Patrick Duffy Remembers “Step by Step ”Wife Suzanne Somers on Her Birthday: ‘My Best Friend’

Virginia Chamlee, Angela AndaloroSat, October 17, 2026 at 6:20 PM UTC

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Patrick Duffy, Suzanne SomersCredit: Valery HACHE / AFP via Getty; Steve Granitz/WireImageDuffy says he and Somers got to “play out our fantasies” while starring as a married couple on the sitcom for seven seasons -

Suzanne Somers died in October 2023, just before her 77th birthday

Duffy said he immediately saw Somers as his new Larry Hagman after leaving Dallas

The actors aimed to portray a married couple whose attraction continued after starting a family

Patrick Duffy is remembering Step by Step costar Suzanne Somers on what would have been her 80th birthday.

Speaking in a panel discussion at 90s Con in Hartford, Conn. on Friday, Oct. 16, Duffy recounted how he came to the show after his 12-year stint on Dallas.

“I left Dallas, and two weeks later I went into the meeting to meet Suzanne Somers, and I looked at her, and I went, ‘Oh my God, that’s my new Larry Hagman,’” he joked. “And so she was that for the next seven years, my best friend.”

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Step by StepCredit: ABC Photo Archives/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty

Duffy, 77, starred as patriarch Frank Lambert on the long-running TGIF sitcom, which followed two single parents (played by him and Somers) who marry and blend their very different families under one roof, navigating the chaos and comedy of raising six kids together.

Somers died on Oct. 15, 2023, just before her 77th birthday.

Later in the panel, Duffy said that he and Somers got to “play out our fantasies” while acting as a married couple on-screen — which made the show different from the more cookie-cutter Brady Bunch that preceded it.

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“My favorite episodes were all the times that Suzanne and I got to be in our bedroom alone,” he said. “Quite honestly, we had this conversation on a regular basis of we didn’t want to be. Somebody mentioned The Brady Bunch, which was a great show for its time period, but we wanted to be a married couple that basically couldn’t keep their hands off each other, except for the fact we had seven kids running around the house.”

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Duffy continued: “The fun part was when the scenes were always over with, Suzanne and I... Well, Suzanne would be the recipient of whatever I decided was going to get cut anyway. So, I would just do whatever I wanted to do. And God bless the directors who came along that would just let the camera stay rolling for a while.”

“And then we would be lying in bed and play out our fantasies, in good taste,” he added. “But it was always a chance for us to just look at each other and go, ‘This is why we’re doing this show. We have fun being these characters.’”

He continued: “And that’s another thing: we wanted to present the fact that your life as a vital partner to each other doesn’t end when you start a family, and in one sense, it begins. It’s fed like a fire by virtue of what you’ve been able to accomplish. So, we had fun being madly attracted to each other on the show, and always being interrupted at the worst possible times.”

Step by Step premiered in 1991 and ran for seven seasons between ABC and CBS.

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