Driving Miss Susan
Digest had the privilege of spending some quality time with Susan Lucci (Erica, ALL MY CHILDREN) in her car in between her various obligations at Super Soap Weekend. She shared her thoughts on the state of AMC, the honor recently bestowed on her by Entertainment Weekly, the grand surprise she pulled on hubby Helmut Huber and more. For more on the star-studded weekend, see the 12/4 issue. 
On The State Of AMC — And Jack and Erica:
“I really wish there were more of the balance. Just as an audience member, I like to see the show when there’s a balance between the drama and the fun. It doesn’t have to be in [the Kane/Montgomery] storyline. But let’s see the whole canvas, you know, not just one portion 90 percent of the time. I don’t think it’s great entertainment. The show is better than that. And with the Erica character, I think she’s not being fully represented, where just a few months ago, they had Erica and Jack’s NEW DIVORCE and that was very modern thinking and very thinking out of the box. Every time they do something like that, the audience is so happy and responds so well and then it’s dropped! The other thing is, I thought it was so relatable: There was Jack and Erica having a better time together, trying to keep their relationship together and put the spark back in because they had been dragged down by their children’s problems, which is very relatable. I think a lot of people lose sight of the fact of why they got married because they get bogged down in the day-to-day and it’s also relatable because there are so many combined families out there.”
On The Surprise Party She Threw For Husband Helmut Huber’s Birthday:
“I couldn’t believe how fabulous everyone was at keeping the secret. It was amazing! Our friend Frank came to me this summer and said, ‘I want to throw a decoy party for Helmut. A dinner, small, so he’ll think that’s it.’ I said, ‘Great idea!’ And he invited some very close friends of Helmut’s who had to come a distance and everyone spoke so well and gave great presents and we laughed and had such a great time at this dinner party that he had to think that was it! But he never knew that the ABC affiliate event [the cover story to lure him to his surprise party] was in any way related to him. He thought that was something we had to do and he actually convinced me that I had to do it when I said I didn’t want to do it on his birthday! Mike [Cohen, AMC’s publicist] faxed talking points about the affiliates to the office and had a copy slipped under my dressing room door so that when Helmut picked me up at work, there it was, just like always. And Mike brought a copy into the car and on the way over, we reviewed it and Mike was telling me the correct pronunciations of the names of the affiliates [laughs]! So every detail was covered. And our friends who knew darn well that they were going to see each other in a few days after that decoy dinner pulled it off perfectly. They didn’t let on to anything. It was so much fun. Friends of ours who aren’t in the business, afterwards they said, ‘Oh, good, we can finally play golf with him again, we can finally talk to him again [without worrying about letting the cat out of the bag].’ My son, Andreas, had warned me, ‘Dad is a bomb-sniffing dog.’ He is! This man is in charge, and happily so. He hears everything, he sees everything, he knows everything. So this was quite a feat! Our children were in on it from the beginning. My daughter [Liza Huber, PASSIONS’s Gwen] and I would brainstorm over the phone. I would say, ‘Liza, what do you think about this?’ And I would hear their words in my head as I edited ideas: ‘Mom, how lame is that?’ I said, ‘I don’t want to do anything lame!'”
On Being Named One Of The Top 50 Television Icons By Entertainment Weekly:
“Any one of the people on this list, to be included in their company is unbelievable. It’s an honor not just for me but really for ALL MY CHILDREN, I think, because I don’t think it’s about the genre as much as it is the good writing and the good work of ALL MY CHILDREN. I don’t mean that in some sort of foolish, political way — I really mean that, do you know what I’m saying? Because Jerry Seinfeld doesn’t represent all all of nighttime or all of sitcoms. It’s an individual achievement but in this case, because it’s daytime being recognized in such a way, I think for ALL MY CHILDREN it’s a big honor. I did the interview for the TV special over a year ago. So much time went by that I thought they decided not to have it, or they’d decided not to include me! I thought it was just over, done, past. So when I found out the list was actually coming out, I was surprised all over again!”
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