But here’s the thing: I’m now (sort of) a grown-up and I know that, first and foremost in this world, things change. Many things occurred that led to the end of several daytime dramas, of which All My Children was one. The viewing audience had been evolving over the years, abandoning soaps for daytime talk, game shows, and courtroom shows; as soap audiences aged, they failed to gain essential new, young viewers; and the cost of producing a daily show with a large cast of highly paid talent is enormous.
With the Housewives, we’re doing a real-life version of the format I fell in love with as a kid, running with the baton passed on to us from a television tradition that simply may not be sustainable anymore. By featuring these powerful, outsized, outspoken women in their wildly dramatic everyday lives, we’re playing off the idea of and paying tribute to indelible characters like Erica Kane.
* * *
It’s September 23, 2011. I’m in St. Louis for a visit with my parents, and I happen to arrive on the day ABC will broadcast the series finale of All My Children. And, as if it is 1984 again, I gather in front of the TV with Em and my mom to watch the show, while my dad and Blouse wander in and out of the room. After more than four decades, this is it for Pine Valley and its residents.
Watching the opening is a montage of flashbacks; my eyes fill with tears. These people are like family that I’ve lost touch with. One by one they appear as they are today—and, on a certain street in St. Louis, the peanut gallery explodes.
“Is Tad FAT?! He used to be cute!”
“He looks like Mrs. Doubtfire!”
“I can’t see BROOKE through her FACEWORK!”
“Brooke always had high cheekbones, Mom. She hasn’t been touched.”
Our favorite characters now have kids, and grandkids. We feel old.
“How did I ever WATCH this DRECK!?”
Erica Kane’s last moments on All My Children feature her in sequins and a fur shawl and not quite a side ponytail but maybe a side chignon?
“Well, thank God Erica looks PERFECT.”
And she doesn’t disappoint. Tad is making a toast and he’s quoting from the AMC bible: “In joy and in sorrow, in sickness and in health, we are … all your children.”
I am getting choked up and Blouse enters the room wanting to talk about Guiding Light.
My dad walks in: “Is that Adam and Brooke?”
“QUIET, Lou!” Evelyn barks.
Erica’s last words on the show as she storms after Jackson are “I won’t let it end this way.”
The show was over, but we left the TV on.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First I want to thank Gillian Blake who not only taught me how to write a book, she ultimately allowed me to include the word “boner” several times within these pages even though she does not find it one bit amusing. Stephen Rubin for reading my treatment a second time and going from hate to love, and for believing more than I that this book wouldn’t be stupid. Sara Bershtel for proving that smarties can love the Housewives. Maggie Richards, Pat Eisemann, and Allison Adler, Maggie Sivon, and Rick Pracher for taking the final product and running with it. Simon Green, who motivated me to write this in the first place and guided me through the process.
I would not be in a position to write this book if not for Lauren Zalaznick, who breaks rules and listens to her gut. I am eternally grateful to you, Lauren. Frances Berwick teaches me something every day, plus she’s fierce and a glam fairy. Michael Davies is m’producer and m’cheerleader and m’friend, and Deidre Connolly makes it all happen. My incredible colleagues at Bravo through the years with whom I have found myself in unusual, incredible, and hilarious situations—and who always make me look good—especially Dave Serwatka, Eli Lehrer, Shari Levine, Christian Barcellos, Cori Abraham, Daryn Carp, Anthony McCarthy, Amy Introcaso-Davis, David O’Connell, Ellen Stone, Jason Klarman, Lara Spotts, Lauren McCollester, Jen Levy, Jerry Leo, Cameron Blanchard, and Alana McElroy. I am in awe of every single Bravolebrity for being unforgettable and exactly yourselves. I also want to thank all the amazing production companies with whom I have the honor to work and my former colleagues at CBS News for ten amazing years of memories and fun.
Caissie St. Onge for guiding me to humor and heart, because she has so much of both. Tamara Jones for helping me think about my life thematically, which is difficult. Kari Morris Vincent who was really my first editor, and is a great one. Lorne Michaels and Marci Klein for letting me reprint Emily Spivey and Paula Pell’s hilarious words.
My friends give me unconditional love, support, and laughs. Thank you especially to Mike Goldman, Jackie Greenberg, Jeanne Messing Walsh, Dave Ansel, Amanda Baten, Graciela Braslavsky Meltzer, Lynn Redmond, and Bruce Bozzi Jr. for letting me tell our stories in this book. Thank you to Bill Persky for being a great sage and East Coast Parental Unit. Thank you to the very wise Emily Lazar for your thoughts on the treatment and manuscript. John Hill, thanks for being Fender.
My dear friend Liza Persky made an incredible short film with Mary Matthews about my letters from camp that not only served as the basis for the earlier selections, they also motivated me in more ways than you can know during the course of thinking about this book. Thank you!
My family is incredible and I love them very much. They let me play, prank, poke, and pry with them in this book and elsewhere, all the while cheering me on. Blouse, thank you for being amazing and fun. (Smile.)
Thanks to Susan Lucci for taking a strange kid out to lunch at Santa Fe. Sorry I prank called
