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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Chris2" data-source="post: 379308" data-attributes="member: 495">I think John Ritter was stuck between a rock and a hard place. He was offered the spinoff show, which the whole cast always knew was a possibility; the British original had two spinoffs, and they had already done an US version of George and Mildred when they spun off The Ropers. And Three’s Company was ending regardless of whether John did the spinoff; the ratings tanked in that final season and ABC was not renewing it. Ritter was an employee, not management, and he didn’t feel it was his place to tell his fellow cast members that Three’s Company was ending. Joyce felt that it was and she was very hurt by that. She also felt disrespected by the producers in general, because she didn’t think they valued her contributions to the show and thought Ritter was the whole thing.Ritter was the glue that held the show together, but Three’s a Crowd proved Joyce right.  Three’s Company was successful because of the ensemble. Three’s a Crowd rested solely on Ritter’s shoulders, and it failed.A contractual clause guaranteeing that the top billed actor on a show is paid the most money is commonplace in Hollywood, by the way. As is a “favored nation” clause that guarantees that one actor won’t be paid more than another (Penny Marshall and Cindy Williams had that for Laverne and Shirley). Suzanne and Joyce had favored nation clauses so they’d be paid equally. Ritter was paid more because the show was developed with him in mind (he did earlier versions of the pilot without Dewitt and Somers), and he had a stronger TV resume than his costars. Right or wrong, that was and is still commonplace.Suzanne Somers was right to go after more money - particularly profit participation. Three’s Company made a half billion dollars during its initial syndication cycles. And it was an independent production - not from a major studio like Warner Bros or Paramount - so the producers pocketed all of that. The cast deserved a piece of that pie. But Suzanne negotiated poorly. If the three leads had banded together, they would have gotten profit participation. But Suzanne went it alone, leaving her inexperienced husband to negotiate. She disrupted production, lied quite a bit (according to Joyce) and alienated pretty much the entire cast and crew.  They were all sick of her at the end. Suzanne tells of a story where she ran into the show’s wardrobe master on the street one day years after the show ended. And he crossed the street to avoid talking to her.</blockquote>

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