Jenilee Harrison

**Jenilee Harrison** (born 12 June 1958) is best known for her role as the replacement roommate, the beautiful but slightly clumsy Cindy Snow on the hit sitcom *Three's Company*, between 1980 and 1982. She went on to play Jamie Ewing in *Dallas* from 1984 to 1986.

## Early Years

Harrison was born in Northridge, California, a northern Los Angeles suburb. She was a member of the Alpha Chi Omega sorority (Epsilon Chapter) at the University of Southern California.

Before breaking into show biz, Harrison was a NFL cheerleader from 1978 to 1980 for the Los Angeles Rams. Harrison can be seen in the opening moments of the highlight film for Super Bowl XIV, which shows the Rams cheerleaders in their dressing room before the game. She can also be seen in a second season episode of *CHiPs* when Jon and Ponch pull over a van-load of Rams cheerleaders.

She can also be seen in the music video for "Lovin' Every Minute of It" by Loverboy.

## Career

### Three's Company

Harrison joined the cast of the hit ABC-TV's *Three's Company* in 1980. She entered the show as a replacement for Suzanne Somers who played the sitcom's ditzy "dumb blonde" Chrissy Snow. Somers left the show just after the show's fifth season had begun, and thereupon the producers needed a replacement and fast. Harrison caught the eyes of the producers with her beautiful features and was cast as Somers' replacement. Harrison's character, Cindy Snow, was created to be Chrissy Snow's cousin. Like Chrissy, Cindy's a "dumb blonde" and is also a klutz; who's a farm-girl. The character of Cindy was made to be similar to Chrissy so producers could use scripts already pre-written. Harrison debuted on *Three's Company* in the episode titled "Chrissy's Cousin" (season 5, episode 7). She enters as Jack and Janet's new roommate after Chrissy's departure. Cindy proves she's a klutz right away by knocking Jack down. Her constant "accidents" (mainly with Jack) added to the show's gags of characters being clumsy. Even though she had replaced Somers, Harrison wasn't given opening credits billing, and instead Somers still obtained opening billing (as a part of finishing off her contract). Harrison was end-credits billed, as somewhat of a guest star.

For the sixth season of *Three's Company*, a new blonde roommate named Terri Alden (Priscilla Barnes), a smart nurse, took Cindy's place in the apartment. Harrison was retained on the show and this time was given opening cast billing. However, she now had a lesser role, appearing less frequently in the series while actually living at UCLA. Nevertheless, since UCLA is only ten minutes away from the trio's apartment, Cindy is present in nearly every episode. Her first appearances of the sixth season were minor, but she had a handful of good episodes mid-season like "Maid to Order" (season 6, episode 15), in which she briefly becomes Jack, Janet, and Terri's part-time maid. By the end of the season, however, Harrison's character was deemed obsolete, and with no explanation, Cindy Snow disappeared from the series. Her last appearance was in "Janet Wigs Out" (season 6, episode 24), towards the end of the sitcom's sixth season. In the made-for-TV documentary film *Behind the Camera:The Unauthorized Story of Three's Company*, Harrison was portrayed by Liz Crawford.

### Later Career

Harrison later portrayed Jamie Ewing Barnes on the hit drama *Dallas*. Beginning in 1984, she was a recurring character in the series, first appearing in the episode titled "Jamie". She played the role until 1986 when she decided to leave the soap. Her character was actually killed off twice, first when she starts the car belonging to her brother, Jack Ewing, in the episode "Blast from the Past" and it explodes killing her. Turns out, the whole season was all a dream, so Harrison agreed to return long enough for her character to die again. Early in 1987 Jamie was killed in a mountain climbing accident.

In 1985, she appeared on *Super Password* with Dick Gautier, appearing again in 1986, this time with Marty Cohen, Michael Young and Bruce Baum, and *Dallas* star Ken Kercheval back in 1987 with Bert Convy.

In 1984, Harrison played a reluctant prostitute in the movie *Tank* alongside James Garner and C. Thomas Howell. Harrison also guest-starred on FOX-TV's *That '70s Show* in 1999.

In 2005, Harrison began starring on infomercials, where she is now a spokesperson fixture backing numerous products, most notably, the *Ultimate Chopper* with Chef Tony.

## Personal Life

Jenilee once dated L.A. Rams guard Dennis Harrah and former major league baseball player and Hall Of Famer Reggie Jackson.  Since 1988, Jenilee Harrison has been married to Dr. Bruce Oppenheim (actress Cybill Sheperd's ex-husband), thus making her stepmother to Oppenheim's twin children by Shepherd, Ariel and Zachariah.

## References

1. ↑ http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20091228,00.html

## External Links

* Jenilee Harrison Biogtaphy
* Jenilee Harrison links at FreeOnes
* Jenilee Harrison at Babepedia
* Jenilee Harrison article at *Wikipedia*