Daytime Emmys flashback: 25 years ago Susan Lucci (finally!) won on her 19th try
Twenty-five years ago, the greatest cliffhanger in the history of daytime television finally came to a conclusion. Ironically, it happened at night.
It was late in the prime time broadcast of the 26th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards in 1999. Shemar Moore of “The Young and the Restless” appeared on the stage to present the award for Best Actress. After he read the names of the five nominees, a hush fell over the auditorium.
And then it came.
”The streak is over! Susan Lucci!” Moore exclaimed as he flashed the card showing Lucci’s name.
It was an awards event 21 years in the making.
Lucci began playing the role of Erica Kane on “All My Children” in January 1970, the very month that the daytime serial made its debut on ABC. She received her first Emmy nomination for Best Actress in 1978, losing to Laurie Heineman from “Another World.” Lucci would have to wait another three years for her next shot at the Emmy, only to be outshined by Judith Light from “One Life to Live.” Lucci would continue to be nominated every year for the remainder of the decade. By the late 1980s, her string of losses had become something of a joke in the industry — and among the general public.
“When is Susan Lucci finally going to win the darn Emmy?” people everywhere would ask.
The actress actually joined in on the fun. In 1990 she guest hosted “Saturday Night Live” and lampooned herself, watching as members of the “SNL” cast and crew casually paraded around with Emmy statuettes. She also appeared as herself in a commercial for the sugar substitute Sweet One, first showing off Erica’s over-the-top antics and then appearing as her own sweet self. “With Sweet One, I have everything I want. Except that Emmy. Ten years … what does a person have to do to get the Emmy!” she screamed while pounding on a table.
Lucci’s losing streak continued into the 1990s. She became a frequent host/co-host of the Daytime Emmy festivities, including in 1992. After being defeated by Erika Slezak from “One Life to Live,” she returned to the stage to a rousing standing ovation.
“You’ll never know how much that meant to me,” a clearly moved Lucci told the crowd. “And I’d like to congratulate Erika Slezak. I think that you’re a brilliant actress, and I vote for you every year,” she graciously added.
Meanwhile, theories abounded as to why Lucci never managed to nab the Emmy. Some said that it was due to jealousy, as she had reportedly become the highest-paid actor on daytime television. Some joked that she purposely submitted bad material to the Emmy judges, as she was clearly getting far more attention for losing than she ever would for winning. Helmut Huber, her late husband, once told TV Guide, “Maybe it’s because she’s a Republican.”
More likely, it was simply that there was always someone else who had a stronger reel. And Lucci perhaps hurt herself by choosing “All My Children” episodes which were more melodrama than master class. In 1995 the blue ribbon panel witnessed a grieving Erica literally hurl herself on her dead mother’s coffin in a desperate attempt to finally secure the Emmy. The voters again picked Slezak from “One Life to Live.”
The following year Lucci was seemingly on a roll as she earned some of the best reviews of her career. Michael Logan of TV Guide confidently wrote that her sweet sixteenth nomination would finally do the trick. The trick would be on the magazine’s readers, though, as Slezak was rewarded with a then-record fifth prize.
But 1999 proved to be a game changer.
Lucci was nominated for a 19th time, alongside Jeanne Cooper as Katherine Chancellor on “The Young and the Restless,” Elizabeth Hubbard as Lucinda Walsh on “As the World Turns,” Melody Thomas Scott as Nikki Newman on “The Young and the Restless” and Kim Zimmer as Reva Shayne on “Guiding Light.” Chancellor was on her fifth nom without a win. Hubbard was on her eighth without success, though she had previously won the category for “The Doctors” in 1974. Scott was a first-timer. And Zimmer was a triple champ; she had trumped Lucci in 1985, 1987 and 1990.
In the weeks leading up to the 1999 Daytime Emmys, rumblings began to emerge. Could this finally be Lucci’s year?
Gold Derby founder and president Tom O’Neil, then with the Los Angeles Times, seemed to think that it would. And he based it on Lucci’s smart Emmy entry.
“She submitted two continuous episodes that showed off a diverse range of her acting skills, including three crying scenes, a diva’s best slap, but also convincing displays of tenderness, fear and love as she hovered over anorexic daughter Bianca in the hospital,” O’Neil explained.
He was referring to episodes in which Erica and other family members intervened to try and help her daughter Bianca (played by Nathalie Paulding) overcome her eating disorder. Lucci argued fiercely with her ex-husband and Bianca’s father, Travis Montgomery (played by Larkin Malloy), before smacking him. She also confronted another ex-husband and Bianca’s former stepfather, Dimitri Marick (played by Michael Nader). And she had several scenes where she professed her love to Bianca and begged her to let them help her.
To put it plainly, Lucci was luminous.
O’Neil added that Lucci’s biggest competition was once again Zimmer, who really did have what he felt to be the better tape. The problem was that Zimmer’s scenes depicted Reva confronting her conniving clone (an outlandish storyline even by soap opera standards). O’Neil revealed that many of the blue ribbon panel judges found the plot so ridiculous that they actually laughed out loud during the screening.
Soap Opera Weekly also weighed in on the Best Actress contest. The magazine reported that a number of panelists actually ranked Lucci first, and that the Emmy would go to either Zimmer or (gulp) Lucci.
A few days before the show, I chatted with O’Neil about Lucci’s prospects. I asked him if she might finally get the gold. “Her reel is so good that you really can’t help but want to give it to her,” he told me. He also revealed that he had polled a number of the Best Actress judges. Four had gone with Zimmer while three had favored Lucci. It was going to be close.
O’Neil would be interviewed by E! live on the red carpet just before the show kicked off. When asked about the exciting Best Actress race, O’Neil cautiously said, “I would bet money on Susan Lucci — but not a lot.”
After Moore revealed Lucci to be the lucky lady, the audience went wild. Rosie O’Donnell cried. Leeza Gibbons laughed. And host Oprah Winfrey cheered. The thunderous standing ovation lasted for over one minute, before the new Emmy champion began her remarks.
Lucci was overcome with emotion. “I truly never believed that this would happen,” she confessed. She thanked the people in the room who “thought that my work was worthy of notice 19 times.” She saluted “All My Children” creator Agnes Nixon, who “changed the face” of daytime television, and for thinking that she could play Erica. She gave shout-outs to her husband as well as her children Liza and Andreas, who had made her “poems, letters, drawings, balloons and chocolate cakes all these years to make me feel better.” And she expressed gratitude to her fans, as she was “only supposed to be on every other Tuesday.”
That would prove to be the only Emmy of Lucci’s career. She reaped two more bids in 2001 and 2002, only to fall to Martha Byrne from “As the World Turns” and Susan Flannery from “The Bold and the Beautiful,” respectively. Lucci would play Erica until the network run of “All My Children” ended in 2011.
As wonderful as Lucci’s triumph was, it sadly marked the end of an exciting annual nail-biter. Every year people would tune in to the Daytime Emmy Awards just to see if she would be snubbed again. The most famous also-ran in show business, she turned losing into an art form.
Susan Lucci. Emmy Award aside, she will always be daytime television’s biggest and brightest winner.
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