Here's a KC Star story about Joyce from 2009. She was in town doing a play.

In good company: From sitcom to spiritual journey to theater, Joyce DeWitt feels the love.

The Kansas City Star Saturday, March 14, 2009

The second you hear Joyce DeWitt, that bubbly voice, coming down a hall, it’s like it’s 1979 again and somehow you’ve found yourself in a "Three’s Company" episode.

What would the smart, sensible Janet Wood be doing backstage at the New Theatre Restaurant? Oh, maybe her horndog housemate Jack is running the kitchen -- and hoping to do a little, uh, cooking with a hottie who works there. Some crisis is probably afoot, so Janet is here to save the day, and she dragged Mr. Furley and Larry from upstairs along, too, and ...

But no. "Three’s Company" has been off network TV 25 years. So, too, Joyce DeWitt.

Not that she looks a whole lot different from the way she did back then, when the sex-crazed sitcom about two girls and a guy living together was a huge ABC hit. DeWitt’s hairstyle and color are very Janet.

Here in a tiny conference room at the Overland Park dinner theater, between a Wednesday matinee and an evening performance of "Hats! The Musical," DeWitt is in a crisp, untucked red shirt, blue jeans and white Reeboks. This is dressy for her. She usually favors T-shirts and black jeans, she says.

In "Hats!" she plays a woman confronting a change of life -- from 49 to the big 5-0. In real life DeWitt, who makes her home in Santa Fe, N.M., turns 60 in April.

She is friendly, a hugger, and not long after meeting you is likely to call you "dear heart." She tries to expend her energy on positivity -- she spent 15 or so years after "Three’s Company" traveling the world on a spiritual quest. What she discovered, she says, was that all we need is love.

What DeWitt does not need are questions about Suzanne Somers.

About 30 minutes into our interview, following queries about "Three’s Company’s" 1980-81 season -- when the blond, jiggly Somers demanded a huge pay raise and was ultimately booted off the show -- DeWitt looks as if she’s about to bolt from the room. She is angry. This is not what she expected to talk about.

Most of "Three’s Company’s" eight-season run was pure joy, she adds. Half a season was not.

Ultimately, DeWitt rides out the interview. By the time the goodbyes are said -- with another hug from her -- everything seems fine. Later she’ll call to say she’d like to talk a little more. And in that later conversation, a calmer DeWitt acknowledges that she and Somers aren’t speaking, although DeWitt says she has reached out to her.

Cathy Barnett, one of DeWitt’s six female co-stars in "Hats," says DeWitt wears her emotions on her sleeve. And "she doesn’t have a cynical bone in her body. She believes very much in what she believes in."

The cast will get together for wine and a bite to eat Sunday nights after the show, and Barnett remembers DeWitt saying one time, "I can’t tell you how much I love all of you. You’ve all been so wonderful. You’re all so dear."

DeWitt told us, too, how much she admires her cast mates. "My character watches a lot of the play, so I just watch these extraordinary women night after night after night, and I’m amazed that I’m this lucky to be in this cast."

Though DeWitt returned to show business -- regional theater -- around 2000, she is also a self-described hermit.

Excerpts from our interviews:

Q. Did you notice we have Don Knotts looking down on us today (from the walls of the New Theatre)?

A. Yes, I did. This was Don’s favorite theater to work in. He would always say, "Joycie, you have to work there!" He totally loved it.