by Suzanne Somers
"Celebrity is an amazing gift," says Suzanne Somers in her new memoir (subtitled How I Picked Myself Up, Dusted Myself Off, and Started All Over Again). But once you're famous, she adds, you're not expected to evolve as a person—to read or think or develop your personality. "Nobody cares!" she says. "Just keep the profits rolling in." But as she first told readers in Keeping Secrets, her 1988 bestseller about growing up with an alcoholic father, the former Three's Company star continues to take her personal growth seriously. With appealing candor, Somers now explores how she coped with her rise to TV stardom in the '70s, her eventual alienation from castmates Joyce De Witt and John Ritter, and her rapid fall after she quit the series in 1982. Gracefully written, Somers's story of how she adjusted to life beyond the small screen and then reinvented herself as a successful Las Vegas act, ThighMaster entrepreneur and author is inspirational. Also, the twice-married mother and stepmother—and now 51-year-old grandmother of three—offers hope for anyone in a complicated stepfamily, the very situation Somers faces up to in the current CBS sitcom Step by Step. (Crown, $23)
Bottom Line: Affable, introspective memoir of a sitcom survivor
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