What Happened To The Cast Of Three's Company?

Two women having a man for a roommate? What a scandalous and naughty arrangement! At least it was in 1977 when "Three's Company" debuted. And many of the show's storylines mined its comedy from the inherent shock value of that premise, with there constantly being awkward encounters and misunderstood intentions between the roommates, their neighbors, and other people in and around their shared apartment.

There are, of course, "Three's Company" moments that aged poorly, given the nature of its humor and how much has changed since the era during which it aired. But as a whole, it is remembered fondly as a classic sitcom, one that made megastars of its main trio of actors — John Ritter, Suzanne Somers, and Joyce DeWitt. Rounding out the main ensemble were landlords, neighbors, friends, co-workers, and other members of the social circle that spiraled out from the core threesome. And even then, the makeup of that threesome would change a couple of times after the exit of Somers and the two subsequent attempts to replace her.

For most of the cast of "Three's Company," it would either be their biggest role, or at least their final major role of note. But a few did manage to have careers that maintained the momentum they had during the peak of "Three's Company" mania for years to come. 

"Three's Company" wasn't shy about leaning into archetypes. As such, the two main female leads were smart brunette Janet Wood (Joyce DeWitt) and ditzy blonde Chrissy Snow (Suzanne Somers). And to that end, Chrissy's inability to grasp the point of a given situation was a common punchline. Even so, Somers brought plenty of wit to her portrayal of Chrissy, and it went a long way in elevating her beyond the narrow box that the show's writers often tried to keep her in.

Somers exited the show after Season 5. And even then, during much of her final season, she only appeared in an episode's closing minutes as Chrissy would call in to her now-former roommates after having moved away. The reason given to the public as to why Somers was no longer with the show was a contract dispute, with things being framed in such a way as to portray the actor as greedy and demanding. But the real reason Suzanne Somers was fired from "Three's Company," as told by Somers and corroborated by others who worked on the show, is that she simply asked for equal pay to co-star John Ritter and was fired as a result. 

The actor would later score another lead role in another successful sitcom with 1991's "Step by Step." Somers also spent some years being known as the spokesperson for the hugely popular ThighMaster workout device. Unfortunately, Somers spent many years dealing with various forms of cancer, from skin cancer in her 30s to breast cancer in her 50s. She would ultimately succumb to the latter in 2023 at the age of 76. 

Part of the initial conceit of "Three's Company" was that Jack Tripper (John Ritter) had to pretend to be gay for the building's landlords to allow an unmarried man to live with two unmarried women. This was especially crucial in appeasing Stanley Roper (Norman Fell), most often referred to as Mr. Roper, the more old-fashioned and conservative of the married couple who ran the building. In his portrayal of Mr. Roper, Fell brought a very old-school, almost Vaudevillian sensibility to the proceedings in the way he would deliver a joke, hold in the moment for a beat, and then look directly at the camera and offer a mugging smile. 

Given that Fell had been acting since the 1950s, that approach shouldn't have been surprising. That's especially true since most of his early TV work consisted of variety shows that felt very much like stage comedy productions that just happened to be televised, which comprised much of early television in general. Fell had always been a hard-working, journeyman type of actor, and that was something he didn't want to abandon just because he had suddenly become a huge household name with "Three's Company." It was with great reluctance that he participated in the short-lived spin-off "The Ropers," after which he largely went back to smaller character work for the remainder of his career. 

But Fell returned to his most famous character one last time before his 1998 death at the age of 74, appearing in an uncredited cameo on the sitcom "Ellen" as Mr. Roper in one of his final screen credits. 

In the first three seasons of "Three's Company," when they were still main cast members and key figures of the ensemble, the hilarious interactions between Stanley and Helen Roper (Audra Lindley) were among of the funniest parts of the show. The more open-minded and free-spirited Mrs. Roper was always butting heads with her more stubbornly old-school husband, both in their dealings with their young tenants and also with one another. It was one of the last examples of the kind of classic lighthearted spousal bickering that was made famous in shows like "The Honeymooners" and "I Love Lucy." 

Like Fell, Lindley was already a longtime screen veteran when she achieved a new level of celebrity on "Three's Company." She previously had ongoing roles on the TV shows "From These Roots," "Bridget Loves Bernie," and the classic soap opera "Another World" before playing Mrs. Roper, in addition to dozens of other movie and television appearances. Post-"Three's Company" and "The Ropers," Lindley's biggest roles were in the 1997 horror movie "The Relic" and an appearance on "Friends" as Phoebe's grandmother. 

Though a few performers of smaller roles on the show had died earlier in the decade, 1997 kicked off the ever-growing list of main ensemble "Three's Company" actors who passed away when Lindley died at 79 years old from leukemia.

While Jack, Chrissy, and Janet lived upstairs from the Ropers, they weren't on the top floor of the apartment building. Above them was Larry Dallas (Richard Kline), Jack's best friend and, impossibly, an even bigger womanizer than Jack himself. But Larry didn't pull women the way Jack does, and often pretended to be Jack when he was on the prowl — which then ended up getting Jack into sticky situations that he himself had no previous part in or knowledge of. And in another example of "Three's Company" checking all of the archetype boxes, Larry was a used car salesman, further hammering home how he was slimy and not to be trusted.

Prior to "Three's Company," Kline had a three-episode stint on "Maude," thus making Larry Dallas his breakout character. After a number of years in either one-episode appearances on TV shows or as a major character on forgotten series that didn't survive their first season, Kline landed a recurring gig on "The Bold and the Beautiful" that stretched across two seasons between 1995 and 1996. Though his career largely returned to the way it was between "Three's Company" and "The Bold and the Beautiful" after the latter, Kline has remained a steadily-working actor ever since — up through a recurring role as a judge on "Blue Bloods" that stretched between Season 3 and Season 14 of the police procedural. 

Given that the show was called "Three's Company," it was important that there had to be a central trio of roommates. So once Chrissy was out, someone needed to fill the void that she left. Enter Cindy Snow (Jenilee Harrison), Chrissy's cousin — which conveniently allowed her the excuse of essentially being Chrissy 2.0 without being called a copycat character. This isn't to shade Harrison, who was great in the role and did the best she could with an awkward situation, but Cindy never quite landed as a suitable replacement for Chrissy. After two seasons, Cindy was also out, as was Harrison.

As for Harrison, it didn't take her too much time to find her next big role. Just two years after leaving "Three's Company," she joined the main cast of "Dallas" as Jamie Ewing, a role she played for 70 episodes across Seasons 8, 9, and 10 of the primetime soap opera. The actor kicked around a bit in small roles on TV and in movies after that, though Jamie Ewing would be her last major character. Harrison's final screen credit was a 2002 TV movie, after which she shifted to life out of the spotlight. However, in 2017, Harrison and fellow "Three's Company" co-star Richard Kline took part in the '70s Rock & Romance Cruise, which also featured concerts by popular bands of that decade like Styx, Air Supply, and America. 

Season 4 of "Three's Company" was one of several major cast additions and shake-ups. In addition to Larry graduating from recurring to main cast member and Mr. Furley (Don Knotts) taking over landlord duties from the Ropers — more on him shortly — that season also saw the debut of a new character named Lana Shields (Ann Wedgeworth). After three seasons of Jack mostly hopping from one female guest star to another, Lana represented the first woman on the show with which Jack had any sort of ongoing romantic entanglement. That being said, it was largely one-sided, mostly consisting of Lana pursuing Jack and Jack continually declining her advances. 

Wedgeworth eventually grew bored of the one-note nature of the character and left "Three's Company" by the end of Season 4 after it was clear that Lana wasn't ever going to evolve into anything more complex than she already was. The actor would eventually prove that she indeed had more talent than her flat "Three's Company" character deserved; first, in her National Society of Film Critics Awards nomination for the 1985 movie "Sweet Dreams," and again with another award-nominated performance for her role in the 1990 sitcom "Evening Shade." The latter would be her last TV series role, though she continued to appear in TV and direct-to-video movies throughout the 1990s. 

After her final screen credit in a 2006 movie called "The Hawk is Dying," Wedgeworth seemed to retire from acting. She would then become one of the far too many stars we lost in 2017 when she passed away that year at 83. 

When the Ropers went off and did the spin-off thing, someone needed to become the new building manager to constantly check in on Jack and the gals. And thus, the Mr. Furley era of "Three's Company" began. To the show's credit, Mr. Furley wasn't just another Mr. Roper. Instead, he had a more amiable relationship with his tenants, up to and including being okay with the eventual revelation that Jack wasn't actually gay. If anything, Mr. Furley had more in common with Mrs. Roper in that he was more open to modern trends and sensibilities, not to mention more prone to bright and flamboyant clothing. 

Don Knotts was arguably the biggest existing star of anyone in the "Three's Company" cast. He had previously played the iconic bumbling deputy Barney Fife on "The Andy Griffith Show." In fact, many cast members from "The Andy Griffith Show" joined another successful series afterward – Griffith himself would later play another titular role with "Matlock," Ron Howard was part of the nostalgia sitcom "Happy Days," and Knotts became Mr. Furley. After that, Knotts was most content to coast along doing cameos — often as himself — for the remainder of his career. But if anyone earned that sort of easy victory lap on the home stretch of an acting career, it was Knotts. 

In 2005, his final on-screen, non-voice role credits were fittingly as himself on the NBC series "Las Vegas," and as a landlord on "That '70s Show." Knotts died in 2006 due to complications related to lung cancer. He was 81.

After a one-off appearance in Season 3 of "Three's Company" as a minor character named Mr. Layton, actor Jordan Charney played the recurring role of Frank Angelino — Jack's boss during his time working at Angelino's Restaurant — from Season 5 through Season 8. Charney's further participation in the "Three's Company"-verse came by way of his portrayal of a character named Mr. McLaughlin during Season 2 of "The Ropers." But Frank Angelino would prove to be the biggest "Three's Company" character who didn't live in the apartment building nor was a romantic interest of any of the main ensemble.

Prior to either of those shows, Charney did a stint on "One Life to Live," and also played a doctor for 20 episodes of "General Hospital" concurrent to his time on "Three's Company." In 2000, he began his longest stint playing a single character when he began his recurring role on "Law & Order" as Judge Donald Karan, a role he would return to a number of times between Season 10 of that year through Season 16 in 2006. 

On the big screen, Charney also played Dean Yeager in "Ghostbusters," a role that would lead to a fun fan interaction in 2024. That year, a group doing a "Ghostbusters" location tour in New York City stopped at the apartment building inhabited by Dana (Sigourney Weaver) and Louis (Rick Moranis) in the film. By complete coincidence, Charney came walking out from the building just as the tour was visiting; the actor currently lived there. He seemed to enjoy the moment and spared a few minutes to smile for some quick fan photos. 

While the resident blonde of the "Three's Company" trio was swapped out a couple of times, brunette Janet Wood stayed on board for all eight seasons and all but three of the show's 174 total episodes. And she was played by Joyce DeWitt for that entire stretch, second only to John Ritter for total number of episodes of "Three's Company" any one actor appeared in. Janet's role in the trio was to give harsher pushback against the flirtations of Jack than Chrissy typically did, while also being the more measured and level-headed counterbalance to Chrissy's spontaneous and carefree vibe.

Acting never seemed to be an especially big priority for DeWitt, who has only 25 total screen credits as an actor as of this writing. Instead, she's become more involved with and well-known for her philanthropic work in recent decades, particularly for the causes of world hunger and homelessness. Sadly, when the finale of "Three's Company" reached its 40th anniversary in October 2024, DeWitt was the only surviving member of the show's original trio. In discussing the occasion with US Weekly, DeWitt reflected, "It was the love, trust, and support of the characters, one to the other, that made [people] lifelong fans."

Once Chrissy was out, followed by cousin Cindy, it was decided to move away from the Snow family for the third and final attempt at the token blonde member of the "Three's Company" trio. And so, beginning in Season 6 and continuing on until the eighth and final season, Terri Alden (Priscilla Barnes) filled that vacancy. Rather than be another version of Chrissy, Terri was instead portrayed as much smarter and more ambitious than Chrissy or Cindy, giving the threesome a whole different dynamic in the final three seasons than it had had for the first five. 

Like Jenilee Harrison before her, Barnes had the unenviable burden of constantly being compared to Suzanne Somers and was never truly given a fair shake by fans. But she played Terri gamely for her stretch on "Three's Company," and had a much busier and more varied career after the show than either of her predecessors. On the big screen, she appeared in the James Bond movie "Licence to Kill," cult hit horror comedy "The Devil's Rejects," and had a memorable cameo in the Kevin Smith comedy "Mallrats." On television, she had mostly done TV movies after "Three's Company" until she scored a recurring role as Magda Andel on "Jane the Virgin."

In 2024, Barnes reunited with Joyce DeWitt for an event put on by The John Ritter Foundation for Aortic Health in Los Angeles. 

All due respect to everyone else who worked on "Three's Company," but much of what made that show a success at the time and a beloved classic to this day was thanks to the work of star John Ritter. As Jack Tripper, John was the most charming guy on television one minute, and would absolutely nail an expertly executed pratfall the next. It was that rare combination of leading man good looks and slapstick comedy giftedness that few had possessed before or have possessed since.

And unlike Chevy Chase, probably Ritter's biggest competitor in that small field of performers, Ritter earned a reputation for being a sweetheart behind the scenes. We've learned a lot about John Ritter since he died, and most of it has only further cemented his legacy as one of the nicest people in show business. From his time on his iconic sitcom to appearing in movies like "Problem Child," "Sling Blade," and "Bad Santa," Ritter spent his entire career proving that he was a bright light both on screen and off. Though he had largely moved to film after "Three's Company," Ritter's career would come full circle when his final project was a sitcom — ABC's "8 Simple Rules," which would sadly be the show Ritter was in production on the second season of when an undiagnosed heart condition unexpectedly took his life in 2003 at only 54 years of age.