All My Life: A Memoir by Susan Lucci; Laura (CON) Morton

Author:Susan Lucci; Laura (CON) Morton
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Entertainment & Performing Arts, General, United States, Personal Memoirs, Actors, Biography & Autobiography, Biography, Women
ISBN: 9780062061843
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2011-03-29T02:20:13+00:00

CHAPTER 10

Life Is a Cabaret

Shortly after I was featured in a TV Guide article in June 1971, I received a call on the set of All My Children asking if I’d like to cohost a local New York City morning show with Alan Alda, who was filling in for the regular host. This was my very first appearance on a talk show since being cast as Erica Kane. I wasn’t even a guest—I was a cohost! It was thrilling to be asked, but even more thrilling to have the opportunity to work with Alan. He was an absolute dream and an effortless, gracious cohost. He, of course, recognized that I had never done anything like this before and made it very easy for me to relax. Anytime you get a chance to work with a professional like Alan, it is an ideal setup to go on and do more of the same.

I met Regis Philbin for the first time in the early seventies when he was hosting A.M. Los Angeles. His producers asked me to come on his show and do something domestic because it was so against Erica’s nature. I was newly married and All My Children had just made its debut. It is fair to say that my husband was the real cook in our family. Helmut and I always laugh about my attempts in the kitchen during the early days of our marriage, which is a good thing, because if we hadn’t laughed at my earnest efforts, we might have gotten into some very dramatic exchanges. Frankly, we are a perfect match because Helmut loves to cook and I love to eat, especially the foods he makes.

When we were first married, I didn’t know how to cook anything. I wanted to prepare delicious meals for my husband, but I lacked the skills and knowledge to pull it off. All I knew how to cook was spaghetti sauce, tuna casserole, and frozen chicken potpies. The first time I made dinner for us as a married couple, I was in the kitchen stirring canned mushroom soup into my fabulous tuna casserole, when Helmut came up behind me at the stove, looked over my shoulder into the pot, and said, “I love you, honey, but I can’t eat that shit!”

Thinking I had to up the ante, I attempted to make a roast pork dish because I knew it was one of the national dishes of Austria. I mistakenly ordered a smoked pork from the butcher and tried to roast it. I didn’t know the difference between these two varieties of pork, so I popped it in the oven and turned it into a completely inedible piece of shoe leather that smelled nearly as bad as it tasted.

I made another effort to surprise Helmut, this time with a beautiful apple strudel, which was a total disaster as well. I had been inspired by watching Helmut’s sister-in-law Erna make this dish in Austria. Erna is the quintessential European wife. She works, comes home, irons, cooks, and keeps the most gorgeous home.

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