From the Archives: Susan Lucci

TV Guide called her “the most famous soap opera character in the history of daytime TV.” Actor Susan Lucci inhabited the role of bad girl Erica Kane on ABC’s “All My Children” for four decades, from the show’s inception in 1970 until 2011. She earned the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress for the role in 1999 after nineteen nominations – and in December 2023, received the Daytime Emmy Lifetime Achievement Award. Lucci’s body of work also includes numerous television series, films and the Broadway stage. She is the author of All my Life: A Memoir and is a National Spokesperson for the American Heart Association. Susan Lucci talks with host Alec Baldwin about how she played a role that evolved over decades, how she realized a lifelong dream of performing on Broadway, and her thoughts on the rumors of a potential reboot of the beloved soap. Originally aired January 23rd, 2024. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human. Cash flow crunch? OnDeck's small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds, up to $200,000, right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment, get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at ondeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 0:35Speaker 01

  If you're a custodial supervisor at a local high school, you know that cleanliness is key and that the best place to get cleaning supplies is from Grainger. Grainger helps you stay fully stocked on the products you trust, from paper towels and disinfectants to floor scrubbers. Plus, you can rely on Grainger for easy reordering, so you never run out of what you need. Call 1-800-GRAINGER, click Grainger.com, or just stop by. Grainger, for the ones who get it done.

• 1:05Speaker 02

  Hey, I'm Niall Rogers. This fall, I'll be driving across the country, meeting some of today's coolest and most fascinating artists. We'll explore the stories before the moments that changed everything. Because every musician remembers the moment where it all began. Experience Before the Moment, a Lincoln original series on the iHeart Radio app, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 1:39Alec Baldwin?

  This is Alec Baldwin, and you're listening to Here's the Thing from iHeart Radio. So many actors who went on to have amazing careers in primetime television and film started in soap operas. Meg Ryan, Tom Selleck, Julianne Moore, to name just a few. And then there are those who stayed in daytime television to become huge stars in that genre. My guest today is, without a doubt, the biggest star in the history of daytime TV, Susan Lucci. The actress played the iconic villain Erica Kane on ABC's All My Children for four decades,

• 2:21Alec Baldwin?

  from the show's inception in 1970 until it wrapped in 2011. Following nineteen nominations, she finally took home the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in 1999 and received the Emmy's Lifetime Achievement Award this past December. But lovable bad girl is not the only role in Lucci's wheelhouse. She has acted in numerous roles in film and TV, from Devious Maids to Hot in Cleveland and starred on Broadway in Annie Get Your Gun. Susan Lucci has yet another achievement to boast of, a long and healthy partnership with husband Helmut Huber.

• 3:05Alec Baldwin?

  Huber passed away in 2022. After fifty-two years of marriage, I wanted to know what was the secret of their successful union.

• 3:16Speaker 04

  Incredibly good luck on my part to meet him because I was I was young and I didn't. I don't think I really knew exactly how fabulous he was and just got really lucky. Fortunately, he had a very good sense of humor and he was very confident. This was really helpful in this business we're talking about, you know? He took a lot of ribbing, all those guys I was kissing on All My Children. But, you know, he got it. You know, he knew I came home to him and I wanted to, so.

• 3:46Alec Baldwin?

  Yeah, yeah. I remember when I was younger, I mean, now I don't really do any of that. But when I was younger and I had a girlfriend at one time who really was very, very agitated by that. I was just starting to make films. I was just starting to go from TV to films. And I had to kiss somebody who was very well known. And this movie was going to be all over, you know, TV and everything. Me kissing this person was going to be featured. Who knew? Who knows? But and she really just couldn't take it. She was really very angry all the time.

• 4:16Speaker 04

  It's not for everybody.

• 4:17Alec Baldwin?

  Yeah.

• 4:18Speaker 04

  I used to say if the shoe were on the other foot, I would have been throwing my stilettos. I mean, I would not have taken it as well when I was young.

• 4:25Alec Baldwin?

  Well, when I had it the other way. When a woman in my life was in the business and she was kissing other people, I just would look at her and say, "If you left me for him, you gotta be an idiot."

• 4:34Speaker 04

  Yeah, that would sound like helmet to like, "Good luck."

• 4:38Alec Baldwin?

  I mean, please, go right ahead. They'll teach me everything about you I need to know. But you, I don't want to talk just about the TV show at length. I want to talk about the other things you did and the other things you wanted to do. I mean, your commitment to that show is singular. You were on it right to the end. You surfed that wave right to the shore. But other than that, what were there other things you wanted? You did do other things. You made films. You stepped in for Bernadette and then he gets your gun.

• 5:06Speaker 04

  First one to go in for Bernadette. I was so thrilled in the original company.

• 5:09Alec Baldwin?

  I thought Tom Wopat was great. I loved Tom.

• 5:10Speaker 04

  Oh, Tom Wopat's fabulous. Yes, I worked with him the whole original company. Yeah.

• 5:14Alec Baldwin?

  Yeah, I loved Tom. But how did that happen? Like, you go to this, the TV show and you say, "I want out"? Or you went, you did the TV show and went to night, work at night?

• 5:22Speaker 04

  I did both. I did both. I had a short time off, but all the rehearsals, I just was able to have time off just before the opening, but I wound up getting pneumonia because I would work at all my children. They accommodated my schedule so that we started a little earlier in the morning, did all my stuff first. And then I would, on my lunch hour, get in a car, go to the theater, grab a chicken soup on the way, and go and rehearse, go to voice lessons five nights a week because I had never sung professionally.

• 5:56Alec Baldwin?

  Did you study theater and acting in college? Where'd you go?

• 5:59Speaker 04

  I went to Marymount College. It's a Catholic women's college, but it's in Tarrytown. And all the drama faculty was from Yale and Royal Shakespeare Company in London.

• 6:08Alec Baldwin?

  It's a good school, Marymount.

• 6:09Speaker 04

  It was a wonderful school.

• 6:10Alec Baldwin?

  Very good school.

• 6:11Speaker 04

  Wonderful for me. Jesuit school, which is the smarty pants guy, so that was good. The faculty was phenomenal. And they were all working in the business. So the head of the drama department, who was from Yale, was also a member of Cafe La Mama and Lincoln Center rep. So I got the classics as well as the new stuff.

• 6:29Alec Baldwin?

  So you do that show, you did, you know, small roles and things back in the 60s. But then you're doing films throughout the 80s, 90s, 2000s. You're doing Army Wives, a couple through episodes of that. You're working outside the show. Why did you feel you wanted to? You're just a kind of, I don't want to say workaholic, but you like to work.

• 6:51Speaker 04

  I do like to work and I like to work as an actress. And, you know, probably a couple of things. First of all, I'd never thought that I could call myself an actress if I only played one part. And even though the part was the part that kept me on that show for so long because I loved doing that part. That part was one of the best parts with the most range and the most possibilities. And I worked with a company of actors who I loved and trusted and it was wonderful. And the writing was fantastic. It was Agnes Nixon, a lot of reasons that kept me there. However, having said that, I just never thought that playing one part would make me an actress. I had to do more. And so I did. And the other thing I started to say is that I think a lot of actors, you know, you feel

• 7:34Speaker 04

  like you should say yes as much as you can say yes because someday it won't all be there. So you just say yes while you can.

• 7:42Alec Baldwin?

  I did a soap, The Doctors. And everybody in that cast, not everybody, but a thick band of them were all, like they did the soap for the pension and welfare and the paycheck and the medical, and then they ran off to the theater that was their passion. We were half hour, which was starting to fade and go down. We were, the older cast was primary. I always tell people that the cast photo with the adults in front and the kids in the back, because the kids were the supporting players. Then that changed with Bold and the Beautiful.

• 8:13Speaker 04

  With All My Children.

• 8:14Alec Baldwin?

  All My Children, Orion's Hope, Young and the Restless. However, on your show, The Youth Revolution Comes, and you're still young at this point, but you're one of the older cast members of the younger cast member.

• 8:26Speaker 04

  No, no. No, I started playing Eric as a 15-year-old high school girl.

• 8:29Alec Baldwin?

  No.

• 8:30Speaker 04

  Something that drew me to that was, drew me to the show because the man who was the head of the department at Marymount, who came from Yale. Only wanted me to do theater and maybe film, those two things. Television and daytime television never even came into the equation. But when I read the script and I saw that the four kids, and we were in high school, were now featured with with storylines, and I loved the part. I thought, well, I'm going to change his mind. I'm going to do this, and it's so well-written, and I have this incredible part. So I took the part. He was not happy at first, but then he actually was interviewed by TV Guide and said at the time, I know why she did this, you know?

• 9:15Alec Baldwin?

  But even as you're in that generation and you're younger, and you stay with the show and you're getting older.

• 9:20Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 9:21Alec Baldwin?

  And other young stars are coming in to for the show. You remain one of the stars of the show. Why? How did you pull that off?

• 9:29Speaker 04

  I think it was the writing that pulled it off, you know? Thank you for saying that.

• 9:33Alec Baldwin?

  No, it's some kind of candy.

• 9:35Speaker 04

  Thank you. I was very lucky, as I said, you know, so I started her playing as a 15-year-old girl, but she was never the girl next door, and she was not the girl that, you know, everybody was going to embrace. She was the naughty girl in town, and then she was major bad girl in town and on a world stage, and I never thought the audience was going to like her. I loved to play her.

• 9:58Alec Baldwin?

  The bad girl.

• 9:59Speaker 04

  The bad girl.

• 10:00Alec Baldwin?

  Yeah. And you never thought they would embrace the bad girl?

• 10:02Speaker 04

  Never thought that.

• 10:02Alec Baldwin?

  And boy, were you wrong.

• 10:04Speaker 04

  Yeah, turned out that way.

• 10:05Alec Baldwin?

  They loved bad girls.

• 10:06Speaker 04

  They loved bad girls, they do love that, and what they saw, and again, the writing was there to support it, was they saw that she was a girl who had dreams for herself, and she was going to go out there and get them. She had spirit, and she had spunk. She didn't always do it the right or the nice way, but they really loved her spunk, her spirit.

• 10:28Alec Baldwin?

  They would watch these shows, I remember, because the generation comes in now where the audience isn't 60s housewives, it's young people, it's college kids, and they're watching, they stop in the middle of the day to watch their stories, my stories, and then they would watch the show, and then you're on there doing whatever, and they'd sit there and be like, you know, Cory, Cory, it's us. We did that. You know, anything bad you did was very familiar to them.

• 10:53Speaker 04

  Well, and also, Erica, I think, represented my generation that we were working. You know, my generation was working. They were not getting out of college and just getting married. They had their own dreams and aspirations to have a job.

• 11:09Alec Baldwin?

  Getting married wasn't enough?

• 11:10Speaker 04

  Wasn't, wasn't the only thing on their mind, but they had additional things on their minds. And going to Marymount, which was a women's college. I remember when we would, would talk about our dreams. We had aspirations for ourselves in terms of career. And it wasn't a question of if we were going to do that. It was when we were going to do it. This is what we were going to do and how could we do it?

• 11:32Alec Baldwin?

  Uh huh. Now, obviously, Agnes Nixon wasn't your head writer throughout the entire run.

• 11:37Speaker 04

  She was the creator, yes.

• 11:38Alec Baldwin?

  She was the creator, yeah. And then the writers would come and go.

• 11:41Speaker 04

  Writers would, yes. A lot of them would stay for, for years. But Lorraine Broderick became the head writer because Agnes would come and go occasionally.

• 11:49Alec Baldwin?

  Did everybody who came on to run the show, they all basically treated you the same way? Was that another great advantage you had was that Erica's not going anywhere?

• 11:57Speaker 04

  It seemed to be that way.

• 11:59Alec Baldwin?

  Right.

• 11:59Speaker 04

  It seemed to be that way.

• 12:00Alec Baldwin?

  That's hard to pull off.

• 12:02Speaker 04

  Only, again, you don't, I think because Agnes was involved and it was her creation and she was in the room, you know? And also, I remember our last producer, Julie Cruthers, who, we're lucky to have wonderful producers too. And Julie would say, the last man who was the head of the ABC daytime, I believe, was not so enamored of, of Agnes being involved. And I remember Julie saying that Agnes is the youngest voice in the room. So she had good stories to tell and she remained relevant and groundbreaking, always. So I think because of Agnes and Agnes's beautiful writing for, for my character Erica, I think that's why I got to stay.

• 12:46Alec Baldwin?

  These people work really hard. You, you come up with a fresh idea every day. The only bad part was when we would do a double tape, very rarely, because we had to accommodate people who were working on Broadway.

• 12:56Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 12:57Alec Baldwin?

  We had cast members who, on a Wednesday, they did the matinee, so they would have to leave by one. We'd pre-tape their scenes. And they had a scene on a Christmas show where they're floating between everybody. So there's, they're in a party. And all the family of the show was there and they're floating with the camera and they go, I'll land on this one and this one. And they're like, my God, I can't wait for us to head down to Palm Beach and have a nice vacation, something light. Pan to the next one and the wife or the girlfriend saying to the boyfriend, I know you had drinks with her, Chad. I know you had drinks, I saw you. And something, something turgid there. Then they'd land on me last and I was like a little bit drunk because I went to lunch at Hurley's down on the bottom of the building. That's where we always went because we, we, we usually left and come back. We had lunch and film. Now we had to come back to finish the rest of the tapings. We did a double taping.

• 13:42Alec Baldwin?

  And I came back when they finally land on me in their floating shot, they landed me and I go, you know.

• 13:51Alec Baldwin?

  I'm so sorry. I'm sorry, everybody. I blow the whole take for, and they looked at me like, you better straighten out.

• 13:58Speaker 04

  This was at the beginning?

• 13:59Alec Baldwin?

  This was in the beginning. And I thought it was, I didn't take it as seriously as I should have, but I learned a lot. I learned a lot of the things that were significant to me about the professionalism of your acting career on that TV show, on that daytime TV show.

• 14:14Speaker 04

  That's interesting. It's wonderful.

• 14:16Alec Baldwin?

  The show ends 2011, correct?

• 14:19Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 14:19Alec Baldwin?

  And all of the daytime that was an empire, where, where did you shoot? On West End Avenue over in the big, at the Kremlin? I call it the Kremlin.

• 14:26Speaker 04

  Uh, 66th and Columbus.

• 14:29Alec Baldwin?

  Yeah.

• 14:29Speaker 04

  And then we moved to 67th and West End. And the last two years we shot in LA.

• 14:34Alec Baldwin?

  You did?

• 14:35Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 14:35Alec Baldwin?

  How, I didn't know that. How did that happen?

• 14:37Speaker 04

  Well, we were told that it would be more cost effective at that time. And, and also because of the climate, it would be really great. We could shoot outside as well, do with the location actually nearby.

• 14:49Alec Baldwin?

  Did you enjoy it?

• 14:50Speaker 04

  I did. I, I really, I did. I, I didn't expect to because so many actors from New York would say how much they didn't love working in LA. I, I did, maybe because I grew up in the suburbs and I was used to being in a car and, and even like it. So I was fine with that.

• 15:05Alec Baldwin?

  And where did you live when you were out there? Where, where did you shoot?

• 15:08Speaker 04

  We shot in Glendale. We shot in Glendale. And we had an apartment in Glendale. The studio was six minutes from our apartment if I hit the red lights. In Garden City, it was an hour and a half commute, but I really, it was fine for me because I studied my lines on the way in and I could just return phone calls and be a vegetable on my way home.

• 15:28Alec Baldwin?

  How'd you get in every day? Somebody drove you?

• 15:30Speaker 04

  Yes, it began with Helmut driving me.

• 15:33Alec Baldwin?

  That's love.

• 15:34Speaker 04

  Yes, it really, yes. He was fantastic. But then, when I was 27, one of the vice presidents of the network offered me a limo, you know, to pick me up and take me in.

• 15:48Speaker 04

  And I remember saying, I thanked them very much, but I said, you know, people are coming here on this subway. And if I show up in a limo, this is an ensemble. I'm going to be playing scenes with them. This is probably not going to be a good way to have a company of actors.

• 16:04Alec Baldwin?

  You didn't want to be viewed that way?

• 16:06Speaker 04

  No, I wanted to be, I was part of the company. I recognized that the part that was being written, and I was lucky enough to have. It wasn't written for me, but there was a collaboration for sure. I saw what was on the page. And frankly, I mean, you know, my experience with the writing there was incredible. And I had good training, so I knew how I, I mean, my judgment, I thought was good judgment. And it was really so well-written. Also, I was one of those characters you're talking about, that the writer wanted to tell the story through. And I, and I realized that I was very, very lucky. But one thing with Agnes is that she would tell very complicated, relevant stories, current stories, but through everybody's eyes. I think Erica was Agnes's voice.

• 16:51Alec Baldwin?

  Right.

• 16:51Speaker 04

  But I, I really admired the fact that these complicated issues, anybody watching out there could, could have, see themselves represented.

• 17:00Alec Baldwin?

  What was the challenge for you to keep that role fresh? Do you suggest things to them? I always believe that someone who's as talented as you are, and who owns that role in the way that you did, you have every right to turn to them and say, I'd like you to maybe think about this. You suggest. How much were you able to suggest?

• 17:18Speaker 04

  Very, very little.

• 17:19Alec Baldwin?

  Really?

• 17:19Speaker 04

  Yeah, very little.

• 17:21Alec Baldwin?

  You just deferred to Agnes.

• 17:23Speaker 04

  It was there, you know, I was really lucky. I mostly, I would read the scripts.

• 17:26Alec Baldwin?

  You were satisfied.

• 17:27Speaker 04

  First of all, it was a new script every day, and you know very well from having been on daytime. It was the length of a play a day. It was a play a day.

• 17:33Alec Baldwin?

  Yeah.

• 17:33Speaker 04

  And so there's a lot of material, not only to commit to memory, but to fill, to make work, you know? And so the day to day was very occupying of my mind and I was in such good hands. In the final times, you know, when we moved to L.A. and when the person who was in the charge of daytime brought in a new writer altogether. And he'd met with our company of actors during a lunch period in our rehearsal hall. And the first thing that that writer, who might have been a wonderful writer in a different genre, but what he said was, "I'm going to shake things up, that's fine."

• 18:12Speaker 04

  But he said, "So, some of you may not recognize your characters or your relationships," and so on. And so what happened was that during rehearsal in the morning, what he said was true. And so many actors were concerned. I was one of them too, of course. You know, people would come to me and say, "What are you doing about this?" So you just try to hold on tooth and nail, you know?

• 18:36Alec Baldwin?

  Can you tell when people were coming on, younger people, newer people, whether they had it or not, the discipline to do the show?

• 18:43Speaker 04

  I could see that some people were, you know, were wonderful.

• 18:47Alec Baldwin?

  Wonderful.

• 18:47Speaker 04

  Yeah. Josh, Kim, Darnell, they stood out right away. Kim Delaney.

• 18:53Alec Baldwin?

  Kim Delaney. My God, yeah, my God.

• 18:56Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 18:57Alec Baldwin?

  Kim Delaney.

• 18:58Speaker 04

  Yes. And actually, Michael B. Jordan. Michael played my stepson by marriage to Jack Montgomery, to Walt Willey, who was spectacular too. But he was one, he was 16 and always very, what you're saying, disciplined. Showed up on time, showed up prepared, very respectful, very nice person, good guy.

• 19:20Alec Baldwin?

  When you did the show, were there actors you just were like, you enjoyed working with them? They were great actors?

• 19:26Speaker 04

  Oh, absolutely. Walt Willey, who I worked with most often, who was my love interest throughout lots of times, in and out. He's so funny and very quick and loved working with him. And on the other side of the coin, David Canary, who was spectacular actor. I worked with him probably next to Walt. I worked with David Canary most, but we, I mean, I hated him. Erica hated him. But those scenes were wonderful. And, you know, you were saying earlier about, you know, the senior actors leaving because they were on Broadway and they had places to go. I thought that was one of the biggest pluses working in New York, that the other actors were phenomenal Broadway actors.

• 20:08Speaker 04

  I mean, Jimmy Mitchell, who danced the curly ballet in Oklahoma on Broadway and was so urbane. And, you know, I was young and to learn from these incredibly successful actors who were working on Broadway. Sometimes someone like Philip Bosco, who, yeah, would come and do, you know, an arc on the show.

• 20:28Alec Baldwin?

  I loved it.

• 20:29Speaker 04

  Yeah. Oh, I remember one day I was doing a concert version of One Touch of Venus and we would rehearse at the Amsterdam Theatre during my lunch hour. I'd run out there and do that and come back.

• 20:40Alec Baldwin?

  Was it for encores?

• 20:41Speaker 04

  Yes. And at the time. And it was so much fun. And again, wonderful Broadway actors. Peggy Cass was playing my mother. Yes, I know, it was incredible. And coming back to the studio and waiting behind the sets, you know, if the cameras broke down a little bit or something was happening technically that we didn't know, but we had to be on hold, stayed our places. So behind the scenes, my set flowed into behind Jimmy Mitchell's set. And he came up to me and he just took me in his arms and waltzed with me. He danced with me all over the backstage while we were waiting. You know, some of those wonderful experiences.

• 21:24Alec Baldwin?

  Actress Susan Lucci. If you enjoy conversations with talented female thespians, check out my episode with former "As the World Turns" star and Oscar winner Julianne Moore.

• 21:38Speaker 05

  I'm very chatty. I like to talk all the way up to action. I do. I do. And if you can't talk to me, I'm really disappointed. Then I get lonely. And I want to be lonely when I'm working. I want to be with my buddy.

• 21:48Alec Baldwin?

  Talk to me.

• 21:49Speaker 05

  I want to talk to me. Talk to me. You're my friend. Let's be buddies. Talk to me. What'd you do this morning? What'd you have for dinner last night? What are you doing later today? Are you cold? Do you like that sweater? Do you like my sweater? What are you doing? Action. Acting. I love it. That's my favorite part. And you get this great connection with another human being. And then the scene is like, comes alive.

• 22:07Alec Baldwin?

  To hear more of my conversation with Julianne Moore, go to hereisthething.org. After the break, Susan Lucci shares the story of how she landed the part of a lifetime, a leading role on "The Great White Way."

• 22:29Speaker 00

  Cash flow crunch? OnDeck's small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds up to $200,000 right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment, get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at ondeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 23:01Speaker 02

  Hey, it's Niall Rogers, host of "Before the Moment," a Lincoln original series. I'm driving across the country, meeting some of today's most fascinating artists. We're exploring the stories before the moment that changed everything. This week, I'm joined by Miguel.

• 23:19Speaker 06

  That last year, finishing that record was the hardest experience of my life. To find your creativity and to believe in yourself, because somewhere in the midst of it, I stopped believing that my voice mattered and that I could find it again. That's a challenge. I was not feeling very confident creatively, only, again, defiant in my belief that...

• 23:48Speaker 06

  What this is about is express something honest. Say something honest.

• 23:55Speaker 02

  Experience before the moment. A Lincoln original series on the iHeart Radio app, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 24:04Speaker 07

  This is Joel Larsgaard from How To Money. As someone who travels a lot for work, I really appreciate a premium airport experience. With the Delta SkyMiles Reserve Business American Express Card, it truly feels like you can have it all. For a limited time, new Delta SkyMiles Reserve Business Card Members can earn 200,000 bonus miles, the highest miles offered this year.

• 24:24Speaker 08

  Yeah, card members can also enjoy 15 visits to the Delta Sky Club each medallion year when flying Delta, and you can unlock unlimited Delta Sky Club access after spending $75,000 in purchases on your card during a calendar year. Those are benefits you can get behind. You also get four one-time guest passes each medallion year, so you can bring a friend or a colleague along. 15 Sky Club visits plus four guest passes? That's up to $950 in annual value. Value estimate based on $50 per visit rate to purchase additional visits or bring a guest to the Delta Sky Club.

• 25:00Speaker 07

  It's that kind of premium access that helps you feel right at home and at ease, no matter where you're heading. Apply today at delta.com/podcast. Offer ends November 4th. Minimum spending requirements and terms apply.

• 25:14Alec Baldwin?

  I'm Alec Baldwin, and you're listening to Here's the Thing. Susan Lucci has spent decades enjoying the prolific output of a successful acting career. She's also the mother of two children and stepmother to two more. I was curious whether anyone in her family wanted to follow her into show business.

• 25:36Speaker 04

  My daughter did for a while.

• 25:38Alec Baldwin?

  What'd she do?

• 25:39Speaker 04

  She was on Passions.

• 25:40Alec Baldwin?

  Ah.

• 25:41Speaker 04

  Yeah, and she was wonderful. She was absolutely wonderful.

• 25:44Alec Baldwin?

  And then what happened?

• 25:45Speaker 04

  Uh, she didn't love it.

• 25:47Alec Baldwin?

  And can you say why?

• 25:48Speaker 04

  I don't know that it was ever articulated why, but I, but she did not really love it.

• 25:55Alec Baldwin?

  And most people I know who their kids go into it, especially now, a lot of my friends, their kids go in and they want, the one thing that they can't handle is the unreliability of it.

• 26:05Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 26:06Alec Baldwin?

  You know, that you don't work that much and you're, and you're off all this time. You don't, you don't know what's gonna happen to you.

• 26:10Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 26:11Alec Baldwin?

  You don't know where you're gonna be four months from now, six months from now. They, they couldn't stand that. They wanted to have their life and, and live somewhere and go to their yoga class and have their husband or boyfriend or whatever the.

• 26:22Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's not for everybody.

• 26:23Alec Baldwin?

  It's not for everybody.

• 26:24Speaker 04

  And being the spouse of the person, you were saying earlier, you know, you had a girlfriend who didn't get it and.

• 26:29Alec Baldwin?

  Right.

• 26:29Speaker 04

  Helmut did get it, but I, I would marvel at that and really admire him for how great he was about and smart, you know, because it's not for everybody.

• 26:38Alec Baldwin?

  Somebody famous once said to me, don't get too blown off course. Don't let the wind in your sails to take you. Don't watch comedies that make you laugh, make you say, don't watch dramas that make you cry. He said, watch National Geographic shows of animals.

• 26:54Speaker 04

  While you're on the set, in the middle of shooting.

• 26:56Alec Baldwin?

  While you're shooting a movie.

• 26:57Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 26:57Alec Baldwin?

  And don't get too in a different head.

• 27:00Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 27:01Alec Baldwin?

  Try to stay in this kind of neutral gear.

• 27:02Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 27:03Alec Baldwin?

  And then he said to me, like, when you go anywhere, he goes, don't, don't talk to people on the phone. Don't talk to your girlfriend on the phone. Don't talk to your decorator on the phone, you know, about how much money he's gonna spend on your bathroom.

• 27:12Speaker 04

  Yeah, or God forbid you have a fight with your girlfriend.

• 27:14Alec Baldwin?

  Don't, don't talk to them.

• 27:15Speaker 04

  Don't do it.

• 27:16Alec Baldwin?

  The other one was, this guy turned to me once, it was Albert Salmy, the great, great character actor, Albert Salmy. He was there, was sitting on the edge of the set in a chair, reading the LA Times or something, and he says, are you gonna go back to your trailer? I go, no, I think I'll hang out. And he said, that's the best, he goes, don't leave the set. He said, don't go back to your trailer. The set is where it's at.

• 27:40Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 27:40Alec Baldwin?

  Always be, stay linked to the process.

• 27:43Speaker 04

  That's great.

• 27:43Alec Baldwin?

  Yeah.

• 27:44Speaker 04

  Felt the same way. I, I would see people reading books and I thought, gee, how do they do that? I can't do that.

• 27:49Alec Baldwin?

  Concentrate.

• 27:50Speaker 04

  Mm hmm. Well, it takes you out of that world.

• 27:52Alec Baldwin?

  Takes you out of that world.

• 27:53Speaker 04

  Different world.

• 27:54Alec Baldwin?

  One last question about the show, directors. I found that we had some wonderful directors, most of whom had, this was back in the eighties, with great theater backgrounds and they were kind of wickedly funny.

• 28:06Speaker 04

  Mm hmm.

• 28:07Alec Baldwin?

  You know, I'd say to the director, Henry Kaplan, I'd say.

• 28:09Speaker 04

  Oh, Henry? You had Henry Kaplan?

• 28:10Alec Baldwin?

  Yes, you know Henry.

• 28:11Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah, wickedly funny is exactly right.

• 28:14Alec Baldwin?

  He was, he terrorized me.

• 28:15Speaker 04

  Me too, terrorized me.

• 28:16Alec Baldwin?

  Yeah, I'd have a drink in my hand like this, and I go, I'm gonna, can I hold this up? When I say this line, I wanna sip, then I wanna pull it away and say the other part of it, where I'm thinking of anything to play. And I go, and I'll do this, and I'll never forget, I'm doing a scene with Kim Zimmer, and Henry goes, that's fine, you do whatever you do. He goes, I'm gonna be on her anyway.

• 28:33Alec Baldwin?

  You bastard, you bastard. We had some great directors, though.

• 28:36Speaker 04

  Great directors, and Henry was terrific. Also, we used to get our notes, they called them red chairs. They would call us to red chairs, which were a bunch of red directors' chairs set up, you know, in the middle of the studio, to get our notes. So the whole company of actors got their notes together. This was both humiliating and bonding.

• 28:54Alec Baldwin?

  Yeah.

• 28:55Speaker 04

  You know, because you were humiliated together, we all had our chance, and when Henry was directing, the humiliation was flying. We were just, oh.

• 29:03Alec Baldwin?

  He buried you.

• 29:04Speaker 04

  He buried you, destroyed you, right before you had to go on air and play those scenes. Yeah.

• 29:08Alec Baldwin?

  Action.

• 29:08Speaker 04

  Yeah, but that was him, and it took me a while, it took me a couple of weeks to figure out that that was his humor.

• 29:15Alec Baldwin?

  Yeah.

• 29:15Speaker 04

  Because I was, oh, destroyed.

• 29:17Alec Baldwin?

  He was funny.

• 29:18Speaker 04

  Oh, he was so funny.

• 29:19Alec Baldwin?

  Did Bob Cento direct you guys?

• 29:21Speaker 04

  Yes, Bob Cento did too.

• 29:22Alec Baldwin?

  I worked with Cento too.

• 29:22Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 29:23Alec Baldwin?

  Well, you all want to move on to the hour shows, because it's more fun for them.

• 29:26Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 29:26Alec Baldwin?

  The half hour shows, it's like, you're all just getting started, and it's over.

• 29:30Speaker 04

  It's over, yeah.

• 29:30Alec Baldwin?

  Now, you are doing what, no, no, they said there might be a reboot of the show, or no?

• 29:36Speaker 04

  You know, they're saying that, and I'm told that. Then, of course, the writer's strike came and the actor's strike, so I thought it was, you know, gone by then, but I'm told it's still possibly in the works, so we'll see.

• 29:46Alec Baldwin?

  Isn't that incredible? Isn't that incredible? Now, in terms of other things you're doing now, you've been involved with that theater in West Hampton for a very long time, correct?

• 29:54Speaker 04

  Well, with celebrity autobiography.

• 29:56Alec Baldwin?

  Right.

• 29:57Speaker 04

  You know, we took the play there. You were in the first one.

• 29:59Alec Baldwin?

  I did one of them, and I did a couple of them at Guildhall.

• 30:02Speaker 04

  At Guildhall. Actually, I did the first concert there with Marvin Hamlish. Yeah.

• 30:07Alec Baldwin?

  You sang?

• 30:08Speaker 04

  Yes, a little bit. Marvin has, well, I met Marvin in Sag Harbor at that theater, actually.

• 30:13Alec Baldwin?

  What?

• 30:14Speaker 04

  He was doing a A concert there. And his wife came up to me during intermission and told me that she was Marvin's wife. And she was great herself, but she said Marvin's wife. And he'd like to meet you. Would you like to meet Marvin? I said, would I like to meet Marvin, of course. So she took me backstage to meet him afterwards. And that was a meeting that changed my life. First of all, it was all during that time where I hadn't won the Emmy for many, many, many nominations. And he was assuring me that it had nothing to do with my, my work. I mean, he was really encouraging me. He was a fan, which was so thrilling that Marvin Hamlish would be a fan. Then he called me afterwards and asked me if I'd like to, to work with him. We worked at Heinz Hall in Pittsburgh the first time.

• 30:59Alec Baldwin?

  I know Heinz Hall.

• 30:59Speaker 04

  Do you know Heinz Hall? And the deal was that I would give a seminar to the seniors who were drama majors at Carnegie Mellon. Or Carnegie, might have been just Carnegie at the time. Anyway, he, he called me then one night and said to me, I'd like to write a song for you to dance with the chorus boys who are dance majors at Carnegie. They will be there and they will come and they will dance with you and you will dance with them. How does that sound? I said, that sounds amazing, you know, thank you. And his, the doorbell rang at his apartment. He said, hold on a second, my Chinese food is here. And so he went to get his Chinese food and we left it at that. But it was great working with him.

• 31:43Speaker 04

  That was my first time working with him. And then, yes, we were at West Hampton.

• 31:47Alec Baldwin?

  It was a nice theater.

• 31:48Speaker 04

  Nice theater. And then after I won the Emmy, the producers, Brandon Barry Weisler called me and asked me if I would like to play Annie Oakley in A Get Your Gun. If I'd like to go in for Bernadette. Bernadette was going to be leaving the show. And would I like to go in for her? And my agent called me from, from ICM at the time in LA. And she said to me, sit down, here's, she said, I don't even know if you sing. I said, well. Yeah, I did musical theater in high school and college. Yes, I'd like to do that. And she said, OK. And I said, and because Marvin, he said I should come to his apartment so he could hear me sing and see if he thought I could do this.

• 32:33Speaker 04

  Because after our last appearance together, he said, if you ever need me, I'm here to help you, let me know. So I was offered this part. And I was way too shy to call Marvin Hamlish and ask him anything. But Helmut was not. So Helmut called Marvin Hamlish, told him what was being offered and what did he think? And Marvin was very generous. He had been on, he was on tour. When Helmut reached him, he was in Europe. And he said, but I'm coming home Sunday night, come to my apartment and sing for me and I'll tell you. So we went to Marvin's apartment. Scariest thing I ever did at that time, I rang Marvin Hamlish's doorbell to his apartment and he answered. And his lyricist was there with him.

• 33:17Speaker 04

  And his wife, Teri Blair, was in the back room. And he said, so come on in, I have lyricist here, I'm going to play the piano and sing through some of the numbers. And I had, by then, you know, just locked myself in my room and learned all the music. And he said, so I want you to sing a ballad and an uptune. And I had to, and I did. And he said, OK, I'm going to go now to the back of the apartment. He has one of those pre-World War II apartments. Yeah. And he went, and it looked like a La League glass partition. And he went way in the back. And he said, now sing to me. And I did. And he came out. And I guess because it's Broadway and he needed to know he could hear me. And he said, OK. He said, you can do this. He said, you can do this if you want to.

• 34:01Speaker 04

  I want you to work for, for a week with Craig Carniglia, that was his, he was his lyricist, and come back to me and sing again. And so I did. And he said, yeah, there's no question you can do this. He said, you're very brave. Tall you're not. [laughing]

• 34:18Alec Baldwin?

  We can fix that.

• 34:19Speaker 04

  And so Bernadette wasn't either, so it worked. Worked. So he encouraged me to do it and he really helped me to get to the place where I could do it because the next step was to sing for Barry and Fran Weisler and I wanted to. They did not ask for that. I wanted to because I wanted, I wanted to know I could do it.

• 34:37Alec Baldwin?

  How long did you do it?

• 34:39Speaker 04

  Not long enough, I'll tell you. It was just a month because by that time Bernadette decided she didn't want to leave. She was just going to leave for the holidays. She came back.

• 34:47Alec Baldwin?

  And it was Reba after that?

• 34:49Speaker 04

  Reba after that because by that time, all my children wouldn't let me go. They were beginning a new, truly a very important storyline. But at the beginning, when they told me it was going to be a very important storyline and they couldn't let me go, if you tell me no, I'm not just going to say, oh, okay. I'm never going to throw up my hands.

• 35:06Alec Baldwin?

  This was a great opportunity for you.

• 35:08Speaker 04

  Oh, my goodness, my dream. I grew up in New York. To be a little girl to grow up in New York and then you have a chance to be on Broadway? Oh, my God.

• 35:14Alec Baldwin?

  Yeah, great show.

• 35:15Speaker 04

  Oh, great show, great part with the original cast. So, you know, I would try to go over that brick wall, over it, under it, through it, around it, how? You know, I gave them all sorts of notions. Could we do this? Could we do that? This was the opportunity of a lifetime. But all my children did not see it that way. ABC did not see it that way at the time.

• 35:37Alec Baldwin?

  Actress Susan Lucci. If you're enjoying this conversation, tell a friend and be sure to follow Here's the Thing on the iHeart Radio app, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. When we come back, Susan Lucci shares how it felt to finally take home the Emmy after her 19th nomination.

• 36:37Speaker 02

  Hey, it's Niall Rogers, host of Before the Moment, a Lincoln original series. I'm driving across the country, meeting some of today's most fascinating artists. We're exploring the stories before the moment that changed everything. This week, I'm joined by my friend, John Legend. So you're helping Will.i.am write hooks. What made "Ordinary People" become the one song from those sound checks you knew you had to make your own?

• 37:05Speaker 09

  I was just writing for the Black Eyed Peas. I wasn't expecting to write something for myself in that session, but I wrote the hook for "Ordinary People," and I recorded a demo, and I'm like, I would rather keep "Ordinary People" for myself. This station in Chicago, W G C I, they start playing it before we're promoting it. The song spoke for itself. It became the defining song for my first album. I knew it was special, but you never know how special it's going to be and how much impact it's going to have in people's lives. And you never believe that you're going to actually change people's lives with a song.

• 37:34Speaker 02

  Experience Before the Moment, a Lincoln original series on the iHeartRadio app, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 37:44Speaker 10

  This is Troy Millings. As someone who travels a lot for work, I really appreciate a premium airport experience. With the Delta Sky Miles Reserve Business American Express Card, it truly feels like you can have it all. For a limited time, new Delta Sky Miles Reserve Business Card members can earn 200,000 bonus miles, the highest miles offered this year. Card members can also enjoy 15 visits to the Delta Sky Club each medallion year when flying Delta, and you can unlock unlimited Delta Sky Club access after spending $75,000 in purchases on your card during a calendar year. Those are benefits you can get behind. You also get four one-time guest passes each medallion year, so you can bring a friend or colleague along.

• 38:27Speaker 10

  15 Sky Club visits plus four guest passes? That's up to $950 in annual value. Value estimate based on a $50 per visit rate to purchase additional visits or bring a guest to the Delta Sky Club. It's the kind of premium access that helps you feel right at home and at ease no matter where you're headed. Apply today at www.delta.com/podcast. Offer ends November 4th, 2026. Minimum spending requirements and terms apply.

• 39:01Alec Baldwin?

  I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing. Susan Lucci has inhabited many amazing roles, including one as National Ambassador for the American Heart Association. The organization seeks to reduce deaths caused from heart disease and stroke and has contributed over $5 billion in cardiovascular and cerebrovascular research. I wanted to know how she first got involved with the nonprofit.

• 39:30Speaker 04

  I had a heart incident actually five years ago. So that's great, you know, that I'm, everything's wonderful. But it took me quite by surprise. I had never been sick, nothing. And my mother, I lost my mother at 104.

• 39:45Alec Baldwin?

  Oh. Where was she?

• 39:47Speaker 04

  Then she was, she was assisted living in Florida, which is a, they have an art, it's an art form in Florida. She was in a beautiful, wonderful place, but she had never had anything major. She was 100 at the time. So I was out actually shopping for a birthday present for a friend and it was the third time that month I had felt some pressure on my chest, radiating around my rib cage to my back. The first two times, I didn't take it seriously. I thought, as most women do, oh, it's nothing, it'll go away. I don't have time for this. And it's, and it did go away. But the third time, it felt like an elephant pressing on my chest. And I had heard a woman do an interview many years before, no reason to even remember this. But I did.

• 40:32Speaker 04

  And I sat down. Good I was out in a public place because the manager came over and asked me how I was feeling. I told her and she said, Susan, my car is right outside. I can get you to St. Francis Hospital, the heart hospital. It's a mile down the road, faster than an ambulance will come. And I went with her. It turned out she also had a degree in nursing. I mean, what are the odds of that? She was so calm and I had no reason to have a cardiologist, but my husband did and I called him. He met me at the ER. Turned out I had a 90% blockage in my main artery and a 75% blockage in the adjacent.

• 41:08Alec Baldwin?

  You never smoked?

• 41:09Speaker 04

  I never smoked. There was no reason to have this. Turned out, this is interesting. We all in my family thought that I have my mother's genes because she never had anything. I never had anything. And it turned out I had my otherwise fabulous, handsome, terrific father's genes in that regard. So it was calcium buildup. Who knew? But I found out. Anyway, so I couldn't keep my good luck to myself. I had to get out there and tell women what symptoms would be and to listen to them and to put themselves on their own to-do list and take care of themselves.

• 41:42Alec Baldwin?

  You were a finalist in a beauty pageant. Is that true?

• 41:46Speaker 04

  Yes. I was.

• 41:49Alec Baldwin?

  What was the beauty pageant you were the finalist in? Miss New York State?

• 41:52Speaker 04

  Miss New York State Universe.

• 41:54Alec Baldwin?

  For the Miss Universe?

• 41:55Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 41:56Alec Baldwin?

  You were like getting on deck for Miss Universe?

• 41:58Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 41:58Alec Baldwin?

  And you were the runner-up for Miss New York State Universe?

• 42:01Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 42:02Alec Baldwin?

  When I look at you, you're so attractive, not just as a woman and beautiful. You're an unbelievably beautiful woman. You're a gorgeous woman.

• 42:12Speaker 04

  Thank you.

• 42:12Alec Baldwin?

  And you're attractive as a person. You've got this warmth. You have that magical je ne sais quoi that people have on camera. People are connected to you and they're looking at you and taking you in. That head toss of yours.

• 42:26Speaker 04

  Thank you.

• 42:26Alec Baldwin?

  You should have patented that. You could make a billion dollars teaching people how to do different types of head tosses.

• 42:31Speaker 04

  You're so funny.

• 42:32Alec Baldwin?

  To certain effects. Your head toss is legendary. But you stayed connected, I'm assuming because of family, your husband, the things that a lot of people do, but with beauty, talent. You could have gone to L.A. and just made movies and did TV and just ran in that direction. And you didn't. Why?

• 42:50Speaker 04

  Maybe that uncertainty, you know, that you were saying some of the younger generation now is feeling.

• 42:56Alec Baldwin?

  Are you telling us you're insecure, Susan Lucci?

• 42:59Speaker 04

  Absolutely. Yeah.

• 43:03Alec Baldwin?

  Was it also family?

• 43:04Speaker 04

  Yes, by that time, by the time my career was taking off, I had my first child, my daughter, Liza, who was probably three years old, four years old. And I just thought I wanted to raise my children here. You know, anything you ever read about raising children and being a celebrity yourself, especially not in New York, but going to L.A.

• 43:27Alec Baldwin?

  Being a mom.

• 43:28Speaker 04

  Being a mom.

• 43:28Alec Baldwin?

  Not a dad, but a mom. Big difference.

• 43:31Speaker 04

  Yeah. And so I wanted to raise them with as much, and I'm going to put this in quotation marks, normalcy as possible. And what I knew as normalcy was growing up in the town I grew up in. And in fact, when I met my husband, I wanted to move away from there. You know, when you grow up someplace, the grass is always greener someplace else. And you, I didn't realize how special a place it was. But my husband, who came from the Austrian Alps, pretty special place itself, grew up in this magical way, thought that Garden City was a great place to raise children. And so he, you know, he had that influence over me. And I, I thought he was right. And from everything I read and everything he said and everything I could see, by that

• 44:16Speaker 04

  time, I thought, yeah, there's a sense of community here. And there's a lot here for raising children in normalcy. Also, as I got closer up to the nighttime series situation at that time, not that my daughter was even in school, she was three, I learned that they'd take a break. At the time, it was, you would never see your children. You know, you go back to work on a nighttime series, at least in those days, at the time where your children are getting out of school. So the whole summer, you know, you're, you're busy going back to work. Whereas if I stayed in daytime, I could go whenever I wanted to go, according to their more control over my real life.

• 44:54Alec Baldwin?

  I tried forever never to work in the summertime. And many summer, many years I didn't. I was, I would, I think the times I worked in the summer was for like for Scorsese.

• 45:02Speaker 04

  Oh, well.

• 45:03Alec Baldwin?

  Like I had, no, but I'm saying like I had to say yes, there was no chance.

• 45:06Speaker 04

  Of course.

• 45:07Alec Baldwin?

  And go shoot in August or something for a couple of weeks. I mean, I never had a, a big part in those films, but I would, just to be with him and be around him was a thrill. But I tried to, you know, be with my kids and stay home all the time. And then eventually that becomes who you are. Now, when you finally won your Emmy, your hard fought, well earned, well deserved Emmy, when you were sitting there, you just expected to be the same over again? You kind of?

• 45:31Speaker 04

  Kinda, yes. I will tell you that every year I would get whipped into a frenzy because the press corps, you know, they've, this is your year, this is your year. But that year. Everything was in place. It was a great storyline. It was very well shot, very well directed, very well acted by everybody.

• 45:47Alec Baldwin?

  Good stuff.

• 45:47Speaker 04

  Good stuff. But you know, after a while, I mean, nineteen, it was my nineteenth nomination. You know, you kind of say, hmm, history's taught me I'm probably not, you know? And yet, part of you, and I'm also not, I'm a hopeful person. I didn't want to give up completely, you know? So, yeah, I thought, well, maybe, but hmm. And I wrote a couple in my head the night before, lying in bed. I thought, wow, if they're right, there are people I really want to thank. So I, you know, talked through my head a little bit, who I might thank. But I kind of didn't want to let myself even go there, you know?

• 46:21Alec Baldwin?

  You won the Emmy for acting, your nineteenth nomination.

• 46:23Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 46:24Alec Baldwin?

  And then you won the Life Achievement Award.

• 46:25Speaker 04

  Yes, just now.

• 46:26Alec Baldwin?

  Just now. Well, now, how did that come about?

• 46:29Speaker 04

  That was a phone call. I got a phone call from my publicist saying that...

• 46:32Alec Baldwin?

  Who's the organization?

• 46:33Speaker 04

  The Daytime Emmys.

• 46:34Alec Baldwin?

  Oh, the Daytime Emmys themselves?

• 46:35Speaker 04

  Yes, and there's an Emmy committee.

• 46:37Alec Baldwin?

  Right.

• 46:37Speaker 04

  And they unanimously said they wanted to give me the award, so...

• 46:40Alec Baldwin?

  Oh, my God. Well, congratulations for that.

• 46:42Speaker 04

  Thank you.

• 46:42Alec Baldwin?

  Congratulations for that.

• 46:43Speaker 04

  Thank you. Much less hair-raising when you know ahead of time.

• 46:46Alec Baldwin?

  Much less. And then Nicholson said to me a while ago, I said to him, when you won the Oscar, he'd been nominated a couple of times, when you won the Oscar, you kind of looked like you knew you were going to win. You were sitting there, you had this really kind of a weird kind of smile on your face, sitting in there. I watched the film. And he goes, "They owed it to me."

• 47:03Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 47:04Alec Baldwin?

  He said, "They owed it to me, and they knew they owed it to me." "I've been nominated two or three times before, and I didn't get it, and they knew they owed it to me."

• 47:13Speaker 04

  It's so funny.

• 47:14Alec Baldwin?

  And I thought, wow, what a thing to say. When you know, you know.

• 47:18Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 47:18Alec Baldwin?

  Let me just say, you are this great goddess and legend of daytime television and so forth, but I tell you, I hope you don't retire.

• 47:28Speaker 04

  Thank you.

• 47:28Alec Baldwin?

  You can't retire, because you're not done. You're not done.

• 47:31Speaker 04

  Thank you.

• 47:31Alec Baldwin?

  A lot of other things you could be doing.

• 47:33Speaker 04

  Thank you.

• 47:38Alec Baldwin?

  My thanks to Susan Lucci. This episode was recorded at CDM Studios in New York City. We're produced by Kathleen Russo, Zach McNeese, and Maureen Hoban. Our engineer is Frank Imperial. Our social media manager is Danielle Gingrich. I'm Alec Baldwin. Here's The Thing is brought to you by iHeart Radio.

• 48:18Speaker 10

  This is Troy Millings. If you travel for work like I do, you know every trip is an opportunity to get more from the miles you're already earning. Whether you're heading to your next client meeting or catching a flight home, those miles can go a long way. For a limited time, new Delta SkyMiles Business Card members can earn 200,000 bonus miles, the highest miles offered this year with the Delta SkyMiles Reserve Business American Express Card. Apply today at www.delta.com/podcast. Offer ends November 4th, 2026. Minimum spending requirements and terms apply.

• 48:52Speaker 11

  With ChatGPT, you can do more than get answers. You can get things done. Whether you're leading a big project, planning an elaborate trip, or trying to balance work and life, ChatGPT can help. Give it a goal, plus things like files, notes, or project plans. Develop a trip itinerary with daily updates, or create a prioritized schedule, so you can spend less energy sorting out the details and more on bringing your biggest ideas to life. Get started at chatgpt.com.

• 49:20Speaker 12

  This is Stugatz from Stugatz and Company Live. Buy smart, drive for less, and trade for more. That's Toyota affordability. And it all starts with a great deal on an all-wheel-drive Camry, Corolla Cross, or a Corolla Sedan with the latest features N-Tech, or test drive a spacious Grand Highlander or adventure-ready RAV4. And with so many hybrid models available, you can enjoy longer trips without all the stops. While Toyota's legendary resale value means you can get more at trade-in, get a great deal today and a great value tomorrow. Shop toyota.com for deals and details. Toyota, let's go places.

• 49:58Speaker 13

  Cash Flow Crunch? OnDeck's small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds, up to $200,000, right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment, get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at ondeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 50:28Speaker 00

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.