Jenilee Harrison is best known for replacing Suzanne Somers on the beloved sitcom Three’s Company. She starred on the show as Cindy Snow from 1980 until 1982.
Harrison would later pose for Playboy Magazine in June of 1987. In a new interview, Harrison is revealing why she defiantly refused to get naked for that photoshoot.
Harrison Refuses To Strip Down
“It was in my contract that, yes, I’ll do [Playboy], but I have to keep my clothes on,” Harrison, 67, told Fox News.
“So I show up for this photo shoot in the Playboy building in Beverly Hills, and I go into the changing room to do my makeup and all that,” she recalled. “And the photographer – a very famous photographer – comes in. He goes, ‘You’re all ready to go?’ And I said, ‘Well, yeah, where’s my wardrobe?’ And he looked shocked. He’s like, ‘Your wardrobe? No, we’re doing Playboy.’ And I said, ‘No, my contract says I’m wearing clothes.’ He was just shocked.”
“So everything stopped,” Harrison continued. “He had to get back on the phone. They had to regroup and bring in wardrobe… He didn’t even know. But I had to fight for that.”
Harrison managed to win this battle, and her clothes stayed on. Indeed, she’s one of the only pinups who posed for Playboy without going nude. Others include icons like Dolly Parton and Barbra Streisand. Harrison went on to say that she feels “blessed” to have gotten to pose for Playboy without taking off her clothes.
Harrison’s Struggles With ‘Sex Symbol’ Status
In this same interview, Harrison opened up about struggling with her “sex symbol” status in the 1980s. She was desperate to be recognized for her talent as an actress, rather than just for her looks.
“I looked at being a sex symbol as just a wardrobe I had to put on to go into Hollywood and do this job,” she recounted. “”Your wardrobe is your outside, but it’s not what your core person is, what your soul is. But I had a large wardrobe because your wardrobe is the tool of the trade.”
“I would say at 10 o’clock I had to be a nurse,” Harrison added. “At 12 o’clock, I had to be a secretary, at 3 o’clock, I had to be a Sports Illustrated model. At 5 o’clock, I had to be a hooker. And at 8 o’clock I had to be a nun. I had to be all those things. But was I uncomfortable? Absolutely, many times I was uncomfortable.”
Harrison Replaces Somers On Three’s Company
Harrison also talked about getting cast to replace Somers on Three’s Company in 1980. Somers had asked for a raise after starring in for seasons of the sitcom, and she was subsequently fired. At the time, Harrison was a former cheerleader for the Los Angeles Rams who had only appeared in some commercials and one episode of CHiPs. Despite this, Harrison was cast as Cindy Snow after just one interview.
“When I was very young – like 19 years old… my agent called me and said, ‘They want to see you – they’re replacing Suzanne Somers on Three’s Company, Harrison remembered. “I thought, ‘Oh geez, why am I even going to the interview? I’m not going to get a role like that.'”
“When I showed up for the audition… I tripped when I was walking in,” she continued. “I fell over things and grabbed something or whatever. They instantly thought, ‘Oh, here’s our klutzy cousin girl’… How lucky I was.”
Many would have been intimidated filling the shoes of someone like Somers. Harrison, however, took the situation in stride.
“I just live very much in the present,” she explained. “Luckily, I’m extremely disciplined… And whatever job I had, I looked at it in front of me and just did the work… And when I got on Three’s Company, I was welcomed with open arms. They treated me lovely. They treated me like a little sister… And the girls [on set], we protected one another, and we supported one another.”
Related: Why Did Suzanne Somers Leave Three’s Company?
Harrison Is ‘Living The Dream’
These days, Harrison is “living the dream” running a sprawling ranch. She’s also co-hosting the new podcast, “Stall Talk.” This podcast features women of various ages, “from the boomer to Gen Z,” sharing unfiltered stories and wisdom from personal experiences.
“It doesn’t matter if you’re a boomer or Gen Z, we’re sharing the most intimate, honest, relationship issues with ourselves, and we’re giggling, or we’re crying,” Harrison stated. “But we’re sharing those stories… All of our guests just share real and honest questions about what women talk about when they go to the bathroom together.”
“The advice I always give [on the podcast] is go for your dreams, go for the opportunities,” she concluded. “You have to persevere and remember that if you persevere, anything can happen. Anything is possible.”
We applaud Harrison for staying true to herself and her values by refusing to get naked for Playboy. If only we had more stars in Hollywood like Jenilee Harrison!
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