Jackie Batson shares why she hasn’t given up hope on finding the man of her dreams. Then Max talks with actress Susan Lucci about what playing the same role — Erica Kane on the soap opera All My Children — for 41 years taught her about herself and about getting older.
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transcription
[PRE-ROLL]
[OPENING MONTAGE]
Madeleine Albright: I know this program is 70 Over 70, but I really wish I were younger. I wish I was 70… but, I am ready!
[THEME MUSIC STARTS]
William: I’m 72 years old.
Paula: I’m 75, miraculously enough.
Sandy: I am 83 years old.
Betty: I am 88 years old.
James: You know, I’m here at 92.
Lucia: I’ll be 94 in May.
Donalda: I’m 101 years old.
Jackie Batson: My name is Jackie Batson. I'm 71 and I live in Romeoville, Illinois.
[THEME MUSIC FADES OUT]
Jackie: I am a woman that never actually been loved and actually really never loved. But that's what I want!
[MUSIC FADES IN]
Jackie: That's what I fantasize about, and I'm just trying to get back in the dating world so I can find someone.
[MUSIC CONTINUES]
Jackie: You know, when I was younger, I didn't want to be married until I was in my early 30s, because I felt prior to that I was too immature and I did not have any confidence in myself. But once I started getting in my 30s, I-I was growing into my own strength. So I was ready, but it didn't happen.
Then by the time I was 40, I was really ready and I started going to a singles club, meaning just people were single and you meet and you mingle. Of course, I didn't find anybody. And then I just I wake up one day and I’m in my 60s and I'm still not married. And then when I turned 69, I said, well, I'm just going to roll the dice, so I decided to do the online dating.
When I did my profile, I made an appointment to have my picture taken at J.C. Penney's. And I had my makeup on and I had a nice jacket and a nice top. So as soon as I got the pictures, I uploaded it.
[MUSIC CONTINUES]
Jackie: I really thought I wasn't going to connect with anyone because I'm an older woman. You know, I hate to say this, but I'm not attractive and so it's just going to be a waste of time. To my surprise, it wasn't like that at all.
[MUSIC CONTINUES]
Jackie: I did have good conversations with a few men. You know, I'm looking for an honest man, a man of integrity. a man probably 10 years younger than myself, or say maybe no more than seventy five. I don't think I would think anybody that knows me would say I'm vain. But I do like a neat-looking man. When a man would say, you know, you're very attractive, you don't look 70, it kind of made me feel like a schoolgirl or something, you know, because I haven't had attention like that in a long, long time.
But I'll just sum it up to say I didn't connect with anyone.
[MUSIC CONTINUES]
Jackie: Some of them did ask me, you know, why haven’t you been married or why you don't you have any kids? And I’m just honest, I just say ‘well, that's the million dollar question’. I don't really know why I never connected to anyone. I really don't. And that is a really, really touchy thing with me because I don’t know what happened.
What does it do to you? It makes you sad. It made me feel sad that now I've got to go online to do it. It's like, why? Why me? Why do I have to do this?
[MUSIC ENDS]
Jackie: I let my, um, membership run out, but I'm going to do it again. Probably sometime this month or next month, but I will not settle for someone that is totally someone that I shouldn't be talking to. I know exactly what I want, and I think that's the luxury of-of getting older. You know what you want.
[THEME MUSIC FADES IN]
Jackie: And so I don't think is so difficult to keep on doing it. I'm a believer. And so, you know, I pray. I'm hopeful. I just have to--just have to look.
Max Linsky: That was Jackie Batson, and from Pineapple Street Studios, this is 70 Over 70, a show about making the most of the time we have left. I'm Max Linsky.
My guest this week is Susan Lucci.
For most of her working life, 41 years in total, Susan had one job: she played the role of Erica Kane on the soap opera All My Children.
[MUSIC FADES OUT]
Max: It's easy to imagine that, when you’ve played a role for that long, it would become hard to distinguish between the character and yourself. but that was never difficult for Susan. Erica was conniving, she courted chaos, was married 10 times.
But Susan's life off-screen is a picture of stability. She still lives in the same neighborhood where she grew up. She’s been married once, they’re still together. She’s also nice!
And while Susan got to live out her childhood dream of being an actress, she didn’t always get the respect she deserved for the work. Part of that is about soap operas themselves and their place in the Hollywood pecking order. And part of that is about a legendary streak of Emmy losses — Susan was nominated 18 times before she finally won.
[MUSIC FADES IN]
Max: All My Children was canceled in 2011 and you get the sense that if Susan could have kept playing Erica forever, she would have. I wanted to understand why that is, what you figure out about yourself by playing somebody else, and what she learned about letting go once the show finally did come to an end.
Susan Lucci is 74 years old.
INTERVIEW
Max: Susan Lucci, thank you for doing this, it's an honor to have you.
Susan Lucci: Oh, thank you. I'm happy to be doing this. Thank you.
[MUSIC FADES OUT]
Max: I was hoping we could go back, go back in time to you at 23 when you took the role of Erica Kane on All My Children. My understanding is that that first job, Erica, was 15 at the time [mhmm] and you signed up to play her for four years.
Susan: Yes.
Max: When you took that job, wh-what were your expectations for that role?
Susan: Oh, there were two things. First of all, I loved the role. The audition scene was an eight page scene, a knockdown drag-out between a 15 year old, Erica, and her and her mother. Well, Erica was always very headstrong and and really knew what she wanted to, don't get in her way. And her mother was very sensible and just really wanted Erica to calm down. So this was a big fight between them. And I was close enough to 15 that I could I knew about those things. My mother and I actually would watch the scenes and laugh.
Max: You were 23 at the time, but you could still you could still remember that 15 year old.
Susan: Yeah, I was twenty two, actually. I was 23 when I actually went on camera.
Max: Got it.
Susan: But the thing that almost made me not take the part was because they wanted me to sign up for four years. And at that point four years was how I measured big chunks of my life, four years of high school. Four years of college, four years seemed like a whole other lifetime for me.
Max: Was part of the reason that signing up for four years made you nervous about the opportunities that you might miss if you did that?
Susan: No, I never thought about that. I probably just was too naive to know that
Max: You didn't have access to the idea that there were some other paths for you?
Susan: I thought I could do both. I thought I could do both. Erica was only scheduled to be on like every other Tuesday when I first began. I mean, that quickly changed. So when I went into it, I had no idea how, fortunately, the audience would embrace this character. You know, she was the naughty girl in town. And because I was in the hands of great writing with Agnes Nixon, there became lots more to her So then I was on more, but I was able to do Broadway and I could do movies for television. As it turned out, I could do more.
Max: So you were sort of a little bit able to have your cake and eat it, too. I want to talk about I want to talk about Agnes, but just stick with me in that moment for a second. You ended up playing her for 41 years.
Susan: Yes.
Max: When you think about your 22 year old self deciding to sign up for that role, how do you think about it?
Susan: Well, I remember along the way, every time my contract would come up for renewal, every I guess every three or four years, I would really assess the situation and I would reevaluate. And the truth is that I was happy, I was very happy. And I kept thinking, is there something wrong with me? I'm so happy here. And I got to play a part that was groundbreaking and spectacular and gave me so many ways to stretch acting chops that I loved, including comedy. And it didn't stop me from doing some things. It may have typecast me. But I thought it's not a bad type. You know, I'm fine with this. One thing I would think of, especially when it got to be around twenty five years. I was thinking, has anyone noticed how long I've been on this show? You still going to want me to be here? You know?
Max: You mean the fans are like the execs?
Susan: The execs.
Max: Yeah. Sort of like waiting for someone to be like, actually, we're not renewing your contract this time.
Susan: Yes. Yes.
Max: You were able to do other work and play other roles and do these other things It is the defining role of your life which you in this character are synonymous.
Susan: Yes.
Max: When it became clear Erica Kane was going to be the defining role of your life, did the way you thought about your career or your work or the character, did anything change once you realized, like, this is my thing.
Susan: I never felt as I was going along, I never felt defined by playing one part. And I used to think to myself, I must play other parts because I couldn't call myself legitimately an actress if I only played one role, so it was not only a wonderful opportunity to play other characters, other parts for me, it was something I really felt I needed to do and wanted to do. As it turns out, I think you're quite right. I think it has become the defining role for me and I'm very proud of it. The industry probably doesn't think as highly of the genre soap opera as I would like it to.
Max: Do you have a chip on your shoulder about that? Does it bother you?
Susan: I guess I felt bad about it for a while, I don't feel so bad anymore because I know how good All My Children was and I know that all shows, no matter what genre we're talking about, are not created equally, you know? So I understand.
Max: How did that change?
Susan: I guess with my eyes wide open, I would see movies and other TV shows and in different genres in different ways. And look at them, you know, with the critical eye, not a judgmental, bad, critical eye. I just mean watching and realizing that our show could stand the test of time and could stand up in terms of material and and writing and performance and production values. So I guess for my own self, I came to that conclusion.
Max: So it was about watching a shitty movie and just being like that movie's not very good. This thing that we're doing--.
Susan: Is really good.
Max: Is really good. And it's exactly it's like exactly what we're trying to do. Like on some level, I guess I wonder whether it's soap operas weren't I don't know what the word is like taken seriously or something.
Susan: I think that's right.
Max: It was like, there's nothing you could do about that.
Susan: And my feeling was you could do good work anywhere. And I, I do believe that it may not be watched with the same mind from the audience, but I think audiences know when it's good and when it's not.
Max: The work, and this is something that I think people might not know. Like the work was a grind.
Susan: Yes. I mean, yes. And I'm still in touch with so many of my classmates and colleagues, you know, producers, writers, whatever. And we you know, we often look back and say. Oh, that schedule. I mean, even when we were doing it, we loved what we did. We loved it. And I got very used to that pace so that if I wasn't in that pace, I felt like something was wrong. But on the other hand, I mean, it was so, so much of a grind, as you say, in terms of the hours. I mean, we started at seven o'clock in the morning. Sometimes we were there before that, but we didn't leave till we got it right. And that could be 11 o'clock. It could be five a.m. the next morning because we were coming right back to do another show.
Max: Right. You're working eight, 10, 12, 15 hour days, but --
Susan: 12, 16 hours a day yeah.
Max: Right. But also five days a week and, you know, 90 pages of dialog or whatever. I mean, it's so much. And then on top of that, you've got to hit these incredible emotional ranges like, you know, over the course of one episode, you know, multiple people are going to die and hearts are going to break, and.
Susan: Yes, it's true. That's true.
Max: How did you find not just the physical energy, but like the emotional energy to do that for so long? Like even just talking about it is making me tired.
Susan: I don't know. I don't know. You know, you just did what you had to do and you wanted to do. But there were times I mean, a lot of times I would see, for example, Jill Larson, who played Opal, Erica's best friend, Erica's only friend in in Pine Valley. And Jill and I would see each other in the hallway. We'd say, oh, we can't make eye contact. I love you. I want to talk to you, but we can't there's no time. See ya, you know, and we'd run to our dressing rooms and, you know, and we were all loudspeaker. Our names were always being called on a loudspeaker to go to set. So it was quite demanding.
Max: It's interesting what you just said, though, like that you had to want to. And I guess that's maybe like an answer to all these questions I'm asking you. It's just like, you wanted to be doing it. That's what you that's what you wanted to be doing.
Susan: It's true.
Max: You spent so much time as Erica. Mm hmm. How do you explain your relationship to Erica Kane?
Susan: Well, for one thing, I saw a lot of myself in Erica and and I think there's a lot of Erica, and almost everybody, I think at the core, I think we all want what we want when we want it, and along the way we get civilized and try to to be good people and so on.
Max: Yeah.
Susan: In terms of my relationship with Erica, it was a place for me to sometimes let my inside voice out and not have to take any punishment for it.
Max: Yeah. I mean, those moments where the rule allowed you to let your own inner voice out, Did that change the character at all?
Susan: It may have. I mean, I played Erica for 41 years, starting, you know, as a 15 year old. So, of course, she evolved too, there used to be a phone book. I don't know if they're still even a phone book, but people would call my mother. She was listed as Mrs. Lucci and she would speak to them, you know, and they would say, Mrs. Lucci, I tried some of Erica's lines on my boyfriend and he broke up with me. And I want to just want to know how how does that work? You know, and my mother, my mother would would would laugh. So there were real differences in us as human beings, as girls and women.
Max: Yeah. the people calling your mom on the phone are up in the phone book feel representative of this other part of what I imagine your experience playing that role was, which is that even if they felt pretty distinct to you, you were showing up at work, you were Susan playing Erica. For so many people, you were just the same person. Like I've read these stories about, like after the abortion episode, people like thinking that you had done that.
Susan: Yes.
Max: Even if the boundaries were clear to you, what was it like to navigate the world when other people couldn't set that boundary?
Susan: It was amazing to me. I remember being in church. I'm Catholic, and I had gone to confession. This is at the abortion storyline. And I was saying my penance in a pew. And there were two women sitting in the pew in front of me, but way down at the other end. And they were turning around, looking at me and kind of askance, you know, and whispering. That's Erica is praying. Are you kidding? How could she be in church? You know? So there's a lot of that.
Max: Yeah.
Susan: And then again, I would be in an elevator with other cast mates. And there would be other people in the elevator. People who were not in the business are not involved in All My Children. And it's typical for actors to talk about their characters in the first person. So I would say something like, I know I had to have the abortion. Tom didn't understand that, but I had to have it. And other people in the in the elevator would look like, oh, my God, oh, my God. Then we'd realize what we had done and we made a scene we didn't mean to. And then there were, you know.
Max: Right. Before you and I talked, I just imagined that playing the same role for forty one years would be hard in some way. And maybe that's just because, like, I'm an impatient person.
Susan: I am too.
Max: You think of yourself an impatient person?
Susan: Oh yes, oh yes yes.
Max: i mean ... i think of you as having an insane amount of patience, i mean you were nominated for a emmy 18 times before you won.. And there was this period when you and Emmys were this kind of like national shorthand for a while. And you were in, like, I mean, this watching you on, like SNL in 1990, like you were like you were like, in on the joke.Is that right? Is that what that experience was like for you?
Susan: Oh, I mean, do you know about I mean, at least this is how how my my experience was. I met with all the writers on Wednesday night, I think it was went from office to office, writers office to writers office. And we would talk a little bit and they were the best comedy writers in the business. You know, they were each of them fantastic. And then they would present their ideas for you and you had to decide what you liked. Then you you go in front of you a big conference table, read for the whole staff one day. And the jokes that that land are the jokes they keep. And the whole time, as the person who's hosting you, thinking about the monologue, the opening monologue, and they keep saying to you, oh, don't worry about the monologue, don't worry about the monologue. And it's you know, you're going to do the opening of SNL and it's the monologue. And there were the you know, everybody on the crew in the SNL opening had an Emmy, the makeup artist had Emmys and the carpenters had Emmys hanging off their belt in the back. And then there was an Emmy food fight in the cafeteria with Emmys as corncob holders. So, you know, it was very it was hysterically funny. It was fun to do. But that whole time, that whole week of rehearsals, they would pick me up, I'd sit in the back of the car. It was terrifying. It was terrifying because I wanted to memorize everything I was doing and they're rewriting.
Max:And were you in any control ?
Susan: In the car on the way in every day, we'd stop at a red light and I'd think I would just slip out the back seat now, I will just go to the airport. I'll go away for a little while. No one will die. The show will go on, you know, because it was that terrifying to me. I didn't I hung in there, but it was really scary.
Max: It was scary just to not know what they were gonna land on --
Susan: Exactly, and then then then you just kind of go with it, because that is the way it is. It is live. It's Saturday Night Live. So there is no editing. There is no time to miss a cue and entrance. It was fun, though. It was fun.
Max: That sounds so stressful.
Susan: It is, it was fun.
Max:But you were not stressed about going on national television and joking about not winning the Emmy.
Susan: No, that part was fun. I think it's a good thing. So, yeah, I was fine with the humor. I was happy with the humor.
Max: Was it a process to get there? I mean, like, again, you just described yourself as an impatient person.
Susan:Yeah, but I wasn't ever doing the work for the award. You know, I really wasn't. That sounds very high minded, but I wasn't, I don't think anybody was. It was really a case of a really wonderful group of actors. And after the scenes, you know, we would say, I think that worked. Do you think that worked? I think the scene worked. It was about that.
Max: Did that mean that, like on the Monday after those 18 times that you didn't win, going back to work wasn't a thing?
Susan: The truth is, I real ly I just I wanted to do better. I mean, I knew that at the time, I was always trying my best and I just wanted to learn, I wanted to grow, I didn't. That's the other thing about playing one character for a long time. I didn't want to become stagnant. I didn't want to rest on any laurels that maybe I had this year. I wanted to go forward and hopefully be better. And I loved what I did. So it was not a chore to go back and do it. Play Erica.
[[MIDROLL]]
Max: In your memoir, you write about being a perfectionist. Is that part of, like, not winning not winning the emmy why it didn't get to you in the way that maybe people would think it did was like you were just just trying to get better all the time?
Susan: I don't know. I don't know. I. You know, now I know there's no such thing as perfection, and believe me, I want to let go of any notion of that.
Max: how do you figure that out? Seems very hard to me. [Easy] Is there a point in your life that you can point to where it started to change for you, where you started to let go of that.
Susan: Well, I do think the rehearsals for Annie Get Your Gun were part of it. They really were. I had to let go of it. I had a lot to learn. And I realized that I realized it was a great opportunity. But I also wanted to do it well. But doing it well didn't mean I could do it like the first time. Plus I was doing All My Children at the same time that I was rehearsing. And things happen to you in your life and you realize. That, you know, you're really not in control, you're you're more fragile than that, you know, and life's more fragile than that. When my son was born. I read what I could read. And do you know, no caffeine and no no glass of wine and, you know, the things that you were supposed to do. And yet there was a flu epidemic that year. And the last week I was pregnant, I called the flu. And when he was born 36 hours old, they took him to NICU, which I didn't even know what that was at the time. And the hospital, thank heavens, was a hospital that allowed the parents of a newborn into NICU 24/7. And so I could stay. I had a C-section. They allowed me to stay in hospital a little bit and I could I had an IV, but I was on wheels so I could wheel down, go into NICU and there was little porthole in the side of of his isolette. And I could put my hand in there and he would hold onto my finger and I could talk to him, tell him how much I loved him and and so on. And the doctor I remember, big tall guy looked actually like Larry Bird, the the Celtics basketball player, big tall guy with hands. And he would hold the baby in one palm of his hand. And he came up to me one day when I was talking to Andreas, who was in the NICU, he and he said to me, don't ever underestimate the power of what you're doing. Turning your baby's gaze gives them a lot of strength and self-esteem to fight what's going on and to be a survivor. And I was so taken by this this man of science who I only met through this whole experience. And I said to him, I feel like such a fool. I thought I was doing everything so perfectly, getting enough sleep and eating healthy and all of that. And he said it's a good thing that you did what you did. You gave him some physical strength to also fight with. But I was learning that even if you think you're doing everything perfectly, life happens. You do what you can. But we're not in control. We just can deal with whatever happens. Or try to.
Max: Or try to. Makes me think about Erica too. One more perfection question.
Susan: Can I ask you that?
Max: Am I a perfectionist?
Susan: Or do you do you do you think about this?
Max:Uh, yes. Yeah, I've been thinking about it a lot. I've been talking about it with this with the show, actually. You know
Susan: Oh, I understand that. And I'll tell you what, that's another thing a director said to me one day, because you always want as an actor, you want just a little more rehearsal. Oh, if I had another week of rehearsal and and he said to me, actors are all like that. They all want another take. They all wish they had a little more time. So I think as a performer yourself too, this, this goes with the territory.//And you have to let it go and that's good.
Max: Yeah. I'm not I'm not so good at the let it go part but. Bu..
Susan: There are still audition scenes in my head that I run from, you know, 100 years ago, I wish --
Max: You haven't you haven't let go of it?
Susan: I run them and try to figure out what I did wrong. And yeah.
Max: Well, there is, Susan, there is a like, there is a perfect Susan Lucci moment, right, which is when you did win the Emmy, which I feel like I have to acknowledge is sitting right over your left shoulder.
Susan: Oh yeah, thank you.
Max: So on the 19th time, 1999, you win the thing. And I watched the clip this morning. It's a legitimate two minute standing ovation. I know that you are saying that the award didn't matter to you and that it was just about the work. But there is something happening on your face in that moment that slightly betrays that that it wasn’t important to you.
Susan: Oh it is much better to win than not to win. And and if you're not nominated, you have no option to win, no opportunity to win. So, no, I just meant that from year to year, it's not wasn't a big concern that was voiced at the studio by any of the actors. But once you were nominated, you first of all, you were thrilled to be nominated. I was thrilled to be nominated. And that's a whole process then to choose what you might submit. But in that moment, yes, after 19 times. I couldn't believe it. I'm a hopeful person, but a long time had gone by.
Max: Yeah. Had you sort of given up on the idea that it would happen?
Susan: Not completely. honestly, because there were a lot of wonderful things that year. The writing the scene had to do with my 11 year old daughter, who finally came out to me, but 11 years old, she was anorexic. And there was a scene where we were an intervention when she was little girl and material was wonderful and so on. And I was very happy to have those scenes and so on. Anyway. And the press and the fans, you know, recruiting, I mean, little girls sent me their ballet trophies. And, every time something wonderful would happen and I would be nominated and I would get to be the night of I would be whipped into a frenzy of excitement and hopefulness that maybe this would be the year. But I went numb every year after the ninth but around then it must have been a self protective thing. But the night before the year that I did win in 1999, I was laying in bed at night. I thought, I have to prepare something in my head just just in the off chance because I would have so many people that I want to thank and need to think.
Max: And you hadn't done that?
Susan: I mean, just vaguely, no, not really. But because they knew that material was so good, that year was always good. But, I mean, it was particularly good. I just wanted to be sure to be able to thank everybody. And if it wasn't for Kelly Ripa standing up and saying, let her speak, speak, I wouldn't have gotten it all out.
Max: The video of it really is pretty incredible. And it's such an emotional moment for you. I wondered watching it, outside of those two minutes. Was there some kind of lasting impact for you?
Susan: Well, I think there were other things that happened afterwards that were direct result of of that. But that night to stand on that stage and turn around and see the whole industry on their feet. Oprah Winfrey in the wings, stage left, jumping up and down, cheering the whole audience cheering as I said, Kelly and David Canary and actors who were not involved at all in all my children, but who were working very, very hard as we all were, that they would stand and applaud my work. That was an incredible experience that I'll never forget.
Max: And then the show is on the air for another 12 years after that, and it ended 10 years ago, and, you know, after doing that role for 41 years, and I know it was hard for you when the show ended, but I wonder now, with a decade of space I wonder, like, how often do you think about Erica now?
Susan: Well, I am reminded almost every day, because if I'm in, I will now with Covid, we're not traveling as much. But I was in airports all the time. Once the show ended and I was out and about, people would stop me on the street, people stop me in a store wherever I am and speak to me every day about it. What I love is, as I said, Erica was the bad femme fatale kind of woman and like that. But what people saw in her, much to my amazement and joy, is that they saw her spirit, they saw her spunk. And they would say to me when I would meet them, especially when I was on a book book tour with the book that you mentioned, people would say to me that they were at a crossroads. Should I be a lawyer? Should I should I leave it here or should I continue get a masters? Should I stop? And they would say to me, what would Erica do? And it was her spirit that they all saw. So that even though I knew, you know, on paper, I could see the naughty girl in town. But they saw her determination. They saw her spirit. They saw her wanting what she wanted and going and being a go-getter. And that's what people identified with.
Max: Do you ever think about, like, what Erica would be doing now?
Susan: Ah, I don't, I really don't. And I wish Agnes was still with us because she would know she was still writing. She still would call me up with storyline, you know, I mean, she she was great. We went through a whole mourning period, you know, afterwards.
Max: Yeah, what was that time like for you, because, you know, listening to interviews with you around 2011 when the show ended, it didn't sound like you were ready for it to end.
Susan: No, we were surprised. We were shocked. And the way it ended was we weren't very happy, of course. And the fans were passionately furious. I mean, they crashed ABC's computers and phone lines and and all the rest of it.
Max: You know, you were saying at the beginning of this that you took that role for a reason and it has worked out. Do you feel that way about the show ending? Like, have you have you made peace with it?
Susan: I have. I have. And yet, you know, there are still reunion shows that I have done with my cast mates. There are still, you know, rumblings that are leaked that, you know, there may be spin offs coming up. We'll see.
Max: Little reboot.
Susan: Little reboot, something with a modern twist.
Max: It's interesting, too, though, you know, it's like the end of the show is out of your control.
Susan: You can't tie everything up in a neat little bow, even under the circumstances. Again, Agnes did this, you know, to have Erica caught in the crosshairs, determined that she's going to get that man back, even though she also still wants to have this career, she's going to figure out a way to make it all work. It's kind of the perfect ending for a romance novel, which is basically what we were doing. When when TV went to HD, I remember thinking, hmm, that's probably really good for the news and for sports coverage, but we're doing romance novels.
Max: I really love what a what a kick you get out of it. It just I don't know. It's so heartening or exciting or something. I'm struggling to find the right words. It's just like it's great to watch you [unclear].
Susan: Oh, good.
Max: I've got one more thing that I'm curious about, and there's no real natural transition to this. You've written talked a little bit about your grandmother.
Susan: Oh, yes.
Max: And you were very close. She lived in your house and she died when you were 11. She died of a heart attack in the middle of the night. And you heard her calling out. If you're willing, can you can you tell me what happened? And then, um. And then I'm interested in why she didn't tell anyone else for so long.
Susan: Well, I was as I said I was 11 and was the middle of the night. And I heard my grandmother, uh, moaning really. And. And I was scared. I was scared. I didn't know what was going on, and I was. Uh, paralyzed with fear, and then I heard her calling my mother's name. I finally got out of bed, ran to my mother, I told my mother that Nana was calling her name and and needing her. But that is one of the great disappointments in myself that still exists that I was so afraid that I didn't run to my mother, who also was a nurse, that I didn't run to her faster to get help from my grandmother. I never want to be paralyzed with fear again, I never want to not be able to help when I can. And I felt I didn't tell anybody for a long time because I was so ashamed.
Max: I mean, it was almost 50 years before you told someone about it.
Susan: Yeah, Mhmm.
Max: Do you know what changed that allowed you to say something?
Susan: I don't know. Maybe I just go to a place where I felt. It was OK to talk about a personal feeling of shame. Is OK to share that, and also if I was writing a book that was my memoir, I should tell it.
Max: Did it free you up in some way to put that out there?
Susan: Was I free enough before I told it to put it out in the world, you know? Is that part of the letting go of perfection? It felt good to let it go, to let to let the story out. You know, I would tell a child of mine, don't beat yourself up, you were 11 years old, but when it's you, you don't let it go that easily on yourself. You know, we're our own worst critics, I guess.
Max: I think I can understand that.
Susan: I'm so happy that she was in my life because she was jolly, she was warm and generous and jolly, and, uh, I really admired her.
Max: I feel like, I was struggling for for a word earlier, but warm and generous and jolly is exactly how you have been this conversation.
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Susan: Thank you. Thank you very much for saying that. Thank you.
CREDITS
Max: 70 Over 70 is a production of Pineapple Street Studios, and it’s produced by Jess Hackel.
Our associate producer is Janelle Anderson. Our editors are Maddy Sprung-Keyser and Joel Lovell. Research and additional reporting by Charley Locke.
Our mixer is Elliott Adler, and Jenna Weiss-Berman and I are the executive producers.
Our theme song is Like a Dream by Francis and the Lights and the music you’re listening to now is by Arthur Russell, who would have been 70 this year. Original music by Terence Bernardo. Additional music by Noble Kids, and music licensing by Dan Knishkowy.
Our cover art is by Maira Kalman who is 72, and our episode art is by Lynn Staley. She's 73, and she’s also my mom.
Thank you, Jackie Batson and thank you, Susan Lucci.
I'm Max Linsky. Thanks for listening.
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