All My Life

by Susan Lucci

  I ended up loving the quickstep but didn’t enjoy doing the cha-cha as much as I thought I would. I didn’t feel free enough during that first dance. The ballroom aspect was very easy for me, but the technique was surprisingly constraining. Although I love dancing to Latin music, I couldn’t seem to put it all together for the cha-cha—ballroom style. I memorize things for a living and I thought that would be a help, but in ballroom dancing, not so much. Tony reminded me often that I needed to let my body learn the movements. I didn’t understand what that meant at first. He tried to explain it like this. He said it was like driving. When you go to a new place for the first time, you look at all of the road signs, markers, and landmarks to make sure you’re headed in the right direction. Once you know where you’re going, you just drive, and suddenly you’re there. I thought that was a very helpful analogy because it helped me better understand what he wanted me to do going forward.

  Even though I was able to get over my shyness while performing as myself onstage when I worked with Regis, I was somehow unable to do it as much as I’d hoped on Dancing with the Stars. I had a tremendous amount of apprehension going into the show. I knew I was physically up to the challenge, but I worried that I wouldn’t be able to put aside my fear of failure and the judges’ criticism to dance well. I didn’t want to make a fool of myself in front of millions of viewers. I am sure I was overthinking things throughout the process, and to be certain, I was burning the candle at both ends.

  Helmut, Tony, and I were like the Three Musketeers as we traveled back and forth across the country twice a week. The only time we ever hit a snag in our flights was on our first trip back to New York. About an hour into our flight, we were told the plane would be making an emergency landing in Denver. The flight attendant explained that they were having trouble with one of the ovens in the forward cabin. I could see smoke coming from the galley area, which was alarming to say the least. Your mind begins to conjure up all sorts of terrible thoughts, like fire, or worse, an explosion. I was all too happy to get those wheels safely down on the ground. We landed sometime after midnight and were told it could take several hours before we’d be able to reboard another plane and take off for New York. Tony and Helmut quickly scoped out the situation and we all grabbed whatever pillows and blankets we could find before exiting the plane. We figured we could find a cozy corner on the floor somewhere and at least get a little sleep. We were three peas in a pod on the floor of the Denver airport until we were able to take off the next morning.

  Each week before we left the studio to fly back to New York, Tony was given our music and dance selection for the following week. I would meet with Randall Christensen, the unbelievably fantastic costume designer for the show, who creates an original handmade outfit for every person each week! Think about what I am saying here. You can’t even get a pair of pants hemmed at the dry cleaner in a week, let alone a custom-designed handmade beaded dress. Randall is nothing short of amazing. Working with him is much like what I imagine it was like working with the great Edith Head. He has an entire encyclopedia of costumes from his many years of dance experience. He’ll pull stuff up for certain dances that he just knows will move with grace, elegance, sexiness, and flair. Tony and I had some input along the way, too, but I was in very capable hands with Randall and knew that I could step back and let these guys do what they do. There is no doubt that we were always on the same page when it came to designing my costumes. We would discuss options, talk about what would look good on my body type, what would work best for our particular dances, and come up with something we both agreed upon. Randall got me on every level. He’s brilliant and comes in each week with no ego, only his unparalleled talent. Once we nailed the design, twenty-four seamstresses tirelessly worked to bring Randall’s genius ideas to life.

  Although I had no serious wardrobe malfunctions during the season, I did worry that one could happen every time I hit the dance floor. All of my dresses were very low-cut. The producers put a battery pack under my right breast (and I guess all of the ladies’ right breasts!) so I could be miked. They would have to pad the left breast to make everything match. Although all the dresses are made of a very giving material that is especially designed for dancing, the addition of that unit made it a scary proposition every time I began to dance. The good news was that I am extremely comfortable wearing high heels, so my dancing-shoe selection was not a problem. One thing Tony taught me about standing in heels that I didn’t know is that I should never stand on my toes while dancing. I’m five feet two inches tall on a good day, so I always stand on my toes when I dance with a man. My husband is six foot two, so it seemed natural. Tony had to frequently remind me to get off my toes. I can’t say I know how he could feel me doing it, but he did! He warned me that the judges were looking for mistakes like this and that not keeping my feet down would cost us points. That was a hard habit to break.

  Luckily, the producers of All My Children were very accommodating and were able to work out a shooting schedule that only required me to be at the studio on Thursdays and Fridays. However, the show was in the middle of “sweeps”—an important time for ratings—so those two days were very intense and extremely long because the material is always more complicated at that time of year.

  I personally felt I needed more time to learn my dances each week than I had anticipated. Tony and I would meet in dance studios all over Manhattan at various hours of the day and night just so I could squeeze in more rehearsals before heading back to Los Angeles to do the show. It wasn’t unusual for Tony and me to meet as late as nine or ten at night. Sometimes that meant we only got an hour or two of rehearsal in, which wasn’t enough but was better than nothing. Feeling like I still needed more time to learn the routines, I asked Tony to come to the set of All My Children and dance with me between takes, sometimes with rollers in my hair, just to get in the extra time. We danced in the hallways and corridors, and used the adjacent studio at The View and anywhere else we could find so I could learn the dance routine for that week.

  If you’ve ever watched Dancing with the Stars, you know that their cameras follow the dance teams to document their week. We were no exception, as cameras tailed our every move. This was my least favorite aspect of doing that show. I never wanted cameras filming my real life. Rest assured, there is no reality television show in my future because I don’t like having cameras around me outside of a studio setting. I will admit that the only exception to this was when Tony took me to an underground mambo club in New York City. We were preparing to do the mambo in week six of the show. The producers thought it might be fun to have Tony take me there to experience the real thing. As I’ve said, I have always loved Latin dancing, so even if I hadn’t been doing Dancing with the Stars, I would have immediately said “Yes!”

  I had no idea these types of underground clubs even existed. The one we went to was across the street from the theater where the fantastic Broadway show In the Heights was running, so a lot of the musical’s dancers frequently stopped into this club after performances. I asked some of my friends from All My Children to join us so we could go with a really fun group. The club looked like the finished basements I’d seen in friends’ houses growing up. They played the best and hottest Latin music and served the coolest, most refreshing drinks.

  I had the best time dancing at this club. I was free and happy, and I learned to dance Latin style from Tony. Unfortunately, I was never able to take that freedom with me to any of my actual performances on the show. And that bothered me—a lot.

  Having a camera follow me around during the learning process, even that night at the club, was terribly foreign and absolutely not my cup of tea. At the time I was especially uncomfortable with how the producer tried to stir things up on camera or attempted to get me to say something in the heat of a moment. In retrospect, if I had to do it again, I wouldn’t be so sensitive. Still, there was one particular day when the camera caught something that I really felt bad about. The buildup to that moment began wi
th an injury.

  The week before, doing an early-morning rehearsal for our next dance, the jive, I somehow caught my ankle under Tony’s leg. Although I was in pain, we made it through the dance that morning. I didn’t think it would be a real setback, as I was able to stand and put a little pressure on my foot. I dashed off to hair and makeup to get ready for our dress rehearsal later that afternoon. Tony and I attempted to do the dance, which is full of kicks and jumps. I wasn’t sure that my left ankle could support my jumping on it. I stumbled a bit and tried to get through it without Tony noticing that something was wrong.

  “Can we do this again?” I asked.

  We made a second attempt.

  Tony took one look at me and said, “What is the matter? Something is wrong. I can see it in your face. You’re in pain.”

  So I told him what had happened. Tony gallantly picked me up and carried me back to my trailer, called the doctor, and waited with me until he came. The doctor told me he thought I had broken a bone in my ankle. I was so distraught, but I wanted to go on that night and do our dance! We had worked too hard to stop now. The doctor wrapped my ankle and gave me a lot of Advil to get through the show that night.

  The following day, I went to Cedars-Sinai hospital and saw a wonderful doctor who treats many dancers and athletes. After looking at the X-rays, he told me that I had actually broken two bones and torn a ligament in my left ankle. The doctor had seen my “type” many times in the past—fiercely competitive and unafraid to continue despite the pain. He surely had me figured out without my saying a word.

  “I know you’re going to keep dancing, Susan. If you can take the pain, I don’t think you will do any further damage to your ankle. But remember to keep it wrapped and to ice it after you dance, and I think you’ll be fine.”

  This was music to my ears. I didn’t want to be a wimp, so I pushed through the pain and kept on dancing. Advil and good wrapping kept me very much in the competition. Much to my surprise, I ended up not being in as much pain as I had expected. I don’t know if my adrenaline had kicked in or if I just have a high pain threshold. Either way, I was happy it wasn’t worse.

  In spite of my injury, Tony and I received straight sevens. Under the circumstances, I was pretty happy with that score. As an actress, I was used to getting notes from the director to help me prepare for my scenes, so I tried not to take the judges’ comments on my dancing to heart. I wanted to do well, but I also knew I wasn’t a professional dancer and tried to cut myself a little slack.

  I had little to no contact with Len Goodman, Bruno Tonioli, and Carrie Ann Inaba, the judges from the show, other than when I listened to their comments each night after we danced. There’s a lot of merit to their knowledge and expertise when they offer their criticism. I respect each of them very much. Carrie Ann was by far the toughest on me, actually saying that I was too thin, fragile, and delicate to dance. Her comment about my weight really threw me because Tony had told me from the first day we met that I was built like a dancer. Although I am physically very strong, I might have accepted thin, but fragile or delicate, never. Telling anyone they are too thin to dance, or too “anything” personal, felt inappropriate. It had no place in a critique of my dancing. I always want to give people the benefit of the doubt, so maybe Carrie Ann simply chose the wrong words or wasn’t able to communicate what she was thinking in a more constructive way, and for that, of course, I can forgive her.

  Look, I knew I wasn’t doing my best work and wasn’t completely happy with my performances. I was so terrified every time we went out on the dance floor and sometimes allowed that anxiety to get the best of me. Still, we were safe and moving on to the next round. If I could get through the jive with broken bones, I could do anything. Sure enough, something interesting happened after we got through this round. Up to this point, I had been resisting Tony’s advice about letting go of my urge to memorize the dances and overthink each step. I finally said, “Let me try it your way.” That was a seminal moment for me—one which I hoped would get us through our next dance, the tango. I was more fully committed than ever to preparing for the following week—pain or no pain

  Tony and I flew back to New York and began rehearsing the very next day. We were mostly practicing very late at night and, again, on the set of All My Children. I was nursing my injury and may have been a little tired from all of the back-and-forth wear and tear. I had grown frustrated by my lack of ability to really step it up. Tony thought I was frustrated with him and I thought he was frustrated with me. In truth, we were both probably frustrated with me. When I finally hit my threshold, I unexpectedly had a mini-meltdown and broke into tears. The cameras were there to catch this moment of weakness in all its glory. I am sure I was exhausted and in pain, but I certainly didn’t need Tony or anyone else to see how I was feeling. We had a lot of work to do. There was no time for crying, yet I couldn’t seem to stop. We needed to get on with rehearsal or we’d never be ready for next week’s show.

  What Tony didn’t know was that there was something else very emotional happening behind the scenes. I never shared this story with him because I didn’t want my personal life to interfere with my professional obligations or worry him.

  When I agreed to do Dancing with the Stars, my daughter, Liza, was pregnant with her second child. She was due in October 2008. Helmut and I were ecstatic, and were looking forward to welcoming our second grandchild into the world. Given the timing, though, Liza and I talked about the possibility of me not being in New York when she went into labor. That was something that would have been very challenging for both of us because we are extremely close. I already had one grandchild and knew what a special and important time it was for a mother and daughter to share.

  I was reluctant to do something by choice that would knowingly take me away from Liza. There were lots of family discussions, but after talking it over, we all agreed that if Liza went into labor while I was doing Dancing with the Stars, I would get there as soon as I could. What we never anticipated, however, was that Liza might go into labor early. But that is exactly what happened.

  I was enjoying a wonderful August weekend with my best girlfriends from college at our summer home. We make a point of getting together every year, something we all look forward to. We had just gone down to the beach club for dinner when I received a call from Liza. She told me she was feeling a lot of pain. My daughter is not a complainer, but she said again during that conversation that she was in excruciating pain. She thought she might be in labor and wanted to go to the hospital. Her husband, Alex, was in London for business. Of course, none of us thought that being away from her in August, two months before her due date, would be of any concern. Liza wanted to be absolutely certain she was in labor before Helmut and I drove back to Garden City to be with her. Thankfully, Alex’s uncle Gregory, who lives very near to Liza, was able to pick her up and take her to the hospital. Twenty minutes later, Liza called and said she was definitely in labor.

  Helmut and I excused ourselves from dinner, leaving my college friends to fend for themselves. We drove from the Hamptons back to Garden City in record time. My husband grew up driving on the autobahn, so he welcomed this excuse to drive fast. If a police officer pulled us over, he had already planned to tell him that our daughter was in labor. When we got in the car, it was a very stormy night, but as we got closer to Garden City, the rain had started to clear. Through one side of the windshield, I could see the full moon, while through the other side, I could see big lightning bolts in the sky. This was an amazing sight—Mother Nature at her most dramatic.

  By the time we got to Winthrop Hospital, Liza’s mother-in-law, Valerie, whom I adore, was already there. Unfortunately, Liza’s doctor was not. He was also away. Liza was going to have her baby with whatever physician was on call that night. I thought she was being very brave. I would have been sobbing if I was having a baby and my husband and regular doctor weren’t there for the birth. Alex and Liza kept trying to speak to each on their cell phones, but
they were continually disconnected.

  Royce was at our house in Garden City with Alex’s aunt Claire. Helmut decided to go home so Royce would have a familiar face to wake up to, while Alex’s dad, Alex Sr., who had just returned from a business trip himself, was pretty fatigued and decided to also go home. That left Valerie and me to be with Liza in the delivery room. We both kept thinking the nurses were going to ask these two yentas to leave the room, but they never did.

  I rubbed Liza’s head like I used to do when she was a little girl while Valerie held her hand. We tried to do whatever we could to soothe and comfort her. That’s when Dr. McKenzie, the most handsome young doctor with the biggest dimples, wearing jeans and a baseball hat, walked through the door.

  “Yes, ladies. I really am a doctor,” he charmingly said as he got into his scrubs. He had a great sense of humor and, as it turns out, lots of experience. He just exuded calm and confidence.

  When we all heard the baby let out a big healthy cry, tears of joy flowed from our eyes. What an unforgettable experience and a gift from God it was to be with Liza when our grandson Brendan was born on August 16, 2008.

  Since Brendan was two months premature, the nurses took him to be checked out right away. He was going to need to be in an incubator in the NICU until he was strong enough to go home. I knew Brendan was in good and capable hands because I had had a long and wonderful experience with this hospital’s care for Andreas. It was very emotional for me to be back in the neonatal intensive care unit because it was, in fact, the same unit at the same hospital where Andreas had been treated after he was born. I was so pleasantly surprised to see that a few of the same nurses were still working there. I wanted to help Liza in any way I could because I knew exactly how she was feeling. After all, I had been there myself. I wanted to believe that my presence was a comfort to her. I also hoped it was good for Liza to know that her brother had struggled when he was born and was now a very healthy and strong young man.