Brett Somers Pics

Brett

Somers

11 July 1924

69

Slim

Halcomb, New Brunswick, Canada

Cancer

15 September 2007

Westport, CT

Cancer - Stomach

White

Match Game fixture

American

Female

Grey

Brett Somers (July 11, 1924 – September 15, 2007) was a Canadian-born American actress, singer, and comedienne. She was best known as a panelist on the 1970s game show, Match Game and for her recurring role as Blanche Madison opposite her real life husband Jack Klugman on The Odd Couple.

Brett Somers (July 11, 1924 – September 15, 2007) was a Canadian-born American actress, singer, and comedienne. She was best known as a panelist on the 1970s game show, Match Game and for her role as Blanche Madison opposite her real life husband Jack Klugman on The Odd Couple. She appeared in Happy Ending, The Seven Year Itch and The Country Girl with her husband, Jack Klugman. She also amassed a number of film credits, including A Rage to Live, Getting There, Bone, Bus Riley`s Back in Town and The Great American Beauty Pageant. Somers made many appearances on episodic primetime television, including Love, American Style, The Defenders, Have Gun Will Travel, Ben Casey, CHiPs, The Love Boat, Barney Miller, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and The Fugitive. Somers had recurring roles as Blanche, the ex-wife of Oscar Madison (played by real-life spouse Klugman), on the ABC sitcom television series The Odd Couple in the early 1970s, as well as the role of "Siress Belloby" on the science fiction series Battlestar Galactica in 1978. Somers was best-known for her appearances as a panelist on the 1970s CBS game show Match Game (during her tenure she sat in the top center seat, next to fellow regular-panelist Charles Nelson Reilly who joined as a regular around the same time). She and the show became known for somewhat outlandish and risque dialogue; the show has been described as having the feel of being at a game at someone`s cocktail party. Somers was an iconic on-screen presence, wearing enormous eyeglasses, various wigs, and playing foil to Charles Nelson Reilly, Betty White, Richard Dawson, and Fannie Flagg, among others. Somers was often the subject of questions on Match Game, such as "You may or may not believe in reincarnation, but listen to this. In a previous life, Brett used to be a ________." Somers was not originally on the celebrity panel. When spouse Jack Klugman appeared on the first week of the program in 1973, he suggested that producers bring her aboard. In 2002, she appeared with Charles Nelson Reilly and Betty White (via videolink) as part of a Match Game reunion on CBS`s The Early Show. She also appeared with Reilly on Hollywood Squares during that show`s "Game Show Week" in 2003. During a 2002 interview, Somers denied rumors that she had suffered from cancer. She would reiterate that point in future interviews.[4] Somers had a naturally husky voice which may have caused the misperception that she suffered from a throat ailment. Somers died on the morning of September 15, 2007 at her home in Westport, Connecticut. Her son Adam gave the cause of her death as stomach and colon cancer, which first developed in 2004 but was held in remission until August 2007. She was survived by her husband, Klugman, and their two sons. Her daughter, Leslie, from Somers` first marriage, died in 2003 from lung cancer.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brett_Somers

www.brettsomers.com/

Brett Somers

Actor/Actress

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