to you for this
is now you've broken my record. I think you and
Kelly Rob I've spoken to for the longest because it's
just it was such an easy conversation, such amazing, beautiful discussion.
Thank you so much. Okay, say goodbye, EL, goodbye bye,
a good day. I might have a new favorite interview UM.

(51:42):
And my fiance Paul was saying to me today, I
love the variety of people you have on like it's
it's it's so specific and intentional, but it could almost
seem haphazard, because you know, having Dana White, the founder
of the UFC, and then you know we booked Cameron
Diaz in a couple of weeks, or UM, Dave Portnoy,
it almost seems random, but it's not. It's specific, and

(52:04):
I see something about myself in each of these people.
I think the most, Uh in Suzanne Summers, that was
crazy and unreal. What a fascinating woman, what a journey.
She's so real, she's so honest, she's just real, someone
who's had such a long career on the entertainment industry.
I just loved it. So thank you for listening. Remember
to rate, review and subscribe. That was my Rose. That

(52:26):
was amazing.