All My Children Tribute Thread

[amybrickwallace]

Thanks for sharing those, especially the feature on Eileen Herlie. God rest her.

[ellabelle]

I have some 70s soap magazine articles in which she was a lot less guarded than she generally is. I don't know how much of that was writers/editors asking leading questions or manipulating what she said and how much was just her speaking off the cuff and being kind of blunt, but it's interesting.

[amybrickwallace]

I seem to remember reading in an old soap book that Susan was at the studio looking up at a huge display of hats when she stepped backwards through a trapdoor and fell quite a few feet? I don't remember all the details. Can anyone fill me in?

[ghfan89]

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[DRW50]

Thanks. That interviewer creeps me out.

[ellabelle]

I can't remember if it was in Susan's autobiography or if it was covered in the unauthorized bio of her that was written in the mid to late 80s, but the story as I recall is that Susan went to wardrobe for something, and she was in a hurry and was looking at all of the stuff around her and didn't realize that a trap door in the floor was open, and she fell through it, about five feet down. I don't think she was seriously injured, just bruised and shaken up. She wrote in her book that she once tripped over some cords on the studio floor while running in heels to her next set and banged up her knee badly enough that her husband and mother insisted on sending her to the hospital when she got home that night.

[Pine Charles]

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[Pine Charles]

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[amybrickwallace]

Falling five feet through a trapdoor? She herself stands at barely five feet. Ouch!! What a tough cookie!!

[ellabelle]

She's apparently a very good sport and generally very professional, aside from the yogurt-throwing incident, which is recalled differently depending on who you ask and where you read about it.

[amybrickwallace]

Yogurt-throwing incident? That story I haven't heard. Would you please fill me in?

[ellabelle]

It was back in the early 70s. Erica had a scene where she was pissed at her mother and was moving out of Mona's house. She was supposed to carry some suitcases down the stairs and out the front door, but they were huge heavy suitcases, and Susan couldn't easily maneuver with them, and the door wasn't really wide enough for her to walk straight through it with both suitcases. Susan says that she went to the prop master and asked for smaller, soft-sided suitcases that wouldn't be so heavy. In the unauthorized bio about her, Francis Heflin is quoted as saying that Susan asked director Henry Kaplan about getting smaller suitcases, and he told her no, that she'd manage, which Fra said was ridiculous.

At the time, everyone met with Henry Kaplan after the dress rehearsal, and he would give them rather harsh critiques of their acting. Susan didn't really get his sarcasm, and over time, she wrote that she would feel physically ill over these meetings with him where she was basically yelled at in front of her colleagues. Kaplan was pissed that she swapped out the suitcases and yelled at her and berated her in front of everyone and wouldn't let her get a word in edgewise. She was apparently eating yogurt for lunch during this meeting, and she got angry enough that she had to storm off and try to compose herself before they started taping. According to Susan, she went into an empty control room and threw the carton of yogurt, getting it all over herself and the room. Felicia Behr came in to check on her and told her to go clean up and she'd take care of the room, and Fra Heflin helped Susan clean up her hair and clothes (they shared a dressing room).

According to the unauthorized bio on Susan that was written in the mid to late 80s, Fra said Susan was eating the yogurt in their dressing room with her after the critique from Kaplan in which he'd told her she'd do the scene his way with the giant-ass suitcases that didn't fit through the door. According to Fra, Susan stormed out with the yogurt. Felicia Behr picked up the story from there and said that Susan went into the control room and tried to explain herself to Henry Kaplan, but she was overly emotional and kept getting angrier and angrier the more they talked until she threw the yogurt across the room, hitting pretty much everyone and everything EXCEPT Kaplan. Behr helped clean her up and calm her down, she used smaller suitcases in the scene, and apparently she and Henry Kaplan got on much better after that, believe it or not. The unauthorized bio describes the yogurt incident as being part of the studio folklore and the authors said that multiple people told them about it during the writing of the book.

She also threw a hairbrush at Felicia Behr once in the 70s after Kaplan upset her. Behr had followed her to her dressing room to talk to her, and Susan slammed the door, turned and threw a brush in that general directly, fortunately hitting the door and not Behr who had just had the door slammed in her face. Susan related that same story in her book, but left Felicia out of it, saying she threw the brush at the mirror.

According to her autobiography, Susan realized she was being unprofessional and got over it and realized she wasn't doing anyone any good by throwing a fit at work. According to the 80s bio, she once lit into an actor on set for being unprepared, and she apparently cursed him out in front of a bunch of the cast and crew, per Dack Rambo, although its hard for me to blame her too much for being mad about someone who didn't know his lines and was wasting everyone's time. The actor who originally played Chuck Tyler, Jack Stauffer, had been friends with Susan and Helmut and related a story in the unauthorized bio about witnessing a knock down, drag out fight in which Helmut deliberately provoked Susan until she went full on Erica Kane on him, yelling at throwing stuff - and said Helmut thought it was funny.

So my assumption is that she has a temper that is perhaps a bit Erica-like but does her best to hold it in at work or in public. Those really are the only incidents that I've read about in all the soap magazines I've read, TV interviews I've seen, etc. You'd think if there were more, someone would have come forward by now. I really would LOVE it if more former cast and crew would write about their time on AMC because I'm sure there are wonderful stories to be told. Susan wrote in her book about a time in the 70s when Ruth Warrick and two cameramen streaked across the studio floor together in front of the cast, just for the hell of it. I want to read about all those backstage antics and drama!

[amybrickwallace]

Thank you for sharing the story!! I would like to read La Lucci's memoir. My local library does have a copy, but it's the first edition before AMC was cancelled. I want to read the updated version where she rips Frons up one side and down the other.

[ghfan89]

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[amybrickwallace]

Soaps always used to do Thanksgivings so well!!