As the world learned of the passing of Suzanne Somers on October 15, everyone recalled their favorite memory of the actress, whether it was her sitcom work on Three’s Company and Step by Step, her Vegas revues or her talk shows, her Thighmaster commercials or her breakout role as “the blonde in the white Thunderbird” in American Graffiti. But General Hospital star Kin Shriner knew her personally back in the day, so he has perhaps a whole different appreciation for the primetime legend.

“RIP to Suzanne Somers,” he tweeted. “We were in acting class together in the mid-’70s, and she had a gift for comedy and niceness.”

The actress, whose granddaughter Camelia you may recall appeared on The Bold and the Beautiful, had been fighting an aggressive form of breast cancer for nearly a quarter of a century. When she slipped away just a day before she would’ve turned 77, “Suzanne was surrounded by her loving husband Alan, her son Bruce, and her immediate family,” her publicist said. “Her family was gathered to celebrate her 77th birthday on October 16. Instead, they will celebrate her extraordinary life, and want to thank her millions of fans and followers who loved her dearly.”

Somers never did a daytime drama, but she did get pretty soapy in a number of primetime TV movies, among them Hollywood Wives and Rich Men, Single Women.

That’s Somers vamping with Candice Bergen, Stephanie Powers, Joanna Cassidy, Frances Bergen, Angie Dickinson, Catherine Mary Stewart and Mary Crosby in 1985’s Hollywood Wives.