Susan Lucci didn’t think people would “love” her ‘All My Children’ character.
Susan Lucci loved playing Erica Kane
The 76-year-old actress played Erica Kane on the long-running ABC soap for 41 years from 1970 to 2011 and she loved playing the role herself.
She told Parade magazine: “I never thought the audience was going to love her as much as I did.”
Susan detailed the long process to secure the part on the soap and how she didn’t think she would get it because she was not “blonde”.
She said: “There were five callbacks.
“If you only had blue eyes, if you had dark eyes but you had blonde hair, if you weren’t so ethnic looking.”
The Emmy winner recalled thinking the initial four years she signed on amounted to a “big commitment” and had no idea her soap star run would go on for four decades and make television history.
Susan said: “I had to sign a four-year contract and I thought that was a big commitment. Four years is the length of high school, the length of college!”
Susan praised the writers for giving her so much to “sink her teeth into” with Erica, a character she lauded for being one of the most accurate depictions of teenagehood.
She said: “There was so much about Erica that an actress could sink her teeth into. The character was unpredictable, so to dive into that and find out what made her tick was really fun for me.
“And at that time, teenagers didn’t have a major storyline; they were always sent out of the room to go do their homework or something like that while the grown-ups talked. But [‘All My Children’] had full storylines around us and introduced humour, comedy and glamour. And I got to be the character the show told a lot of those stories through.”