Susan Lucci

Susan Victoria Lucci was born on December 23, 1946, in Scarsdale, New York, to Jeanette (1917–2021) and Victor Lucci (1919–2002). Her father was of Italian ancestry and her mother of Swedish descent. She spent her early childhood in Yonkers before her family relocated to Elmont, New York, when she was two, and then to Garden City, New York, on Long Island, when she was five. Lucci graduated from Garden City High School in 1964 and earned a BA in drama from Marymount College, Tarrytown in 1968.

Lucci launched her television career with small roles on the daytime soap operas Love Is a Many Splendored Thing and The Doctors. She also appeared in an uncredited part in the 1969 film Goodbye, Columbus and held a minor role in the 1969 comedy-drama Me, Natalie. Her career-defining role came on January 16, 1970, when she began portraying Erica Kane on the ABC daytime drama All My Children, a part she held through the show's final network broadcast on September 23, 2011. TV Guide designated her "Daytime's Leading Lady," and both The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times identified her as the highest-paid actor in daytime television, with her salary reported at over one million dollars annually as early as 1991. TV Guide also described Erica Kane as "unequivocally the most famous soap opera character in the history of daytime TV" and included the character in its 2013 list of The 60 Nastiest Villains of All Time.

Lucci received 21 Daytime Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series for her work on All My Children, with nominations beginning in 1978. Her repeated failure to win the award attracted widespread media attention from the late 1980s onward, and her name entered common usage as a reference to artists who accumulate numerous nominations without a win. NBC's Saturday Night Live, which she hosted in October 1990, incorporated her Emmy-less status into her appearance, with cast members and crew carrying their own Emmy statuettes throughout the broadcast. She also appeared in a 1989 television commercial for the sugar substitute Sweet One that played on the same theme. After her 19th nomination, Lucci won the Daytime Emmy in 1999, receiving a standing ovation when the award was presented by Shemar Moore. In 1996, TV Guide ranked her 37th on its 50 Greatest TV Stars of All Time list, and she was also named one of VH1's 200 Top Icons of All Time and one of Barbara Walters's Ten Most Fascinating People.

Outside of All My Children, Lucci built an extensive television and film career across several decades. In 1982 she made a cameo in the comedy film Young Doctors in Love, and in 1984 she took her first leading film role in the supernatural horror picture Invitation to Hell, directed by Wes Craven. In 1986 she portrayed Darya Romanoff in the Golden Globe– and Emmy Award–winning television film Anastasia: The Mystery of Anna, and that same year played Antoinette Giancana in the television crime film Mafia Princess. She went on to star in the horror film Haunted by Her Past (1987) and the crime dramas Lady Mobster (1988) and The Bride in Black (1990). Additional television films followed throughout the early 1990s, including The Woman Who Sinned (1991), Double Edge (1992), Between Love and Hate (1993), French Silk (1994), and Seduced and Betrayed (1995). In 1995 she played Elizabeth "Ebbie" Scrooge in the Lifetime fantasy film Ebbie, an updated adaptation of A Christmas Carol. She returned to the thriller genre with Blood on Her Hands in 1998. During the 1980s and early 1990s she also made guest appearances on prime-time series including The Love Boat, Fantasy Island, The Fall Guy, and Dallas.

Lucci's Broadway career spans from 1999 to 2018. In 1999 she played the title role of Annie Oakley in the revival of Irving Berlin's musical Annie Get Your Gun. She later appeared on Broadway in Celebrity Autobiography. Competing in season 7 of Dancing with the Stars in 2008 with partner Tony Dovolani, she finished sixth in the competition, eliminated on November 5, 2008. From 2010 to 2014 she made multiple appearances as herself on the TV Land sitcom Hot in Cleveland, playing the arch rival of Wendie Malick's character Victoria Chase. She guest starred in multiple episodes of the sixth season of the Lifetime drama Army Wives in 2012 and hosted and narrated the Investigation Discovery series Deadly Affairs from 2012 to 2014. Beginning in 2013, she starred as Genevieve Delatour in the Lifetime series Devious Maids, a role she held through 2016. When ABC cancelled All My Children on April 14, 2011, after 41 years on the air, Lucci publicly criticized ABC Daytime president Brian Frons over the decision in the epilogue of her autobiography All My Life.