Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the
Speaker 1: Thing from iHeart Radio. So many actors who went on
Speaker 1: to have amazing careers in primetime television and film started
Speaker 1: in soap operas. Meg Ryan, Tom Selleck, Julianne Moore, to
Speaker 1: name just a few. And then there are those who
Speaker 1: stayed in daytime television to become huge stars in that genre.
Speaker 1: My guest today is, without a doubt, the biggest star
Speaker 1: in the history of daytime TV. Susan Lucci, the actress,
Speaker 1: played the iconic villain Erica Kaine on ABC's All My
Speaker 1: Children for four decades, from the show's inception in nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy until it wrapped in twenty eleven. Following nineteen nominations.
Speaker 1: She finally took home the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding
Speaker 1: Lead Actress in nineteen ninety nine, and sare the Emmy's
Speaker 1: Lifetime Achievement Award this past December. But Lovable bad Girl
Speaker 1: is not the only role in Lucci's wheelhouse. She has
Speaker 1: acted in numerous roles in film and TV, from Devious
Speaker 1: Maids to Hot in Cleveland, and starred on Broadway in
Speaker 1: Annie Get Your Gun. Susan Lucci has yet another achievement
Speaker 1: to boast of a long and healthy partnership with husband
Speaker 1: Helmet Huber. Hubert passed away in twenty twenty two after
Speaker 1: fifty two years of marriage. I wanted to know what
Speaker 1: was the secret of their successful union.
Speaker 2: Incredibly good luck for my part to meet him, because
Speaker 2: I was young and I didn't I don't think I
Speaker 2: really knew exactly how fabulous he was and just got
Speaker 2: really lucky. Fortunately he had a very good sense of
Speaker 2: humor and he was very confident. This was really helpful
Speaker 2: in this business we're talking about. You know, he took
Speaker 2: a lot of ribbing all those guys I was kissing
Speaker 2: on all my children. But you know, he got it.
Speaker 2: You know he knew I came home to him and
Speaker 2: I wanted to.
Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, I remember when I was younger. I mean,
Speaker 1: now I don't really do any of that, but when
Speaker 1: I was younger, and I had a girlfriend at one
Speaker 1: time who really was very very agitated by that. I
Speaker 1: was just starting to make films or just was starting
Speaker 1: to go from TV to films, and I had to
Speaker 1: kiss somebody who was very well known, and this movie
Speaker 1: was going to be all over TV and everything. Me
Speaker 1: kissing this person was going to be featured. Who knows,
Speaker 1: and she really just couldn't take it. She was really
Speaker 1: very angry all the time.
Speaker 2: It's not for everybody. Yeah, I used to say, if
Speaker 2: that she were on the other foot, I would have
Speaker 2: been throwing my stilettos. I mean I would not have
Speaker 2: taken it as well.
Speaker 1: When I was young, well, when I had it the
Speaker 1: other way, when a woman in my life was in
Speaker 1: the business and she was kissing other people, I just
Speaker 1: would look at her and say, if you left me
Speaker 1: for him, you got to be an idiot.
Speaker 2: I would sound like helmet, like your good luck.
Speaker 1: I mean, please go right ahead. Don't teach me everything
Speaker 1: about you. I need to know, but you. I don't
Speaker 1: want to talk just about the TV show at length.
Speaker 1: I want to talk about the other things you did
Speaker 1: and the other things you wanted to do. I mean,
Speaker 1: your commitment to that show is singular. You are right
Speaker 1: to the end, you surf that wave right to the shore.
Speaker 1: But other than that, what were there other things you
Speaker 1: wanted you did do, other things, you made films, You
Speaker 1: stepped in for Bernadette and Nanny gets.
Speaker 2: Your want to go in for Bernadette.
Speaker 1: I was so through all the I loved.
Speaker 2: The whole original company.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love But how did that happen? Like you
Speaker 1: go to this the TV show and you say I
Speaker 1: want out, or you went did the TV show and
Speaker 1: went to night work at night.
Speaker 2: I did both. I did both. I had a short
Speaker 2: time off but all the rehearsals. I just was able
Speaker 2: to have time off just before the opening, but I
Speaker 2: wound up getting pneumonia. Because I would work at all
Speaker 2: my children. They accommodated my schedule so that we started
Speaker 2: a little earlier in the morning, did all my stuff first,
Speaker 2: and then I would on my lunch hour, get in
Speaker 2: a car, go to the theater, grab a chicken soup
Speaker 2: on the way, and go and rehearse, go to voice
Speaker 2: lessons five nights a week because I had never sung professionally.
Speaker 1: Did you study theater and acting in college? Where'd you go?
Speaker 2: I went to Marymount College. It is a Catholic women's college,
Speaker 2: but it's in Tarrytown, and all the drama faculty was
Speaker 2: from Yale and Royal Shakespeare Company in London, Mary Marytha Grand.
Speaker 2: It was a wonderful school. Wonderful for me. Jesuit school
Speaker 2: which is the smarty pants guy, so that was good.
Speaker 2: The faculty was phenomenal and they were all working in
Speaker 2: the business. So the head of the drama department, who
Speaker 2: was from Yale, was also a member of Cafe La
Speaker 2: Mama and Lincoln Center Rep. So I got the classics
Speaker 2: as well as the news stuff.
Speaker 1: So you do that show. You did small roles and
Speaker 1: things back in the sixties, but then you're doing films
Speaker 1: throughout the eighties, nineties, two thousands, you're doing Army Wives
Speaker 1: a couple through episodes of that. You're working outside the show.
Speaker 1: Why did you feel you wanted to? You're just a
Speaker 1: kind of I don't want to say workaholic, but you
Speaker 1: like to work.
Speaker 2: I do like to work, and I like to work
Speaker 2: as an actress, and you know, probably a couple of things.
Speaker 2: First of all, I'd never thought that I could call
Speaker 2: myself an actress if I only played one part. And
Speaker 2: even though the part was the part that kept me
Speaker 2: on that show for so long, because I loved doing
Speaker 2: that part. That part was one of the best parts,
Speaker 2: with the most range and the most possibilities. And I
Speaker 2: worked with a company of actors who I loved and trusted,
Speaker 2: and it was wonderful, and the writing was fantastic. It
Speaker 2: was Agnes Nixon and a lot of reasons that kept
Speaker 2: me there. However, having said that, I just never thought
Speaker 2: that playing one part would make me an actress. I
Speaker 2: had to do more, and so I did. And the
Speaker 2: other thing I started to say is that I think
Speaker 2: a lot of actors, you know, you feel like you
Speaker 2: should say yes as much as you can say yes,
Speaker 2: because someday it won't all be there, So you just
Speaker 2: say yes, why you can.
Speaker 1: I did a soap. The doctors and everybody in that cast,
Speaker 1: not everybody, but a thick band of them were all
Speaker 1: like they did the soap for the pension and welfare
Speaker 1: and the paycheck and the medical and then they ran
Speaker 1: off to the theater. It was their passion. We were
Speaker 1: a half hour which was starting to fade and go down.
Speaker 1: The older cast was primary. I always tell people that
Speaker 1: the cast photo were the adults in front and the
Speaker 1: kids in the back, because the kids were the supporting players.
Speaker 1: And that changed with Bold and the Beautiful, with all
Speaker 1: my children, well, my children were Ryan's Hope, Young and
Speaker 1: the restless. However, on your show, the youth revolution comes
Speaker 1: and you're still young at this point, but you're one
Speaker 1: of the older cast members of the younger cast mean no, no, no.
Speaker 2: I started playing Eric as a fifteen year old high
Speaker 2: school girl, something that drew me to that drew me
Speaker 2: to the show because the man who was the head
Speaker 2: of the department at Marymount, who came from Yale, only
Speaker 2: wanted me to do theater and maybe film. Those two things.
Speaker 2: Television and daytime television never even came into the equation.
Speaker 2: But when I read the script and I saw that
Speaker 2: the four kids and we were in high school were
Speaker 2: now featured with storylines, and I loved the part. I thought, well,
Speaker 2: I'm going to change his mind. I'm going to do
Speaker 2: this and it's so well written and I have this
Speaker 2: incredible part, so I took the part. He was not
Speaker 2: happy at first, but then he actually was interviewed by
Speaker 2: TV Guide and said, at the time, I know why
Speaker 2: she did this.
Speaker 1: You know, but even as you're in that generation, when
Speaker 1: you're younger and you stayed with the show and you're
Speaker 1: getting older, yes, and other young stars are coming into
Speaker 1: for the show, you remain one of the stars of
Speaker 1: the show. Why how did you pull that off?
Speaker 2: I think it was the writing that pulled it off,
Speaker 2: you know, thank you for saying that. No, thank you.
Speaker 2: I was very lucky, as I said, she You know,
Speaker 2: so I started her playing as a fifteen year old girl.
Speaker 2: But she was never the girl next door, and she
Speaker 2: was not the girl that you know, everybody was going
Speaker 2: to embrace. She was the naughty girl in town, and
Speaker 2: she was major bad girl in town and on a
Speaker 2: world stage. And I never thought the audience was going
Speaker 2: to like her. I loved to play her, the bad girl,
Speaker 2: the bad girl.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you never thought they would embrace the bad girl.
Speaker 2: Never thought the boy.
Speaker 1: Were you wrong?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Turned out that we loved bad girls. They loved bad girls.
Speaker 2: They do love that. And what they saw, and again
Speaker 2: the writing was there to support it was they saw
Speaker 2: that she was a girl who had dreams for herself
Speaker 2: and she was going to go out there and get them.
Speaker 2: She had spirit, she had spunk. She'd always do it
Speaker 2: the right or the nice way. But they really loved
Speaker 2: her spunk, her spirit.
Speaker 1: They would watch these shows. I remember because the generation
Speaker 1: comes in now where the audience is in sixties housewives,
Speaker 1: it's young people, college kids, and they stop in the
Speaker 1: middle of the day to watch their stories, my stories
Speaker 1: and then they would watch the show and then you're
Speaker 1: on there doing whatever, and they sit there and be like,
Speaker 1: you know, Corey, Corey, it's us. We did that. You know,
Speaker 1: anything bad you did was very familiar to them. Well.
Speaker 2: And also Erica I think represented my generation that we
Speaker 2: were working. You know, my generation was working. They were
Speaker 2: not getting out of college and just getting married. They
Speaker 2: had their own dreams and aspirations to have. Wasn't enough,
Speaker 2: wasn't the only thing on their mind. They had additional
Speaker 2: things on their minds and going to Merrymount, which was
Speaker 2: a women's college. I remember when we would talk about
Speaker 2: our dreams. We had aspirations for ourselves in terms of career,
Speaker 2: and it wasn't a question of if we were going
Speaker 2: to do that, It was when we're going to do?
Speaker 2: This is what we were going to do, and how
Speaker 2: could we.
Speaker 1: Do it now. Obviously, Agnes Nixon wasn't your head writer
Speaker 1: throughout the entire one. She was the creator, the creator,
Speaker 1: and then the writers would come and go.
Speaker 2: The writers would, yes, a lot of them would stay
Speaker 2: for years, but Lorraine Broderick became the head writer because
Speaker 2: Agnes would come and go occasionally.
Speaker 1: Did everybody who came on to run the show. They
Speaker 1: all basically treated you the same way. But then another
Speaker 1: great advantage you had was Eric is not going anywhere.
Speaker 2: It seemed to be that way. It seemed to be
Speaker 2: the way. It's hard only again, you, I think because
Speaker 2: Agnes was involved and it was her creation, and she
Speaker 2: was in the room, you know. And also I remember
Speaker 2: our last producer, Julie Cruthers, who lucky to have wonderful
Speaker 2: producers too, and Julie would say the last man who
Speaker 2: was the head of ABC Daytime, I believe, was not
Speaker 2: so enamored of Agnes being involved. And I remember Julie
Speaker 2: saying that Agnes is the youngest voice in the room,
Speaker 2: so she had good stories to tell and she remained
Speaker 2: relevant and groundbreaking always. So I think because of Agnes
Speaker 2: and Agnes's beautiful writing for my character Erica, I think
Speaker 2: that's why I got to stay.
Speaker 1: These people work really hard. You come up with a
Speaker 1: fresh idea every day. The only bad part was we
Speaker 1: do with double tape very rarely because we had to
Speaker 1: accommodate people who were working on Broadway. We had cast
Speaker 1: members who were on a Wednesday, they did the matinee,
Speaker 1: so they would have to leave by one. We'd pretape
Speaker 1: their scenes and they had a scene on a Christmas
Speaker 1: show where they're floating between everybody. So they're in a
Speaker 1: party and all the family of the show was there
Speaker 1: and they're floating with the camera and they go, I'll
Speaker 1: land on this one and this one, and they're like,
Speaker 1: my god, I can't wait for us to head down
Speaker 1: to Palm Beach and have a nice vacation. Something light.
Speaker 1: Pan to the next one and the wife or the
Speaker 1: girlfriend saying to the boyfriend, I knew you had drinks
Speaker 1: with her chat I knew you had drinks with I
Speaker 1: saw you and something from being turgid there. Then they'd
Speaker 1: land on me last, and I was like a little
Speaker 1: bit drunk because I went to lunch at Hurley's down
Speaker 1: on the bottom of the building. That's where we always
Speaker 1: went because we usually left it and come back we
Speaker 1: had launch and film. Now we had to come back
Speaker 1: to finish the rest of the taping as we did
Speaker 1: a double taping, and I came back when they finally
Speaker 1: land on me in their floating shot. They landed me
Speaker 1: and I go, you know, I'm so sorry, I'm sorry everybody.
Speaker 1: I blow the whole take for and they looked at me, like,
Speaker 1: you better straight out.
Speaker 2: This was at the beginning.
Speaker 1: This was in the beginning, and I thought it was
Speaker 1: I didn't take it as seriously as I should have,
Speaker 1: But I learned a lot. I learned a lot of
Speaker 1: the things that were significant to me about the professionalism
Speaker 1: of your acting career on that TV show, on that
Speaker 1: daytime TV.
Speaker 2: Interesting, it's wonderful.
Speaker 1: The show ends twenty eleven, correct, and all of the daytime.
Speaker 1: That was an empire. Where did you shoot a West
Speaker 1: End Avenue over in the big at the Kremlin?
Speaker 2: I call it the Kremlin sixty sixth and Columbus. Yeah,
Speaker 2: And we moved to sixty seventh and West End, And
Speaker 2: the last two years we shot in La.
Speaker 1: You did, I didn't know that.
Speaker 2: I hadn't lant well. We were told that it would
Speaker 2: be more cost effective at that time, and also because
Speaker 2: of the climate, it would be really great. We could
Speaker 2: shoot outside as well, with the location actually nearby.
Speaker 1: Did you enjoy it?
Speaker 2: I did?
Speaker 1: I did.
Speaker 2: I didn't expect to, because so many actors from New
Speaker 2: York would say how much they didn't love working in
Speaker 2: LA I did, maybe because I grew up in the
Speaker 2: suburbs and I was used to being in a car
Speaker 2: and even like it, so I was fine with that.
Speaker 1: And where did you live when you were out there?
Speaker 1: Where did you shoot?
Speaker 2: We shot in Glendale. We shot in Glendale, and we
Speaker 2: had an apartment in Glendale. The studio was six minutes
Speaker 2: from our apartment. If I hit the red lights in
Speaker 2: Garden City, it was an hour and a half commute.
Speaker 2: But I really it was fine for me because I
Speaker 2: studied my lines on the way in and I could
Speaker 2: just return phone calls and be a vegetable way.
Speaker 1: How did you get in every day? Somebody drove you?
Speaker 2: Yes, it began with helmet driving me. That's love, Yes,
Speaker 2: it really, Yes, he was fantastic. But then when I
Speaker 2: was twenty seven, one of the vice presidents of the
Speaker 2: network offered me a limo, you know, to pick me
Speaker 2: up and take me in, And I remember saying, I
Speaker 2: thank them very much, But I said, you know, people
Speaker 2: are coming here on this subway, and if I show
Speaker 2: up in a limo, this is an ensemble, I'm going
Speaker 2: to be playing scenes with them. This is probably not
Speaker 2: going to be a good way to have a company
Speaker 2: of actors.
Speaker 1: You didn't want to be viewed that way, No.
Speaker 2: I wanted to be. I was part of the company.
Speaker 2: I recognized that the part that was being written, and
Speaker 2: I was lucky enough to have it was written for me,
Speaker 2: but there was a collaboration for sure. I saw it
Speaker 2: was on the page, and frankly, I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: my experience with the writing there was incredible, and I
Speaker 2: had good training, so I knew how I mean. My
Speaker 2: judgment I thought was a good judgment and it was
Speaker 2: really so well written. Also, I was one of those
Speaker 2: characters you're talking about that the writer wanted to tell
Speaker 2: the story through, and I realized that it was very,
Speaker 2: very lucky. But one thing with Agnes is that she
Speaker 2: would tell very complicated, relevant stories, current stories through everybody's eyes.
Speaker 2: I think Erica was Agnes's voice, but I really admired
Speaker 2: the fact that these complicated issues anybody watching out there
Speaker 2: could could have see themselves represented.
Speaker 1: What was the challenge for you to keep that role fresh?
Speaker 1: Do you suggest things to them? I always believe that
Speaker 1: someone who's as talented as you are, and who owns
Speaker 1: that role in the way that you did, you have
Speaker 1: every right to turn to them and say, I'd like
Speaker 1: you to mayven think about this? You suggest how much
Speaker 1: were you able to suggest very little?
Speaker 2: Really, yeah, very little.
Speaker 1: You just referred to Agnes.
Speaker 2: It was there, you know. I was really lucky most
Speaker 2: mostly I would read this. First of all, it was
Speaker 2: a newscript every day, and you know very well from
Speaker 2: having been on daytime. It was the length of a
Speaker 2: play a day. It was a play a day, and
Speaker 2: so there's a lot of material not only to commit
Speaker 2: to memory, but to fill to make work, you know.
Speaker 2: And so the day to day was very occupying of
Speaker 2: my mind. And I was in such good hands in
Speaker 2: the final times, you know, when we moved to la
Speaker 2: and when the person who was in the charge of
Speaker 2: daytime brought in a new writer altogether, and he met
Speaker 2: with our company of actors during a lunch period in
Speaker 2: our rehearsal hall. And the first thing that that writer,
Speaker 2: who might have been a wonderful writer in a different genre,
Speaker 2: but what he said was I'm going to shake things up.
Speaker 2: That's fine, but he said, so some of you may
Speaker 2: not recognize your characters or your relationships and so on.
Speaker 2: And so what happened was that during rehearsal in the morning,
Speaker 2: what he said was true, and so many actors were concerned.
Speaker 2: I was one of them too. Of course, you know,
Speaker 2: people would come to me and say, what are you
Speaker 2: doing about this? So you just try to hold on
Speaker 2: tooth and nail, you know.
Speaker 1: You tell when people were coming on the younger people
Speaker 1: knew were people, whether they had it or not, the
Speaker 1: discipline to do the show.
Speaker 2: I could see that some people were, you know, no,
Speaker 2: we're wonderful. Wonderful yeah, Josh, Kim Darnell, they stood out
Speaker 2: right away. Kim Delaney, Kim just mel be my god, yeah,
Speaker 2: Kim Delaney, yes. And actually Michael B.
Speaker 1: Jordan.
Speaker 2: Michael played my steps on by marriage, to Jack Montgomery,
Speaker 2: to Walt Willie, who was spectacular too, but he was
Speaker 2: one who was sixteen and always very what you're saying, discipline,
Speaker 2: showed up on time, showed up prepared, very respectful, very
Speaker 2: nice person, good guy.
Speaker 1: When you did the show. Were their actors you just
Speaker 1: fere like you enjoyed working with them?
Speaker 2: They were, Oh absolutely, what Willie, who I worked with
Speaker 2: most often, who was my love interest throughout lots of times,
Speaker 2: in and out. He's so funny and very quick and
Speaker 2: loved working with him. And on the other side of
Speaker 2: the coind David Canary, who was spectacular actor I worked
Speaker 2: with him, probably next to Walt. I worked with David
Speaker 2: Canary most, but we hate I mean I hated him,
Speaker 2: Erica hated him. But those scenes were wonderful. And you
Speaker 2: know you were saying earlier about you know, the senior
Speaker 2: actors leaving because they were on Broadway and they had
Speaker 2: places to go. I thought that was one of the
Speaker 2: biggest pluses working in New York. But the other actors
Speaker 2: were phenomenal Broadway actors. I mean Jimmy Mitchell who danced
Speaker 2: the Curly Ballet in Oklahoma on Broadway and was so urbane.
Speaker 2: And you know, I was young and to learn from
Speaker 2: these incredibly successful actors who were working on Broadway. Sometimes
Speaker 2: someone like Philip Bosco, who, yeah, would come and do
Speaker 2: you know an arc on the show? Yeah. Oh, I
Speaker 2: remember one day I was doing a concert version of
Speaker 2: One Touch of Venus and we would rehearse the Amsterdam
Speaker 2: Theater during my lunch hour, run out there and do
Speaker 2: that and come back was for encores, Yes, and at
Speaker 2: the time, and I was so much fun and again,
Speaker 2: wonderful Broadway actors. Piggy Cass was playing my mother, Yes,
Speaker 2: I know, it was incredible. And coming back to the
Speaker 2: studio and waiting behind the sets, you know, if the
Speaker 2: cameras broke down a little bit or something was happening
Speaker 2: technically that we didn't know what we had to be
Speaker 2: on hold, stayed our places. So behind the scenes, my
Speaker 2: set flowed into behind Jimmy Mitchell's set, and he came
Speaker 2: up to me and he just took me in his
Speaker 2: arms and waltz with me. He danced with me all
Speaker 2: over the backstage while we were waiting. You know, some
Speaker 2: of those wonderful experiences.
Speaker 1: Actress Susan Lucci. If you enjoy conversations with talented female Thespians,
Speaker 1: check out my episode with former As the World Turns
Speaker 1: star and Oscar winner Julianne Moore.
Speaker 4: I'm very chatty. I like to talk all the way
Speaker 4: up to action. I do, I do, And if you
Speaker 4: can't talk to me, I'm really disappointed. Then I get lonely,
Speaker 4: and I want to be lonely when I want, I
Speaker 4: want to be with my buddy.
Speaker 2: I want to talk to me. You talk to me
Speaker 2: every friends, buddy talking to you.
Speaker 4: What'd you do this morning? What'd you have for dinner
Speaker 4: last night? What are you doing later today?
Speaker 2: Are you cold?
Speaker 4: Do you like that Sweater'd you like my sweater? What
Speaker 4: are you doing?
Speaker 1: Action? Acting?
Speaker 2: I love it.
Speaker 4: That's my favorite part.
Speaker 3: He said.
Speaker 4: You get this great connection with other human being. And
Speaker 4: then the scene is like, ooh, comes alive.
Speaker 1: To hear more of my conversation with Julianne Moore, go
Speaker 1: to Here's the Thing dot org. After the break, Susan
Speaker 1: Lucci shares the story of how she landed the part
Speaker 1: of a lifetime a leading role on.
Speaker 3: The Great White Way.
Speaker 1: I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing
Speaker 1: Susan Lucci. She has spent decades enjoying the prolific output
Speaker 1: of a successful acting career. She's also the mother of
Speaker 1: two children and stepmother to two more. I was curious
Speaker 1: whether anyone in her family wanted to follow her into
Speaker 1: show business.
Speaker 2: My daughter did for a while.
Speaker 1: What you do?
Speaker 2: She was on passions? Ahuh yeah, and she was wonderful.
Speaker 2: She's absolutely wonderful.
Speaker 1: And then what happened?
Speaker 2: She didn't love it?
Speaker 1: And can you say why?
Speaker 2: I don't know that it was ever articulated why, but
Speaker 2: she did not really love it.
Speaker 1: And most people I know who their kids go into it,
Speaker 1: especially now a lot of my friends, their kids go
Speaker 1: in and they were one. The one thing that they
Speaker 1: can't handle is the unreliability of it. Oh, you know
Speaker 1: that you don't work that much and you're off all
Speaker 1: this time. You don't know what's going to happen to you.
Speaker 1: You don't know where you're going to be four months
Speaker 1: from now, six months when they couldn't stand that. They
Speaker 1: wanted to have their life and live somewhere and go
Speaker 1: to their yoga class and have their husband or a
Speaker 1: boyfriend or whatever.
Speaker 2: Those Yeah, it's not for everybody.
Speaker 1: It's not for ever.
Speaker 2: And being the spouse of the person you were saying earlier,
Speaker 2: you know, you had a girlfriend who didn't get it,
Speaker 2: and Helmut did get it. But I would marvel at
Speaker 2: that and really admire him for how great he was
Speaker 2: about and smart, you know, because it's not for everybody.
Speaker 1: Somebody famous one said to me. Don't get too blown
Speaker 1: off course, don't let the wind in your sales to
Speaker 1: take you. Don't watch comedies that make you laugh, make
Speaker 1: you see, don't watch dramas that make you cry, he said,
Speaker 1: watch National geographic shows of animals.
Speaker 2: While you're on that set in the middle of while
Speaker 2: you're shooting a movie.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and don't get too in a different head. Try
Speaker 1: to stay in this kind of neutral gear. And he
Speaker 1: said to me, like when you go in, he goes,
Speaker 1: don't don't talk to people on the phone. Don't talk
Speaker 1: to your girlfriend on the phone. Don't talk to your
Speaker 1: decorator on the phone about how much money he's going
Speaker 1: to spend on.
Speaker 2: God forbid, you have a fight with your girlfriend, don't.
Speaker 1: Talk to do it. The other one was this guy
Speaker 1: turned to me once. It was Albert Salmi, the great,
Speaker 1: great character actor. Albert sell me. He was there was
Speaker 1: sitting on the the set in a chair reading the
Speaker 1: La Times or something, and he says, are you're going
Speaker 1: to go back to your trailer? I? Oh, no, I
Speaker 1: think I'll hang out. And he said that's the best
Speaker 1: thing to go. Don't leave the set, said, don't go
Speaker 1: back to your trailer. The set is where it's at.
Speaker 1: Always be staying linked to the process.
Speaker 2: That's great. Yeah, felt the same way. I would see
Speaker 2: people reading books and I thought, gee, how do they
Speaker 2: do that? I can't do that. Concentrate what takes you
Speaker 2: out of that world? Different world.
Speaker 1: One last question about the show directors. So I found
Speaker 1: that we had some wonderful directors, most of who had
Speaker 1: this is back in the eighties, with great theater backgrounds,
Speaker 1: and they were kind of wickedly funny, you know. I'd
Speaker 1: say to the director, Henry Kaplan, I'd.
Speaker 2: Say, oh, Henry, you know, Henry, you're wickedly funny, is
Speaker 2: exactly he was.
Speaker 4: He terrorized me too, terrorized me.
Speaker 1: I have a drink in my head like this, and
Speaker 1: I go, I'm gonna can I hold this up? When
Speaker 1: I see this line, I want to sip and then
Speaker 1: I want to pull it away and say the other
Speaker 1: partl where I'm thinking of anything to play, And I go,
Speaker 1: and I'll do this and I'll never forget I'm doing
Speaker 1: a scene with Kim Zimmer And Henry goes, that's fine,
Speaker 1: you do what everyone does. I'm gonna be on her anyway,
Speaker 1: you bast We have some great directors that.
Speaker 2: We have great directors, and Henry, Henry was terrific. Also
Speaker 2: we used to get our notes. They called him red chairs.
Speaker 2: They would call us to red chairs, which were a
Speaker 2: bunch of red director's chairs set up, you know, in
Speaker 2: the middle of the studio, to get our notes. So
Speaker 2: the whole company of actors got their notes together. This
Speaker 2: was both humiliating and bonding, you know, because we're humility together.
Speaker 2: We all had our chance being and when Henry was directing,
Speaker 2: the humiliation was flying. We were just buried. We buried
Speaker 2: you destroyed you right before you had to go on
Speaker 2: air and play those scenes. Yeah. Actually, yeah, that was him,
Speaker 2: and it took me a while. It took me a
Speaker 2: couple of weeks to figure out that that was his
Speaker 2: humor because I was destroyed.
Speaker 1: Oh he was about well you did Bob Center director. Yes, well,
Speaker 1: they all want to move on to the hour shows
Speaker 1: because it's more fun for them. Yeah, the half hour shows.
Speaker 1: You think you're all just getting started. Yeah, that's over
Speaker 1: now you are doing what? No, No, they said there
Speaker 1: might be a reboot of the show or not.
Speaker 2: You know they're saying that, and I'm told that. Then.
Speaker 2: Of course, the writers' strike came and the actors strike,
Speaker 2: so I thought it was gone by then, but I'm
Speaker 2: told it's still possibly in the works, so we'll see.
Speaker 1: That's another credible Now in terms of other things you're doing,
Speaker 1: you've been involved with that theater in Westhampton for a
Speaker 1: very long time.
Speaker 2: Correct, well, with celebrity autobiography, right, you know we took
Speaker 2: the play there. You were in the first one.
Speaker 1: I did one of them, and I did a couple
Speaker 1: of them at Guildhall.
Speaker 2: At Guildhall, actually I did the first concert there with
Speaker 2: Marvin Hamlish. Yeah, sang yes a little bit. Marvin asked, well,
Speaker 2: I met Marvin and sag Harbor at that theater. Actually
Speaker 2: he was doing a concert there, and his wife came
Speaker 2: out to me during intermission and told me that she
Speaker 2: was Marvin's wife, and she was great herself, but she said,
Speaker 2: Marvin's wife, and he'd like to meet you. Would you
Speaker 2: like to meet Marvin? I said, what, I'd like to
Speaker 2: meet Marvin, of course. So she took me backstage to
Speaker 2: meet him afterwards. And that was a meeting that changed
Speaker 2: my life. First of all, it was all during that
Speaker 2: time where I hadn't won the Emmy for many, many
Speaker 2: and many nominations, and he was assuring me that it
Speaker 2: had nothing to do with my work. I mean, he
Speaker 2: was really encouraging me. He was a fan, which was
Speaker 2: so thrilling that Marvin Hamlish would be a fan. Then
Speaker 2: he called me afterwards and asked me if I'd like
Speaker 2: to work with him. We worked at Heinzhall in Pittsburgh
Speaker 2: the first time.
Speaker 1: Do you know?
Speaker 2: Heinzhall and the deal was that I would give a
Speaker 2: seminar to the seniors who were drama majors at Carnegie
Speaker 2: Mellen or Carnegie might have been just Carnegie.
Speaker 3: At the time.
Speaker 2: Anyway. He called me then one night and said to me,
Speaker 2: I'd like to write a song for you to dance
Speaker 2: with the chorus boys who are dance majors at Carnegie.
Speaker 2: They will be there and they will come and they
Speaker 2: will dance with you, and you will dance with them.
Speaker 2: How does that sound? I said, that sounds amazing, you know.
Speaker 2: Thank you, and his doorbell rang at his apartment. He said,
Speaker 2: hold on a second, my Chinese food is here, and
Speaker 2: so he went to get his Chinese food and we
Speaker 2: left it at that. But it was great working with him.
Speaker 2: That was my first time working with him. And then
Speaker 2: yes we were at West Hampton Nice Theater, Nice Theater.
Speaker 2: And then after I won the Emmy, the producers Brandon
Speaker 2: Barry Weisler called me and asked me if I would
Speaker 2: like to play Anna Oakley and I get your gun
Speaker 2: if I'd like to go in for Bernadette. Bernadette was
Speaker 2: going to be leaving the show and would I like
Speaker 2: to go in for her? And my agent called me
Speaker 2: from ICM at the time in LA and she said,
Speaker 2: to me, sit down here. She said, I don't even
Speaker 2: know if you sing. I said, well, yeah, I did
Speaker 2: musical theater in high school and college. Yes, I'd like
Speaker 2: to do that. And she said okay, And I said
Speaker 2: and because Marvin, he said I should come to his
Speaker 2: apartment so he could hear me sing and see if
Speaker 2: he thought I could do this, because after our last
Speaker 2: appearance together he said, if you ever need me, I'm
Speaker 2: here to help you, let me know. So I was
Speaker 2: offered this part, and I was way too shy to
Speaker 2: call Marvin Hamlash and ask him anything, but Helmet was not.
Speaker 2: So Helmet called Harvin Hamush told him what was being
Speaker 2: offered and what did he think, And Marvin was very generous.
Speaker 2: He had been on he was on tour. When Helmet
Speaker 2: reached me, he was in Europe and he said, but
Speaker 2: I'm coming home Sunday night. Come to my apartment and
Speaker 2: sing for me and I'll tell you. So we went
Speaker 2: to Marvin's apartment. Scariest thing I ever did at that time.
Speaker 2: I rang Marvin Hamlush his doorbell to his apartment and
Speaker 2: he answered, and his lyricist was there with him and
Speaker 2: his wife, Terry Blair, in the back room, and he said, so,
Speaker 2: come on in, I have lyricists here. I'm going to
Speaker 2: play the piano and sing through some of the numbers.
Speaker 2: And I had by then, you know, just locked myself
Speaker 2: in my room and learned all the music. And he said, so,
Speaker 2: I want you to sing a ballad and an uptune
Speaker 2: and I had to and I did, and he said, okay,
Speaker 2: I'm going to go now to the back of the apartment.
Speaker 2: He has one of those pre World War two apartments
Speaker 2: and he went and it looked like a La Liique
Speaker 2: glass partition and he went way in the back and
Speaker 2: he said, now sing to me, and I did, and
Speaker 2: he came out and I guess because it's Broadway and
Speaker 2: he need to know he could hear me. And he said, okay.
Speaker 2: He said you can do this. He said, you can
Speaker 2: do this if you want to, or I want you
Speaker 2: to work for a week with Craig Cornelia. That was
Speaker 2: his he was his lyricist, and come back to me
Speaker 2: and sing again, and so I did, and he said, yeah,
Speaker 2: there's no question you can do this. He said, you're
Speaker 2: very brave tall you're not, and so Bernadette wasn't either.
Speaker 3: So it worked.
Speaker 2: Worked, so he encouraged me to do it, and he
Speaker 2: really helped me to get to the place where I
Speaker 2: could do it because the next step was to sing
Speaker 2: for Barry and fran Weisler, and I wanted to. They
Speaker 2: did not ask for that. I wanted to be one.
Speaker 2: I wanted to know I could do it.
Speaker 1: How long did you do it?
Speaker 2: Not long enough? I'll tell you it was just a
Speaker 2: month because by that time Bernadette decided she didn't want
Speaker 2: to leave. She was just going to leave for the holidays.
Speaker 2: She came back after that riba after that because by
Speaker 2: that time all my children wouldn't let me go. They
Speaker 2: were beginning a new truly a very important storyline. But
Speaker 2: at the beginning when they told me it was going
Speaker 2: to be a very important storyline, and they couldn't let
Speaker 2: me go. If you tell me no, I'm not just
Speaker 2: going to say, oh okay, I'm never going to throw
Speaker 2: out my hands.
Speaker 1: It's a great opportunity for you.
Speaker 2: Oh my goodness, my dream. I grew up in New
Speaker 2: York to be a little girl, to grow up in
Speaker 2: New York and then you have a chance to be
Speaker 2: on Broadway. Oh my god.
Speaker 1: Yeah, a great show.
Speaker 2: Oh great show, great part with the original cast. So
Speaker 2: you know I would try to go over that brick wall,
Speaker 2: over it, under it, through it, rounded. How you know.
Speaker 2: I gave them all sorts of notions. Can we do this?
Speaker 2: Can we do that? This was the opportunity of a lifetime.
Speaker 2: But all my children did not see it that way.
Speaker 2: ABC did not see it that way at the time.
Speaker 1: Actress Susan Lucci, if you're enjoying this conversation, tell a
Speaker 1: friend and be sure to follow Here's the Thing on
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: When we come back, Susan Lucci shares Howard felt to
Speaker 1: finally take home the Emmy after her nineteenth nomination. I'm
Speaker 1: Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing. Susan
Speaker 1: Lucci has inhabited many amazing roles, including one as national
Speaker 1: and Ambassador for the American Heart Association. The organization seeks
Speaker 1: to reduce deaths caused from heart disease and stroke, and
Speaker 1: has contributed over five billion dollars in cardiovascular and cerebro
Speaker 1: vascular research. I wanted to know how she first got
Speaker 1: involved with the nonprofit.
Speaker 2: I had a hard incident actually five years ago, so
Speaker 2: that's great, you know that everything's wonderful. But it took
Speaker 2: me quite by surprise. I had never been zick, nothing,
Speaker 2: and my mother. I lost my mother at one hundred
Speaker 2: and four.
Speaker 1: So where was she then?
Speaker 2: She was in assisted living in Florida, which is a
Speaker 2: they have, it's an art form in Florida. She was
Speaker 2: in a beautiful, wonderful place, but she had never had
Speaker 2: anything major. She was a hundred at the time. So
Speaker 2: I was out actually shopping for a birthday present for
Speaker 2: a friend, and it was a third time that month
Speaker 2: I had felt some pressure on my chest, radiating around
Speaker 2: my ribcage to my back. The first two times I
Speaker 2: didn't take it seriously. I thought, as most women do, Oh,
Speaker 2: it's nothing, it'll go away. I don't have time for this,
Speaker 2: and it did go away. But the third time it
Speaker 2: felt like an elephant pressing on my chest. And I
Speaker 2: had heard a woman do an interview many years before,
Speaker 2: no reason to even remember this, but I did, and
Speaker 2: I sat down good. I was out in a public
Speaker 2: place because the manager came over and asked me how
Speaker 2: I was feeling. I told her, and she said, Susan,
Speaker 2: my car is right outside. I can get you to
Speaker 2: Saint Francis Hospital, the heart hospital. It's a mile down
Speaker 2: the road, faster than an ambulance will come. And I
Speaker 2: went with her. It turned out she also had a
Speaker 2: degree in nursing. I mean, what are the odds of that?
Speaker 2: She was so calm, and I had no reason of
Speaker 2: a cardiologist, but my husband did and I called him.
Speaker 2: He met me at the er. Turned out I had
Speaker 2: a ninety percent blockage in my main artery and a
Speaker 2: seventy five percent blockage in the adjacent He never smoked.
Speaker 2: I never smoked. There's no reason to have this turned out.
Speaker 2: This is interesting. We all in my family thought that
Speaker 2: I have my mother's jeans because she never had anything.
Speaker 2: I never had anything. And it turned out and my
Speaker 2: otherwise fabulous, handsome, terrific father's jeans in that regard, So
Speaker 2: it was a calcium build up. Who knew that. I
Speaker 2: found out anyway, so I couldn't keep my good luck
Speaker 2: to myself. I had to get out there and tell
Speaker 2: women what symptoms would be, and to listen to them
Speaker 2: and to put themselves on their own to do list
Speaker 2: and take take care of themselves.
Speaker 1: You were a finalist and a beauty pageant? Is that true?
Speaker 2: Yes? I was?
Speaker 1: What was the beauty pageant? You were the finalist in
Speaker 1: Miss New York State.
Speaker 2: Mister York State Universe for.
Speaker 1: The Miss Universe. Yes, you were like getting on deck
Speaker 1: from Miss Universe. Yes, and you were, and you were
Speaker 1: you were the runner up for Miss New York State Universe.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 1: When I look at you, you're so attract if not
Speaker 1: as just as a woman and beautiful, you're an unbelievably
Speaker 1: beautiful woman, a gorgeous woman, and you're attractive as a person.
Speaker 1: You got this warmth you of that magical Juna saqua
Speaker 1: that people have on camera. People are connected to you,
Speaker 1: and they're looking at you and taking you in that
Speaker 1: head toss of yours.
Speaker 2: Thanks.
Speaker 1: You should have patented that you could make a billion
Speaker 1: dollars teaching people how to do different types of head tosses.
Speaker 1: Shouldn't effects or your head tosses is legendary, But you
Speaker 1: stayed connected. I'm assuming because of family your husband are
Speaker 1: the things that a lot of people do, but with beauty,
Speaker 1: tellent that you could have gone to LA and just
Speaker 1: made movies and did TV and just ran in that direction,
Speaker 1: and you didn't why.
Speaker 2: Maybe that uncertainty, you know that you were saying some
Speaker 2: of the younger generation now is.
Speaker 1: For you telling us your insecure Susan Lucci absolutely?
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Was it also a family?
Speaker 2: Yes. I by that time, by the time my career
Speaker 2: was taking off, I had my first child, my daughter, Liza,
Speaker 2: who was probably three years old, four years old, and
Speaker 2: I just thought I wanted to raise my children here.
Speaker 2: You know, anything you ever read about raising children and
Speaker 2: being a celebrity yourself, especially not in New York, but
Speaker 2: going to LA and.
Speaker 3: Being a mom and being a mom.
Speaker 1: I'm a dad, but a mom, big difference.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And so I wanted to raise them with as
Speaker 2: much and I'm going to put this in quotation marks
Speaker 2: normalcy as possible. And what I knew is normalcy was
Speaker 2: growing up in the town I grew up in, and
Speaker 2: in fact, when I met my husband, I wanted to
Speaker 2: move away from there. You know, when you grow up
Speaker 2: someplace the grass is always green, or someplace else, and
Speaker 2: I didn't realize how special a place it was. But
Speaker 2: my husband, who came from the Austrian Alps pretty special
Speaker 2: place itself. Grew up in this magical way, thought that
Speaker 2: Garden City was a great place to raise children, and
Speaker 2: so he you know, he had that influence over me,
Speaker 2: and I thought it was right. And from everything I
Speaker 2: read and everything he said and everything I could see
Speaker 2: by that time, I thought, yeah, there's a sense of
Speaker 2: community here, and there's a lot here for raising children
Speaker 2: in normalcy. Also, as I got closer up to the
Speaker 2: nighttime series situation at that time, not that my daughter
Speaker 2: was even in school as she was three, I learned
Speaker 2: that they take a break at the time, it was
Speaker 2: you would never see your children. You know, you go
Speaker 2: back to work on a nighttime series, at least in
Speaker 2: those days at the time where your children are getting
Speaker 2: out of school. So the whole summer, you know, you're
Speaker 2: busy going back to work. Whereas if I stayed in daytime,
Speaker 2: I could go whenever I wanted to go, according to
Speaker 2: the more control over my room.
Speaker 1: I tried forever never to work in the summertime, and
Speaker 1: in many many years I didn't. I would I think
Speaker 1: the time as I worked in the summer was for
Speaker 1: like for Scorsese, oh well, like I nobody was saying
Speaker 1: like I had to say yes, there was no and
Speaker 1: go shoot in August or something for a couple of weeks.
Speaker 1: I mean, I never had a big part in those films,
Speaker 1: but just to be with him and be around him
Speaker 1: was a thrill. But I tried to, you know, be
Speaker 1: with my kids and stay home all the time. And
Speaker 1: then eventually that becomes who you are now. When you
Speaker 1: finally won your Emmy, your heart fought, well earned, well
Speaker 1: deserved Emmy. Well you were sitting that you just expected
Speaker 1: to be the same over again.
Speaker 2: You kind of kind of, yes, I will tell you
Speaker 2: that every year I would get whipped into a frenzy
Speaker 2: because the press corps, you know, they've did this is
Speaker 2: your year, this is your year. But that year everything
Speaker 2: was in place. It was a great storyline. It was
Speaker 2: very well shot, very well directed, very well acted by everybody.
Speaker 2: Good stuff. But you know, after a while, I mean, nineteen,
Speaker 2: it was my nineteenth nomination. You know, you kind of
Speaker 2: say history's taught me. I'm probably not, you know, and
Speaker 2: yet part of you and I'm also not. I'm a
Speaker 2: hopeful person. I didn't want to give up completely, you know,
Speaker 2: so yeah, I thought, well maybe, but I wrote a
Speaker 2: couple in my head the night before, lying in bed,
Speaker 2: I thought, wow, if they're right, there were people I
Speaker 2: really want to thank, so, you know, talked through my
Speaker 2: head a little bit who I might think, but I
Speaker 2: kind of didn't want to let myself even go there.
Speaker 1: You know, you won the Emmy for for Acting, your
Speaker 1: nineteenth nomination. Yes, and then you won the Life Achievement Award. Yes,
Speaker 1: just now, just now, well, and now how did that
Speaker 1: come about?
Speaker 2: That was a phone call. I got a phone call
Speaker 2: from my publicist saying, what was the organization the Daytime Emmy?
Speaker 1: The Daytime Emmys, and there's an.
Speaker 2: Emmy committee, right, and they unanimously said they wanted to
Speaker 2: give me the awards.
Speaker 1: So my god, well, congratulations for that. Congratulations for that.
Speaker 2: Thank you much less hair raising when you know ahead
Speaker 2: of time.
Speaker 1: Much less. And Nicholson said to me a while ago,
Speaker 1: I said to him, when you won the Oscar had
Speaker 1: been nominated a couple of times. When you won the Oscar,
Speaker 1: you kind of looked like you knew you were going
Speaker 1: to win. You were sitting there, you had this really
Speaker 1: kind of a weird kind of smile on your face,
Speaker 1: sitting and I watched for the film and he goes.
Speaker 3: They owed it to me.
Speaker 1: Oh, he said, they owed it to me, and they
Speaker 1: knew they owed it to me. I've been nominated two
Speaker 1: or three times before and I didn't get it, and
Speaker 1: they knew they owed it.
Speaker 2: Tonight, it's so fun.
Speaker 1: Let me just say, you are this great goddess and
Speaker 1: legend of daytime television and so forth. But I tell you,
Speaker 1: I hope you don't retire. You can't retire because you're
Speaker 1: not done. You're not done. Thank you, a lot of
Speaker 1: other things you could be doing. Thank you, My thanks
Speaker 1: to Susan Lucci. This episode was recorded at CDM Studios
Speaker 1: in New York City. We're produced by Kathleen Russo, Zach MacNeice,
Speaker 1: and Maureen Hobin. Our engineer is Frank Imperial. Our social
Speaker 1: media manager is Danielle Gingrich. I'm Alec Baldwin. Here's the
Speaker 1: thing is brought to you by iHeart Radio.