Susan Lucci Bio
From LoveToKnow Soap-Operas
All My Children is a key part of the Susan Lucci bio. Despite her long-association with daytime icon Erica Kane, Susan Lucci’s story extends beyond the soap opera she’s called home for more than three decades.
Get to Know the Actress: Susan Lucci Bio
Born December 23, 1946, Susan Lucci grew up in Garden City, New Jersey. The actress is quoted in many interviews as always wanting to be a performer. To this end, she dedicated herself to voice and dance lessons as a teenager and performing in the community theater. Her Garden City High School career is decorated with many honors including:
- Staff writer for the high school newspaper
- Cheerleader
- Honors student
- Foreign exchange student (traveling to Norway)
- Lead roles in many school musicals including The King and I and Oklahoma
Following her graduation, she attended Marymount College in Tarrytown, New York. She graduated with a Bachelor’s in Fine Arts in theater arts. Following her dream, she moved to New York City and began auditioning for roles, working as an understudy on Broadway and earning a few day player credits on soap operas including As the World Turns, Love is a Many Splendored Thing and Young Doctors in Love.
Love, Marriage and All Her Children
In 1969, just one year after graduating college and making the leap to New York City, Susan Lucci auditioned for Agnes Nixon and the new soap opera she was creating. She won the role of ingénue Erica Kane. She met Helmet Huber, a director for food and beverages at the Garden City Hotel. Although engaged to another man at the time, Lucci fell in love with Huber. On September 13, 1969, they married, staying in Garden City with Lucci commuting into the city to work.
Susan and Helmet share two children, daughter Liza and son Andreas. Liza Huber appeared on the daytime soap opera Passions. In 2006, Liza gave Susan her first grandchild. Royce Alexander Hesterberg was born on Susan’s 60th birthday.
Pulling a “Susan Lucci”
No Susan Lucci bio would be complete without mentioning her long courtship with the Daytime Emmy Award. The actress holds the record for most nominations without winning. She received her first nomination in 1978, eight years after All My Children debuted. She was nominated almost every year for the next 20 years and never won.
In 1999, actor Shemar Moore (ex-Malcolm, Young and the Restless) read the list of nominees including Susan Lucci. When he ripped open the envelope and announced her name, the entire audience surged to its feet. The actress wept as she made the long-awaited walk up the aisle to accept the award. The cameras focused on many in the crowd including actresses Kelly Ripa, Marcy Walker and Rosie O’Donnell who were all crying in happiness for Lucci’s long-deserved win.
In tears herself, the audience’s long standing ovation left Lucci overwhelmed. The actress delivered an impromptu speech, having given up preparing one many years before. Her win sealed a moment in Emmy history. The only other actor or actress to match her record for nominations without winning is Angela Lansbury who received a record 18 primetime nominations with no award.
Erica Kane
Erica Kane is “unequivocally the most famous soap opera character in the history of daytime TV,” or so says TV Guide. For more than three decades, Susan earned accolades and affection from her fans as the formidable character who began as just a teenager, aspiring to be so much more as a model. She battled for love, sometimes resorting to conniving to get what she wanted. Erica enjoyed a number of high-profile careers from model to cosmetics executive to talk show host and more. She married six different men, sometimes more than once and every time she loved them with every bit of passion.
In the 1970s, she underwent daytime’s first abortion when she chose to not have husband Jeff Martin’s child. In the 1988, she gave birth to daughter Bianca on screen. In the 90s, Erica dealt with the return of a child she gave birth to at age 14, prior to ‘launch’ of the show, when Kendall Hart arrived in town. Over the next decade she would confront the past and her childhood rape, her love for a daughter that she wanted to hate and acceptance that daughter Bianca was a lesbian. Fans were outraged when scribes altered her 1970s abortion by retroactively saying the embryo was stolen and implanted in another woman, but Susan’s portrayal remained as graceful as ever.
Other Roles
Susan Lucci appeared in numerous programs since beginning her role as Erica Kane. In most cases, Susan continued her very busy schedule on AMC while filming these projects, including:
- The Love Boat
- Fantasy Island
- Fall Guy
- Mafia Princess
- Anastasia: The Mystery of Anna
- Haunted by Her Past
- Lady Mobster
- Dallas
- The Woman Who Sinned
- Between Love and Hate
- Seduced and Betrayed
- Annie Got Her Gun (On Broadway)
- Dancing with the Stars (2008 Season)
More Susan Lucci
Beyond her work as a television actress and Broadway performer, Susan Lucci has her own collection of lingerie, hair and skin care products called The Susan Lucci Collection. Her fragrance LaLucci is sold via Wal-Mart stores and she is one of the first soap stars to sell their own products in a major chain store. In 2005, her career and work were recognized with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Learn more about the actress by visiting the Official Susan Lucci Website.
Learn More
This page has been accessed 1,406 times. This page was last modified 11:23, 21 September 2009.
© 2006-2009 LoveToKnow Corp.
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