All My Life

by Susan Lucci

  Understandably, Feinstein’s delayed the opening of their season by two weeks. Shirley Bassey was scheduled to appear only a couple of days after the attacks, but of course that didn’t happen. This meant that my show would be the first to open there after 9/11. I wanted to do something to honor those we lost and all of the brave men and women of New York City by putting a table aside for the firefighters, police officers, and rescue workers who were out there laboring so hard to piece our city back together. I felt it wouldn’t be right to open and not pay homage to these people for saving our lives, so I went to Mr. Tisch, the owner of the hotel, and asked if he would reserve a table each night for these brave workers. It was a very easy sell. Mr. Tisch was very much on board with my idea. The public relations team at the Regency reached out to several local heroes and invited them to come down and enjoy the show each night I was there. I opened the show by introducing the fine men and women so everyone else in the room was aware of their presence and contributions. That table was full every night as the audience showed their immense appreciation for those very special guests.

  Doing a nightclub act is interesting. Much like my experience on Broadway, I didn’t do a dress rehearsal until the day of my first show. I worked with my band a couple of days prior to opening, but the first time I did a full run-through with them in the venue was a few short hours before going onstage. This is fairly common wherever you perform. John McDaniel was accompanying me, so he knew the music as well as I did. He spoke to the lighting designer before the show to give him an idea of our needs.

  The most interesting thing about performing at Feinstein’s is that they serve lunch in the room where you will later perform. So during our dress rehearsal, waiters were breaking down tables and setting up for dinner. I had to laugh because I thought to myself, It can’t be any noisier than this at night, which was a good thing and maybe the best preparation I could have had.

  I always get butterflies before going onstage, but on this particular opening night, I had big butterflies. Feinstein’s is a small room. Thank goodness I had been through the experience of having to sing for Marvin Hamlisch and the Weisslers in their living rooms because this felt eerily the same. Performing at Feinstein’s, you are very close to the audience. You can see every face in the room. It’s a small stage that’s placed a couple of feet in front of the first few tables. This was a very different experience from Broadway, far more intimate and very personal.

  I sang a plethora of songs by artists ranging from Peggy Lee and Quincy Jones to Marvin Hamlisch. I especially liked doing a song called “New York City Blues,” a song John McDaniel and I both knew, yet hardly anyone ever performs. John was blown away that I was even aware of the song. I told him I remembered Peggy Lee singing it on The Ed Sullivan Show when I was a young girl. I don’t know why I remembered it, but I did. I thought it was a great New York song, and under the circumstances, appropriate to include in my act.

  I also sang “Winning Isn’t Everything,” a signature song Marvin Hamlisch had written just for me. I was so excited to introduce this song. I closed with “Alright, Okay, You Win,” which seemed like a good choice, as the audience appeared to like it.

  I was astounded that so many people came out on opening night to support my show. Liza Minnelli, Michael Feinstein, and Regis Philbin were all there to cheer me on. In a way, I think we were all there to cheer our great city on. Barbara Walters and Judge Judy Sheindlin came to see me during my two-week run, too. I didn’t know Barbara well. She had interviewed me as one of her Most Fascinating People in 1999, the year I won my Emmy and did Annie Get Your Gun. I didn’t feel all that fascinating, but it was a real honor to be included and thrilling for All My Children and Agnes Nixon because it crossed the show over from daytime into prime time. I often saw Barbara around the studio, in the hallways, on the elevator, and near the stage doors, as The View shared space with All My Children in New York. I had been a guest and even cohost on The View many times and loved that experience. I surely admire Barbara, as the rest of the world does. As busy as my schedule gets, Barbara Walters is someone who makes me wonder how many hours there are in a day for her. She does it all with such grace, dignity, and finesse. She interviews world leaders, hosts her talk show, and still finds the time to come out and support my nightclub act.

  After seeing the show, Regis was more convinced than ever that we should take an act on the road together. And after this brief experience, I agreed. I asked John McDaniel to be my musical director, but he had other commitments, which didn’t allow him the freedom to travel. Much to my delight, however, he introduced me to another wonderful and talented musical director named Shawn Gough. Shawn looks like a picture-perfect, blond Ralph Lauren model. He is very handsome and a pleasure to work with. He appears too young to be doing what he does and yet he is so very talented and good at it. He conducts the Christmas show at Radio City Music Hall and has worked on many Broadway productions, including Billy Elliot, Sunday in the Park with George, and Emerald Man.

  Shawn is a perfectionist and a lot like Joan Lader—he doesn’t miss a thing. He can listen to an entire orchestra and hear one violin miss a single note. Although he is an unbelievable musician who has the respect of so many people, Shawn doesn’t bring his ego to the stage—a trait I find is common among the very best and most talented artists.

  Regis Philbin and I ended up taking our nightclub act on the road for five glorious years. We had a fabulous time performing with each other. There has always been great chemistry between us. We toured and toured and performed in casinos, nightclubs, and concert halls all over the country. We even appeared with the very funny Don Rickles in Mississippi. We usually played to crowds ranging from two to five thousand people and you never knew who was going to be in the audience.

  Occasionally, I did shows without Regis. During one particular performance while I was headlining at the Kravis Center in Palm Beach, Vic Damone was present. It just so happened that I sang “Old Black Magic” that night—a song he is known for. If you’ve ever been to a cabaret show, you may have noticed that the performers often keep water somewhere nearby. The reason for this is that sometimes your mouth gets dry and it’s hard for you to sing unless you drink something. As luck would have it, I had just gotten off a plane—flying is notoriously dehydrating—and I was trying to belt out “Old Black Magic.” After the show, Vic came backstage to say hello. He asked if he could offer me some helpful tips for future shows. I’m sure he noticed how much water I drank onstage. He shared his experience and few tricks of the trade with me, which were very useful and greatly appreciated. Vic Damone! Believe me, I’ve used those tips ever since.

  One of my favorite parts of my show is the overture. Shawn had done a great arrangement of “Too Darn Hot” for me to come onstage. When I appeared, I would sing and tell anecdotes for about forty minutes. I loved that connection with the audience because it was the first time I allowed myself to share a little bit more about me than I generally do. When I was done, Regis would come on and sing, then he’d ask me to come back out to do a few more numbers with him. Regis always brought me back onstage as “La Lucci” while singing “You Ought to Be in Pictures.” Hearing him sing that song to me is so charming. Regis and I always closed our show singing a wonderful arrangement of the great Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World.” The audiences really enjoy that song as a duet. What fun we had, and the audiences did, too.

  * * *

  Here’s a typical set list for the songs I sang while touring with Regis:

  SUSAN LUCCI

  RUNNING ORDER

  Too Darn Hot

  Alright, Okay, You Win

  Do You Wanna Dance?

  They Say That Falling in Love Is Wonderful

  New York City Blues

  Fever

  It’s All Right with Me

  Winning Isn’t Everything—Segue

  Too Darn Hot Playoff (Watch for Cut)

  It Don’t Mean a Thing—Segue

&nbs
p; It Don’t Mean a Thing Bows

  Segue to Regis Act

  * * *

  As much as I enjoyed doing these shows with Regis over the course of more than five years, I had to step away from doing them after I agreed to do a little television show called Dancing with the Stars. This time it was pretty clear that there was no way I could keep doing All My Children, tour with Regis, and learn to dance all at the same time and on two different coasts. Something had to give. Even I had to concede that sometimes, unfortunately, there really are limits.

  CHAPTER 11

  The Cycle of Life

  In early 1999, Helmut was set to have shoulder surgery as a result of an injury he had suffered while playing soccer in Europe as a young man. Golf is a passion for my husband and his shoulder pain was interfering with his game. His doctors assured him that the procedure was routine and that he had nothing to worry about. If all went well, he’d be back on the golf course swinging his club in no time.

  When Helmut went in for the standard presurgical exam, the doctor discovered that he had a condition called atrial fibrillation, (also known as “A-fib”), which is an irregular heartbeat. I had heard of an irregular heartbeat, but I always thought that there were telltale signs, including dizziness, shortness of breath, or even the sensation of an irregular heartbeat. Helmut had none of these symptoms. Had he not gone in for his examination, we would never have known about his condition.

  When he left the doctor’s office, we both felt like we had more questions than answers, so we began making phone calls to friends and other physicians we knew so we could talk about the diagnosis. I called a very good friend who is also a top cardiologist at a hospital not far from our home. We listened to everything he had to say before seeking out a second, third, and fourth opinion from other top doctors in Manhattan.

  We found out that people who have A-fib are five times more likely to have a stroke, even if they don’t have any obvious symptoms. What’s more, if you have a stroke with A-fib, you double your chances of suffering a debilitating, or worse, a fatal one. These were not statistics I was willing to gamble my husband’s life on. Thankfully, we caught it early enough to get Helmut on a program that involves medication, diet, and exercise. He has to go to the doctor every six weeks for blood work so the doctor can monitor his condition and make sure there are no changes that could increase the likelihood of having a stroke. As long as he stays on top of this, he will be fine.

  Helmut and I have a very close relationship. For the most part, he is the caretaker. But whenever he has faced an unexpected medical condition, those roles are quickly reversed. I want to be by his side every…step…of the way. If he has a doctor’s appointment, I like to go with him. I believe it’s important to always have an extra set of eyes and ears—especially caring ones—seeing and hearing what the doctor has to say. Sometimes the person with the injury or condition is dealing with their emotions instead of listening to the explanation or various treatment options being discussed. Their wheels are spinning, so they may not hear everything someone else might hear. Also, in the case of my husband, English is not his first language, so I always want to make sure he doesn’t miss something or misinterpret what is being said. I want to be there with him through the good times and the challenging times. He has always been there for me, too.

  Shortly after that diagnosis, Helmut went to the doctor for some other tests because his PSA levels had gone up to alarming levels. The doctor recommended that he perform a biopsy. We were waiting for the results, but the doctor never called. We figured that no news was good news, so we decided to head out for dinner at a restaurant near our beach home. We had a visitor from Austria with us who was nineteen years old and who spoke almost no English. We wanted to have a casual dinner with this young woman so we could speak to her in German and help her feel welcome and comfortable in her new surroundings. When we got to the restaurant, it was surprisingly crowded for a Wednesday night. It turned out there were quite a few people we knew seated all around us.

  Shortly after we arrived, Helmut’s cell phone rang. It was the doctor calling to say that my husband had prostate cancer. Just like that. He was direct and to the point. Helmut hung up and placed his phone on the edge of the table. I could see that he was shaken up.

  “Do you want to leave?” I asked. It was obvious he had been given some disturbing news.

  “No. Let’s stay and enjoy dinner.” Of course, I think Helmut worried it would call more attention to the situation if we abruptly got up and left, so I tried to follow his lead and acted as if nothing was wrong.

  When we went home that night, Helmut broke down, as well he should have. Cancer is a word you never want to hear in relation to yourself. It was really smart that he had made a point of going for regular checkups because his cancer was caught early enough to be operable. We called the children right away to let them know what was going on.

  I spoke to Liza, who was at her home in California. She had been in Los Angeles working on Passions. I told her that I was planning to go to the local library and would stay there until I found out who was the very best doctor for Helmut to see. Before I could finish my thought, Liza said she had already pulled that information up on the Internet. She and I sat on the phone for an hour going through every bit of information she could find. Helmut sat next to me on our bed listening in on another phone.

  We found out right away who the leaders in the field were, who the number one physician in New York was, and what our next step should be. We learned what all of our options were and we all came to the same conclusion. If it was operable, get it out of there. I hadn’t had a lot of exposure to the wonders of the World Wide Web before that night, but afterward, I was a complete convert.

  We wound up going to see Dr. Lapore in New York City, who’d studied with the leading physician in this field, Dr. Patrick Walsh, at Johns Hopkins. He was spectacular. He assured us that Helmut’s cancer was operable. We didn’t want Helmut left wondering if his cancer had spread, grown, or come back—he wanted it gone for good. We agreed and scheduled Helmut to have surgery as soon as possible. Thank God, there was no collateral damage from the procedure. Helmut was a great patient, and although it was quite a process, he recovered spectacularly.

  Right after the surgery, he spent a couple of days in a room with four other men before transferring into a private room. Once he was there, I just wanted to do everything I could to make him feel better and to make him smile. I knew hospital food was never going to cut it with Helmut, so as a surprise, I arranged to have Café Boulud, one of our favorite restaurants in New York, cater dinner for him during the rest of his stay. I had to go to work during the day, but I was back at the hospital with him every single night. He had no idea I was doing this until a waitress from the restaurant showed up in his hospital room with a warming container and a complete, beautiful dinner for two. That excellent French food put a smile on his face from ear to ear.

  Just two weeks after Helmut’s diagnosis, I received some bad news about my father’s health as well. My father was a lot like Helmut. He was an extremely athletic man. After he retired, my dad played golf three days a week and worked out three days a week in the gym; because he worked in construction for so many years, he had a really great physique. His big vice, however, was that he had been a longtime smoker. Worse yet, he smoked unfiltered cigarettes most of his life. This habit had plagued him before and it seemed as if it was causing some issues now, too. Years ago, when he was only fifty-one, he suffered a mild heart attack. My husband and I were only recently married at the time. We rushed to be at his side. When we arrived, I overheard one of the doctors telling my mother that “Mr. Lucci has done something very bad. He ripped out his IVs, ordered pizza for the staff, got dressed, and went outside for a smoke.” As amusing as that sounded, the doctor was making it very clear that he didn’t approve of my father’s actions.

  Thankfully, my father gave up smoking shortly after being released from the hospital, although th
ere were a few occasions when I’d catch him bumming a cigarette from a perfect stranger, thinking no one was looking. “Hey Johnny, ya got a cigarette?” he’d ask. I think that was a World War II expression. My mother was upset whenever she’d find out he was sneaking a smoke here and there. The doctor assured her that bumming a couple of cigarettes a week was a lot better than his previous habit of smoking a couple of packs a day. “Don’t give him too much stress over it,” he’d say, knowing my mother wouldn’t give up anyway.

  Sadly, in 2002, at the same time as Helmut was ill, my father was diagnosed with a worsened heart condition. By this time, he was in his early eighties. His doctors were doing routine tests when they found a tumor in his lungs the size of a grapefruit. It could have been all of those years of smoking, or maybe the many years of working in construction, that caused the tumor. I don’t suppose I will ever know the true cause or why it wasn’t diagnosed earlier. Whatever the reason, the prognosis wasn’t good.

  My father’s doctor wanted to take care of his weakened heart before addressing the issue of the tumor. That seemed like a wise course of action. Although I wanted to bring my father to New York City to see the very best doctors we could find, he seemed very content with the physicians he was seeing in West Palm Beach, Florida, where my parents were now living. When I met his surgeon, he seemed very confident and experienced. I knew why my dad was happy being in his care. The doctor inspired confidence in my father as well as in me.

  The first leg of the surgery went very well. My father came out of the OR and the minute he could open his eyes and speak, he looked at my mother, who never left his side, and said, “Are you okay. How are you doing?” That was my dad. He was more concerned with how my mother was doing than with his own condition. He was selfless in so many ways.