Susan Lucci was born on December 23, 1946, in Scarsdale, New York, to Jeanette (Granquist) and Victor Lucci, a building contractor, and is of Italian (father) and Swedish, German, and French (mother) descent.
Growing up in Garden City, Susan was destined to be a performer, taking voice lessons, dance lessons, and participating in community theater since she was a teenager. In high school, she was an ideal student, excelling in honors classes, serving as a cheerleader, staff writer for the school newspaper, and foreign exchange student to Norway.
As a standout in school musicals, including lead roles in "Oklahoma" and "The King and I", Susan graduated with Honors from Garden City High School and was accepted to Marymount College in Tarrytown, New York, renowned for its theater program.
After graduating with a BFA in theater arts, Susan moved to New York City and began attending auditions, landing her first job as a color girl for CBS, where she would report to the studio daily and sit on a stool as technicians developed new color cameras.
Susan's early acting career consisted of Off-Broadway understudy roles, day-player roles on soap operas, and extra and stand-in work for movies. In 1969, at the age of 23, she auditioned for the brand new soap opera All My Children, landing the iconic role of Erica Kane, which is still widely regarded as one of the best roles written for women on television.
Around this time, Susan met and married restaurant owner Helmut Huber. In 1978, she received her first Daytime Emmy nomination, followed by nominations in 1981 and almost every year since then.
In the early 1980s, Susan became the first soap opera actress to appear on the cover of major magazines and the first to star in Movies of the Week. However, her string of Emmy losses in the late 1980s made her a household name, with many critics joking that the "Queen of Daytime Television" had no crown.
It wasn't until her 19th Emmy nomination in 1999 that Susan finally won, receiving a four-minute standing ovation. Today, with 21 nominations under her belt, she is considered one of the most honored performers in the history of television, both daytime and primetime.
