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 sat 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 on my part to meet him,
Speaker 2: because I was young and I didn't I don't think
Speaker 2: I really knew exactly how fabulous he was and just
Speaker 2: got really lucky. Fortunately he had a very good sense
Speaker 2: of humor and he was very confident. This was really
Speaker 2: helpful in this business we're talking about. You know, he
Speaker 2: took a lot of ribbing all those guys I was
Speaker 2: kissing 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 the TV. And everything.
Speaker 1: Me kissing this person was going to be featured. Who knew,
Speaker 1: who knows? And she really just couldn't take it. She
Speaker 1: was really 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 idiots.
Speaker 2: I would sound like helmet, like a good luck.
Speaker 1: I mean, please go right ahead. Don't teach me everything
Speaker 1: about you. I need to know, you know, but you.
Speaker 1: I don't want to talk just about the TV show
Speaker 1: at length. I want to talk about the other things
Speaker 1: you did and the other things you wanted to do.
Speaker 1: I mean, your commitment to that show is singular. You
Speaker 1: are right to the end. You surf that wave right
Speaker 1: to the shore. But other than that, what were there
Speaker 1: other things you wanted you did do, other things, you
Speaker 1: made films, you stepped in for Bernadett and Nanny gets.
Speaker 2: Your want to go in for Bernadette. I was so
Speaker 2: through all. I love 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 Martha Grand.
Speaker 2: It was a wonderful school, a 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 new 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
Speaker 2: trusted and it was wonderful, and the writing was fantastic.
Speaker 2: It was Agnes Nixon and a lot of reasons that
Speaker 2: kept me there. However, having said that, I just never
Speaker 2: thought that playing one part would make me an actress.
Speaker 2: I had to do more, and so I did. And
Speaker 2: the other thing I started to say is that I
Speaker 2: think a lot of actors, you know, you feel like
Speaker 2: you 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. That 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, well 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,
Speaker 1: 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 1: Never thought the boy Were you wrong? 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 spirited, 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.
Speaker 2: Well. And also Erica I think represented my generation that
Speaker 2: we were working. You know, my generation was working. They
Speaker 2: were not getting out of college and just getting married.
Speaker 2: They 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 Merrimount, 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 were going to do.
Speaker 2: This is what we were going to do, and how could.
Speaker 1: We do it now. Obviously, Agnes Nixon wasn't your head
Speaker 1: writer throughout the entire work. She was the creator, the creator,
Speaker 1: and then the writers would come and go.
Speaker 2: Writers would, yes, a lot of them would stay for years,
Speaker 2: but Lorraine Broadwick became the head writer because Agnes would
Speaker 2: 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. Was that another
Speaker 1: great advantage you had was that 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: would do with double tape very rarely because we had
Speaker 1: to accommodate people who were working on Broadway. We had
Speaker 1: cast 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 know you had drinks. I I
Speaker 1: saw you and something frothing turgid there. Then they'd land
Speaker 1: on me last, and I was like a little bit
Speaker 1: drunk because I went to lunch at Hurley's down on
Speaker 1: the bottom of the building. That's where we always went,
Speaker 1: cause we usually left it and come back. We had
Speaker 1: launch and film. Now we had to come back to
Speaker 1: finish the rest of the taping as we did a
Speaker 1: double taping, and I came back when they finally land
Speaker 1: on me in their floating shot. They landed me and
Speaker 1: 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 daytime.
Speaker 2: TV 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 then we moved to sixty seventh and West End,
Speaker 2: And the last two years we shot in La you did.
Speaker 1: I didn't know that that well.
Speaker 2: We were told that it would be more cost effective
Speaker 2: at that time, and also because of the climate, it
Speaker 2: would be really great. We could shoot outside as well,
Speaker 2: with the location actually nearby.
Speaker 1: Did you enjoy it?
Speaker 2: I did? I did. I didn't expect to, because so
Speaker 2: many actors from New York would say how much they
Speaker 2: didn't love working in LA I did, maybe because I
Speaker 2: grew up in the suburbs and I was used to
Speaker 2: being in a car and even like it, So I
Speaker 2: 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 finnantastic. 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.
Speaker 2: No, 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 what
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 I mean,
Speaker 2: my judgment I thought was a good judgment and it
Speaker 2: was really so well written. Also, I was one of
Speaker 2: those characters you're talking about that the writer wanted to
Speaker 2: tell 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, but through
Speaker 2: everybody's eyes. I think Erica was Agnes's voice. But I
Speaker 2: really admired the fact that these complicated issues anybody watching
Speaker 2: out there could could 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.
Speaker 2: Very little, 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.
Speaker 1: Know, 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.
Speaker 1: My god, yeah, Kim Delaney, yes.
Speaker 2: And actually Michael B. Jordan. Michael played my steps on
Speaker 2: by marriage to Jack Montgomery, to Walt Willie, who was
Speaker 2: spectacular too, but he was one who was sixteen and
Speaker 2: always very what you're saying, discipline, showed up on time,
Speaker 2: showed up prepared, very respectful, very nice person, good guy.
Speaker 1: When you did the show. Were their actors, you just
Speaker 1: feel 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 to learn from these
Speaker 2: incredibly successful actors who were working on Broadway. Sometimes someone
Speaker 2: like Philip Bosco, who, yeah, would come and do you
Speaker 2: know an arc on the show? Yeah? Oh, I remember
Speaker 2: one day I was doing a concert version of One
Speaker 2: Touch of Venus and we would rehearse the Amsterdam Theater
Speaker 2: during my lunch hour. Run out there and do that
Speaker 2: and come back was for encores, yes, and at the time,
Speaker 2: and I was so much fun and again, wonderful Broadway actors.
Speaker 2: Piggy Cass was playing my mother, yes, I know, it
Speaker 2: was incredible. And coming back to the studio and waiting
Speaker 2: behind the sets. You know, if the cameras broke down
Speaker 2: a little bit or something was happening technically that we
Speaker 2: didn't know what we had to be on hold, stayed
Speaker 2: our places. So behind the scenes, my set flowed into
Speaker 2: behind Jimmy Mitchell's set, and he came up to me
Speaker 2: and he just took me in his arms and waltz
Speaker 2: with me. He danced with me all over the backstage
Speaker 2: while we were waiting. You know, some of those wonderful experiences,
Speaker 2: actress Susan Lucci.
Speaker 1: If you enjoyed conversations with talented female thespians, check out
Speaker 1: my episode with former As the World Turns star and
Speaker 1: Oscar winner Julianne Moore.
Speaker 2: I'm very chatty. I like to talk all the way
Speaker 2: up to action.
Speaker 3: I do, I do, And if you can't talk to me,
Speaker 3: I'm really disappointed. Then I get lonely, and I want
Speaker 3: to be lonely when I want, I want to be
Speaker 3: with my buddy. I'm want to talk to me, talk
Speaker 3: to me and my friend lets me buddys talking to you.
Speaker 3: What'd you do this morning? What'd you have for dinner
Speaker 3: last night? What are you doing later today?
Speaker 2: Are you cold? Do you like that sweater. Did you
Speaker 2: like my sweater? What are you doing? Action acting? I
Speaker 2: love it.
Speaker 3: That's my favorite part.
Speaker 2: He said.
Speaker 3: You get this great connection with other human being. And
Speaker 3: 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 The Great White Way.
Speaker 1: I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing
Speaker 1: Susan Luci. 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, what you do? She
Speaker 2: was on passions. Ahh yeah, and she was wonderful. She's
Speaker 2: 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 onet. The one thing that they
Speaker 1: can't handle is the unreliability of it. You know that
Speaker 1: you don't work that much and you're off all this time.
Speaker 1: You don't know what's going to happen to you. You
Speaker 1: don't know where you're going to be four months from now,
Speaker 1: six months from They couldn't stand that. They wanted to
Speaker 1: have their life and live somewhere and go to their
Speaker 1: yoga class and have their husband or a 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 say, 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 1: You're shooting a movie, yeah, and don't get too in
Speaker 1: a different head. Try to stay in this kind of
Speaker 1: neutral gear. And he said to me, like when you
Speaker 1: go into hees, don't don't talk to people on the phone.
Speaker 1: Don't talk to your girlfriend on the phone. Don't talk
Speaker 1: to your decorator on the phone about how much money
Speaker 1: he's going to spend on.
Speaker 2: God forbid, you have a fight with your girlfriend, don't
Speaker 2: talk to do it.
Speaker 1: The other one was this guy turned to me once.
Speaker 1: It was Albert Salmie, the great, great character actor, Albert Sellmi.
Speaker 1: He was there, was sitting on the this set in
Speaker 1: a chair reading the La Times or something, and he says,
Speaker 1: are you're going to go back to your trailer? I? Oh, no,
Speaker 1: I think I'll hang out. And he said that's the
Speaker 1: best thing to go. Don't leave the set, said, don't
Speaker 1: go 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. I found that
Speaker 1: we had some wonderful directors, most of who had this
Speaker 1: is back in the eighties, with great theater backgrounds, and
Speaker 1: they were kind of wickedly funny, you know. I'd say
Speaker 1: to the director, Henry cap and I'd.
Speaker 2: Say, oh, Henry, you know Henry, you wickedly funny is
Speaker 2: exactly he was. He terrorized me too, terrorized me.
Speaker 1: I'd have a drink in my hand 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: part of with the I'm thinking of anything to play,
Speaker 1: And I go and I'll do this, and I'll never
Speaker 1: forget I'm doing a scene with Kim Zimmer And Henry goes,
Speaker 1: that's fine, you do what everyone does. I'm gonna be
Speaker 1: on her anyway. You 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: here and play those scenes. Yeah, yeah, but that was
Speaker 2: him and the and it took me a while. It
Speaker 2: took me a couple of weeks to figure out that
Speaker 2: that was his humor because I was destroyed.
Speaker 1: He was about you, did, Bob Cento directors? Yes, well
Speaker 1: they all want to move on to the hour shows
Speaker 1: because it's more fun for them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, half hour shows.
Speaker 1: You think you're all just getting started. Yeah, it'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, you know, gone by then,
Speaker 2: but I'm told it's still possibly in the work, so
Speaker 2: 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 guild Hall.
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: what he was doing a concert there, and his wife
Speaker 2: came out to me during intermission and told me that
Speaker 2: she was Marvin's wife and she was great herself, but
Speaker 2: she said Marvin's wife, and he'd like to meet you.
Speaker 2: Would you like to meet Marvin? I said, what, I'd
Speaker 2: like to meet Marvin, of course, So she took me
Speaker 2: backstage to meet him afterwards. And that was a meeting
Speaker 2: that changed my life. First of all, it was all
Speaker 2: during that time where I hadn't won the Emmy for many,
Speaker 2: many 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. Do you know? Heinzhall and the deal
Speaker 2: was that I would give a seminar to the seniors
Speaker 2: who were drama majors at Carnegie Mellen or Carnegie might
Speaker 2: have been just Carnegie at the time. Anyway. He called
Speaker 2: me then one night and said to me, I'd like
Speaker 2: to write a song for you to dance with the
Speaker 2: chorus boys who were dance majors at Carnegie. They will
Speaker 2: be there and they will come and they will dance
Speaker 2: with you, and you will dance with them. How does
Speaker 2: that sound? I said, that sounds amazing, you know. Thank you,
Speaker 2: and his doorbell rang at his apartment. He said, hold
Speaker 2: on a second, my Chinese food is here, and so
Speaker 2: he went to get his Chinese food and we left
Speaker 2: 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 Havlush 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 lalique glass
Speaker 2: partition and he went way in the back and he said,
Speaker 2: now sing to me, and I did, and he came
Speaker 2: out and I guess because it's Broadway and he need
Speaker 2: 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 Carnelia, 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 1: 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 month,
Speaker 2: because by that time Bernadette decided she didn't want to leave.
Speaker 2: She was just going to leave for the holidays. She
Speaker 2: came back that ripa after that because by that time
Speaker 2: all my children wouldn't let me go. They were beginning
Speaker 2: a new truly a very important storyline. But at the
Speaker 2: beginning when they told me it was going to be
Speaker 2: a very important storyline, and they couldn't let me go.
Speaker 2: If you tell me no, I'm not just going to say,
Speaker 2: oh okay, I'm never going to throw out my hands.
Speaker 1: It was 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, A great show. Oh great show,
Speaker 2: great part with the original cast. So you know, I
Speaker 2: would try to go over that brick wall, over it,
Speaker 2: under it, through it, rounded. How you know. I gave
Speaker 2: them all sorts of notions. Can we do this? Can
Speaker 2: 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 cerebrovascular research.
Speaker 1: I wanted to know how she first got involved with
Speaker 1: 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 haven. 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 public place
Speaker 2: because the manager came over and asked me how I
Speaker 2: was feeling. I told her, and she said, Susan, my
Speaker 2: car is right outside. I can get you to Saint
Speaker 2: Francis Hospital, the Hart Hospital. It's a mile down the road,
Speaker 2: faster than an ambulance will come. And I went with her.
Speaker 2: It turned out she also had a degree in nursing.
Speaker 2: I mean, what are the odds of that? She was
Speaker 2: so calm, and I had no reason to have a cardiologist,
Speaker 2: but my husband did and I called him. He met
Speaker 2: me at the er. Turned out I had a ninety
Speaker 2: percent blockage in my main artery and a seventy five
Speaker 2: percent blockage in the adjacent He never smoked. I never smoked.
Speaker 2: There's no reason to have this turned out. This is interesting.
Speaker 2: We all in my family thought that I have my
Speaker 2: mother's jeans because she never had anything. I never had anything.
Speaker 2: And it turned out and my otherwise fabulous, handsome, terrific
Speaker 2: father's jeans in that regard, So it was a calcium
Speaker 2: build up. Who knew that? I found out anyway, so
Speaker 2: I couldn't keep my good luck to myself. I had
Speaker 2: to get out there and tell women what symptoms would be,
Speaker 2: and to listen to them. And to put themselves on
Speaker 2: their own to do list and take take care of themselves.
Speaker 1: You were a finalist and a beauty pageant? Is that true?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 1: I was? What was the beauty pageant? You were the
Speaker 1: finalist in Miss New York.
Speaker 2: State, 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. 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, gorgeous woman, and you're attractive as a person.
Speaker 1: You got this warmth of that magical Juni saqua that
Speaker 1: people have on camera. People are connected to you and
Speaker 1: they're looking at you and taking you in that head
Speaker 1: toss of yours. Thanks. You should have patented that you
Speaker 1: could make a billion dollars teaching people how to do
Speaker 1: different types of head tosses. Certain effects or your head
Speaker 1: tosses is legendary. But you stayed connected. I'm assuming because
Speaker 1: of family your husband are the things that a lot
Speaker 1: of people do, but with beauty talent that you could
Speaker 1: have gone to La and just made movies and did
Speaker 1: TV and just ran in that direction, 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?
Speaker 2: Absolutely? 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 being a.
Speaker 1: Mom and being a mom, not a dad, but a mom,
Speaker 1: 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 he 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, she was three, I learned that
Speaker 2: they take a break at the time, it was you
Speaker 2: would never see your children. You know, you go back
Speaker 2: to work on a nighttime series, at least in those
Speaker 2: days at the time where your children are getting out
Speaker 2: of school. So the whole summer, you know, you're busy
Speaker 2: 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 summer many years I didn't. I would I
Speaker 1: think the time as I worked in the summer was
Speaker 1: for 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 weller and 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 say,
Speaker 2: history's taught me. I'm probably not, you know, and yet
Speaker 2: a 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 I, you know, talked through
Speaker 2: my head a little bit who I might think, but
Speaker 2: I 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's the organization the Daytime Emmy?
Speaker 1: The Daytime Emmy themselves 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. He
Speaker 1: had been nominated a couple of times. When you won
Speaker 1: the Oscar, it kind of looked like you knew you
Speaker 1: were going to win. He was sitting there, I had
Speaker 1: this really kind of a weird kind of smile on
Speaker 1: your face, sitting and I watched for the film and
Speaker 1: he goes, they owed it to me. Oh, he said,
Speaker 1: they owed it to me, and they knew they owed
Speaker 1: it to me. I've been nominated two or three times
Speaker 1: before and I didn't get it, and they knew they
Speaker 1: owed it. Tonight, it's so funny. Let me just say,
Speaker 1: you are this great goddess and legend of daytime television
Speaker 1: and so forth. But I tell you, I hope you
Speaker 1: don't retire. You can't retire because you're not done. You're
Speaker 1: not done. Thank you, a lot of other things you
Speaker 1: could be doing. Thank you, My thanks to Susan Lucci.
Speaker 1: This episode was recorded at CDM Studios in New York City.
Speaker 1: We're produced by Kathleen Russo, Zach MacNeice, and Maureen Hobin.
Speaker 1: Our engineer is Frank Imperial. Our social media manager is
Speaker 1: Danielle Gingrich. I'm Alec Baldwin. Here's the thing is brought
Speaker 1: to you by iHeart Radio.