I spoke with the lovely and gracious Susan Lucci (Erica, AMC) on the eve of the publication of her autobiography, All My Life. As always, there wasn't enough room for the entire interview in the magazine…but there's infinite room on our Web site! Here are some choice cuts that didn't make it to print.
Soap Opera Weekly: What were your thoughts as you wrote the book?
Susan Lucci: [laughs] Michael, I truly thought people probably knew more about me than they needed to! The book gave me the opportunity to more fully address things I was never one to talk about, [like] my personal life. This is the first time I've opened up this way. I didn't miss the questions [that came up] along the way. Certainly, as I progressed with the writing, I started to become aware that there are four generations that I could speak to. How many people tell me they watch [AMC] with their mother, or their grandmother, or their aunt, or their girlfriend, or their sister, and now are watching with their children, you know?
Weekly: What's been your strangest fan encounter?
Lucci: I have had a couple of strange ones — so strange that I don't want to put them out there!
Weekly: On OPRAH, you took viewers behind the scenes at your Long Island home. Some of the moments clearly showed that family is really most important to you.
Lucci: Oh, with no question.
Weekly: It comes through in the book, too. How is your husband, Helmut Huber, doing?
Lucci: Oh, he's doing so well! The surgery was a tremendous success. We're so, so lucky that he took good care of himself and that he was getting tested regularly, as people should. So [the cancer] was caught early, and this horrible thing was in an operable place, and [he was] in the hands of a good surgeon.
Weekly: Your life offers lessons in the book, like "Take a giant step and breathe before reacting." Does any one thought stand out?
Lucci: Yes; I would also say, "Do what you love."
Weekly: Are you still doing the home shopping thing?
Lucci: Yes.
Weekly: How's that going?
Lucci: Great, I must say. I'm very, very lucky. But I love these things; it's a whole other area of creativity. I've been involved with all of it, and so that becomes another great pleasure for me. Again, do what you love.
Weekly: If you weren't an actress,what would you be?
Lucci: In my imagination, I have tried on other hats, but I am who I am. If I had to be anybody else, it would be Beyoncé.
Weekly: Beyoncé? Why?
Lucci: That is a question that comes to me once in a while. I can say, for myself, "If I had to be anybody else, it would be Beyoncé," because I love entertaining in all of its forms. It's sad for me that I had to step away from the nightclub act [Lucci performed in clubs for five years with friend Regis Philbin]. My gut reaction would've been to expand it; that's where my mind was. And my conductor and I were going in that direction, but I had to step away from it when I did DANCING WITH THE STARS, because I couldn't fly back and forth across the country twice a week.
Weekly: And do the cabaret act, plus ALL MY CHILDREN.
Lucci: Right. Now that we're in L.A. and my voice teacher is in New York, it's not happening. But that's something I would love to get back to in the future.
Weekly: Is there anything else you still want to accomplish?
Lucci: Well, I have never done a feature film — really playing a role; I began playing under-fives and things like that, but I mean a real opportunity to work with the great directors and have that luxury of time we don't have doing TV.
Weekly: From what I read, and knowing you, you'd probably get bored on a movie set!
Lucci: [laughs] I was just about to say, even with the movies for television [I've done] — which are a much faster pace than feature films, but a much slower pace from what we do every day — I would always come back so gratefully and happily to ALL MY CHILDREN, where you play the scenes from beginning to end. It's more like a play. Basically, you do it once for the money shot, unless there are some technical difficulties. I love that pace, and so each thing [in my life] has served its purpose.
