She was, naturally, lovely and introduced me to her family. I made a huge deal out of her daughter being Miss Golden Globe, then I scampered away as fast as I could before I got the sweats. Later that day, I was on the phone with Lynn, the producer who’d turned down my request to be friends years earlier when I was an intern and who I’d predicted would one day relent. And because we were friends, just like I said we’d be, I knew Lynn was almost as big an AMC fan as me. I told her about meeting Lucci in the hotel lobby.
Suddenly, I said, “Hey. If we’re both in the same hotel, that means I could call her room.” Being struck with this idea was so much like being possessed by the spirit of Graciela that I now felt kind of guilty for not immediately hanging up to make certain that my mischievous old friend hadn’t died and flown into my body.
Lynn paused, then said, “Yeah, you could call her room. For what, though? What would you even say?” See, this is exactly why I needed Lynn as a friend. To bring up logical points that I won’t listen to.
“Just to hear her voice. I’ll hang up!” And that was it. Before Lynn could talk any sense into me, I said, “I’m putting you on hold while I do it.” And I did it. I put the call on hold, called downstairs, and asked for Susan Lucci.
“Hold on, Mr. Cohen,” the operator said. “We’ll tell Miss Lucci you’re on the line.”
Oh NO! She was having the front desk screen her calls! I know what you’re thinking: Of course she was. She’s Susan Lucci! You can’t just call up the front desk of a hotel and have them ring you through to Susan Lucci’s room, no questions asked! I felt like such an idiot. When the operator put me on hold, I quickly hung up. Then I realized something even more horrible. The operator had said, “Hold on, Mr. Cohen…” He had been able to refer to me by name, so the operator wasn’t just telling Susan Lucci that someone was on the phone for her, he was telling her that “Andrew Cohen in Room 222” was calling for her. The only way it could have been worse is if the operator had somehow been able to add, “You know, the guy who interviewed you for the BU paper?” Panicked, I picked up my other line.
“She’s screening her calls,” I screamed to Lynn. “The dude is telling her I’m on the line! But I’m not on the line. I hung up!”
“Oh NO!!!!” Lynn was mortified on my behalf. Suddenly, my other line rang. Lynn and I panicked.
“I have Susan Lucci for you now, Mr. Cohen.” The operator sounded displeased—bitchy, actually. “You were … disconnected.”
“Ummm…” There was no way I could possibly take that call. I was humiliated. “Uh … I just got an urgent work call from … work,” I stammered. “Please … please, tell her I … I’ll call her back!” I hung up.
I spent the next two days paralyzed with the fear that I was going to run into Susan Lucci at the hotel. Just in case I did, though, I had concocted an elaborate explanation: My photographer friend had taken an amazing picture of Lucci and her daughter at some point and I had been calling to tell her that I would send it to her if she was interested. The only issue with that story was that there was no photograph. So if I went with that excuse, I would then somehow have to find an existing photo of her and her daughter to send over. And then, to be on the safe side, I would have to somehow befriend the photographer who’d taken it, should Susan Lucci ever meet the photographer, recognize his name, and then bring up my name. It seemed kind of like a long shot, but I literally could not think of anything else to say that sounded less crazy. Thank God I never ran into her again that weekend, but I spent a lot of time in my room thinking about how I now had a canceled shoot and crank call on my permanent record with Susan Lucci.
And now, at last, the final encounter—or near encounter, I should say. In 2010 Lucci was booked to appear on my show, Watch What Happens Live, to promote her new book. She’d even agreed to a joint appearance with a New York Housewife. It was going to be the ultimate full-circle moment: the queen of the daytime drama with one of our Bravo queens of reality. Then, shortly before her appearance, the announcement came that after forty-one years, All My Children had been canceled. We soon got word from the publicist that Susan Lucci might cancel her appearance on my show, which in publicist-speak meant “Susan Lucci is canceling.”
I could have gotten involved and said, “Susan! It’s me, Andrew Cohen. I’m the kid from BU who you took to lunch!” But it was then and there that I put two and two together. Why would Susan Lucci want to sit next to a woman who was part of the kind of show that might have helped lead to her own show’s demise? And though it pained me to do so, I quietly allowed my dream guest booking to slip away. But I was stuck with a haunting question: Was I, in some way, partly to blame for this? Had I helped kill soaps? With The Real Housewives of Orange County, we’d begun making real-life soap operas with nonactors, and it
