NEW YORK – After her husband of 52 years died,Susan Luccididn't think she'd ever feel joy again.
During her more than 40-year run on the ABC soap opera"All My Children,"Lucci's character Erica Kane married 11 times. But off-screen, Lucci had a once-in-a-lifetime love. She married Austrian chef and producer Helmut Huber in 1969 when she was 22 years old. They had two children together, Liza and Andreas, who they raised in Garden City, New York.
When Huber died in 2022, Lucci says she couldn't listen to songs with lyrics. She felt "like half a person." But at some point, she started seeing signs.
First, it was the dimes. Suddenly, Lucci found them everywhere – two of them paired together on a bench, entire bags of them on her bedside table. Huber's birthday was Oct. 10 and he loved the double 10s in his birthdate, Lucci says. Then feathers started showing up in places where there were no birds or, at an outdoor dinner, landing on her place setting and no one else's. It was a "tickle" from the man with a great sense of humor, she believes.
Lucci never planned to tell anyone about the signs, let alone write about them. But she felt compelled to put pen to paper. And more than just writing down memories of Huber, she realized she had lessons from her grief journey to share. In"La Lucci,"out now from Blackstone Publishing, Lucci holds her heaviest moments in one hand and joy in the other.
Susan Lucci remembers losing 'larger than life' husband in new memoir
There's a line that stuck with me even after I read Lucci's memoir. Six weeks after Huber died, a friend of his came up to Lucci at a gathering and said, "There must be a crack in the universe with Helmut gone."
He was like that, she says: charismatic enough to rip a hole open in the sky.
"It was wonderful to hear such beautiful words said about the love of my life," Lucci says. "He was larger than life, one of one and very authentic, very comfortable in his own skin. And as our daughter-in-law in Europe said, 'You just always felt safe with Helmut.' You always felt like he knew what to do and he would do it and you'd have a great time in his company. You'd be laughing the whole time too."
It's evident in one humorous anecdote from before Lucci won herDaytime Emmyafter 18 unsuccessful nominations in 1999. The couple got a new dog, and Lucci joked she should name him Emmy so she'd at least have one.
"Forget Emmy. Let's go to Oscar," Huber told her, Lucci says. "Let's just go right to the top. We'll name him Oscar."
When he died, she had a difficult time accepting that he was gone.
"I'm not somebody who takes no for an answer very easily. I will try to find around the fence, under the fence, through the fence, over the fence, and that of course was something that I couldn't do anything about – losing my husband," Lucci says.
Prayer helped, as did her longtime friendships. At some point, a friend told her that she had a choice in how she grieved. She was allowed to keep living her life. She was allowed to feel joy again, and she would.
"You don't know where you're going to learn your lessons, you don't know what things are going to be said to you to help you through," Lucci says. "My husband's friends stayed with me, my friends, our friends, and I feel so incredibly grateful for them. We have a lot of laughs. We do things together and I'm just so happy to be in their company. They helped me stand up when I didn't think I could."
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There's another kind of grief that Lucci writes about in "La Lucci" – mourning the end of "All My Children," her home for over four decades.
Lucci was cast as Erica Kane after graduating college. Signing a three-year contract felt daunting at that age. She remembers the early days vividly. They all knew "rather quickly" that the show was a hit, especially when press and speaking requests started flooding in.
The final days come back to her with as much clarity. In April 2011, she got a call at 4:30 a.m. from the show creator Agnes Nixon. Nixon didn't want Lucci to be blindsided. Lucci says she felt "terrible" showing up to work the next day and knowing what her castmates did not. She had just returned from her book tour for her first memoir and spent the time assuring fans that the show was still "in such good shape."
She pressed Brian Frons, former ABC Daytime president, about the decision.
"He said, without batting an eyelash, because it was 40% less to produce a food show. And he looked very proud of himself," Lucci says. "Agnes had told me that the fans had actually crashed the whole system at ABC. There was a number you could call, so I did call it … 'To register you're upset at "All My Children" being canceled, press one. For all other ABC business, press two.' The fans were indeed there for us, but the choice of the network was to cancel."
Lucci was unsure if she'd ever be cast again. She had just moved cross-country to Los Angeles because it was more cost-efficient to shoot "All My Children" there.
"I had been playing Erica my whole adult life and I didn't know – how will it be to walk around now? I'm not Erica anymore and don't play Erica anymore. Will I ever work again?" Lucci says.
In the end, it was the fans who helped a new dream come to life for Lucci. They'd been campaigning online to get her on "Desperate Housewives." By the time she met with creator Mark Cherry, the show had already wrapped, but he cast her on "Devious Maids." La Lucci was back on TV dramas.
Where do soap operas belong today?
Flip the channel during working hours and you'll still find"Days of Our Lives"and"General Hospital"punching out new storylines. But since Lucci left "All My Children," our television appetites have largely changed. Streaming rules, limited series are all the rage and long wait times (we're looking at you,"Stranger Things") are common.
As daytime's most famous face, I had to ask Lucci – do soap operas have a place in today's digital streaming age?
Lucci offers a resounding "yes." Her favorite these days is"Beyond the Gates,"a new CBS show that follows multiple generations of affluent Black families in the Maryland suburbs.
"I think there is a place for it. I think people like to see other people's relationships and how they navigate themselves through (life)," Lucci says. "The connection from storytelling is as old as time and as relevant as it ever was. And maybe now, because of these difficult times and these different times and these technology times, to have stories told with human relationships at the core – I think human beings will always want to see that."
Clare Mulroy is USA TODAY's Books Reporter, where she covers buzzy releases, chats with authors and dives into the culture of reading. Find heron Instagram, subscribe to our weeklyBooks newsletteror tell her what you're reading atcmulroy@usatoday.com.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:Susan Lucci mourns husband and 'All My Children' in new memoir
