Susan Lucci recalls her engagement party when a guest named Helmut warned her mother the marriage wouldn't last. At 21, headstrong and days from the wedding, Susan didn't hear the warning. She later connected the experience to playing Erica Kane, her iconic All My Children role.
So he sat across from me at the end of my engagement party, and I thought to myself, "Hmm, I probably shouldn't be engaged to this very nice guy sitting next to me because I'd like to know that guy better." And what I didn't know is that Helmut, who was sitting between my mother and my then future mother-in-law, he turned to my mother and said, "This thing between Susie and this boy is never going to last." And my mother said to him, I think you're right, but I can't say anything to Susan because she's 21 and very headstrong, and she will marry him tomorrow if I tell her that. There's a reason I played Erica Kane.
