You’ll have to forgive us for being late with this post. We planned to write it Sunday night, but our day job called. At midnight we had to file a story on Rite Aid filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. By the time we got to bed, afer dealing with editors, it was 4 a.m.
We’d blogged about Somers saying that her cancer was back, but we were still shocked to hear of her death on Sunday. One of our best friends, Deb Ragosta, fought back breast cancer for more than a dozen years. She fought the good fight, but cancer killed her about two years ago.
Deb was always annoyed by Breast Cancer month, and that motto “walk for a cure.” Cause as Deb said, the hard truth was there is no cure.
Somers, rather like Joan Rivers, was one of the first celebrities to sell products on a home shopping network. Our late mom loved Somers’ costume jewelry on HSN many years ago when the blonde was a long-time staple on that network.
Somers went on to appear on ShopHQ later on, and her stable of merchandise over the decades expanded — to clothing, food, makeup, skincare, her famous Thighmaster and her facial-toning machine, the Facemaster.
Some may have laughed at it at the time, but today aren’t there a number of high-end facial toning devices that use the same technology as her’s did?
In reading some of her obits today, we were glad to see that they mentioned that she was a successful entrepreneur and the author of many bestsellers — hardly the ditzy blonde that she played on “Three’s Company.” But others got it wrong. One story described her as just doing informercials for the Thighmaster.
The obits we read didn’t mention her years on home shopping. But a number of HSN and ShopHQ hosts on Facebook posted their fond memories of her and her husband, Alan Hamel.
We liked her and enjoyed watching her, but like some of her critics we didn’t believe in some of her healthcare advice, like eschewing some of the traditional ways to treat cancer. We certainly agreed with her use of chemical-free and organic ingredients materials in her makeup: Our friend Ann, who has very sensitive skin, swore by Somers’ products.
Beautiful sexy women often don’t get proper credit for their business achievements and success. Somers deserves credit.
A few weeks ago at our day job a male reporter wrote a story about Kim Kardashian leasing office space in LA for her shapewear brand, Skims. He described her as “celebrity Kim Kardashian” in his lede. Kardashion has multibillion dollar businesses. Like her or not, she’s not just a celebrity. But there you have it.
We were touched reading Hamel’s tribute to Somers on her Facebook page. It is long, but look it up. We’ll give you just a bit of it here.
“55 YEARS TOGETHER, 46 MARRIED AND NOT EVEN ONE HOUR APART FOR 42 OF THOSE YEARS. EVEN THAT DOESN’T DO IT.”
“EVEN GOING TO BED AT 6 O’CLOCK AND HOLDING HANDS WHILE WE SLEEP DOESN’T DO IT.”
“STARING AT YOUR BEAUTIFUL FACE WHILE YOU SLEEP DOESN’T DO IT.”
“WE ARE ONE. I AM IN LOVE WITH YOU, MY BEAUTIFUL SUZANNE, FOR ALL OF ETERNITY.”
Homeshoppingista's Blog By Linda Moss 