All My Life (19 page)

I felt so happy to be involved in this promotion. Joel Gray, Bernadette Peters, and Michele Lee were just a few of the Broadway greats who participated. On the day we were set to shoot the commercial, we were all being held in one of the local theaters until the producers were ready for us to head out to the heart of Times Square, where the piece was to be shot. I sat next to Michele Lee, who is a marvelous performer and someone who I knew had lots of experience doing nightclub acts. I told her I was working on a nightclub act, too.

“Where are you trying it out?” she asked.

It wasn’t a strange question, but it threw me for a loop because I didn’t expect it. Was I supposed to try my act out? I was so focused on working at All My Children during the day and then singing at night with Joan Lader, my voice teacher, that I’d never considered the notion of testing the show outside of Manhattan.

“I haven’t done that yet,” I said.

“Oh.” That was her response.

Uh-oh was the first thing that came to my mind as I felt my stomach sink right down to my toes.

I felt ridiculous. I was scheduled to open at Feinstein’s in a couple of weeks and I hadn’t tried the show out in a “soft opening” anywhere. Michele was absolutely right. But I momentarily reassured myself by recalling all the challenges I had successfully met before. I have always given my all to everything I do, I reasoned. So I might as well do this big, too, right? I suppose that type of thinking was really my lack of experience talking. I had no idea how much you learn each night that you perform. I am used to working quickly—even when I did Annie Get Your Gun, I essentially learned my part in three weeks. I live in a world where I am handed a new script every day. I am expected to learn that script, rehearse it, shoot the scenes, and move on. It never dawned on me that people actually take their time and work through the kinks before they open at one of the top venues in New York City. Besides, with everything that was happening in the world, maybe the question wasn’t “Should I have tested the show somewhere else?” Maybe the question was “Is this the right time to do the show at all?” But then I remembered why we were all sitting in the theater that day. We were promoting tourism and bringing visitors back to New York City. If I didn’t go on with the show as planned, I’d be giving in to the terrorists. I wasn’t going to let that happen. No, I would find the strength and courage to do something that would make people feel good again. So once more, the show would go on.

Understandably, Feinstein’s delayed the opening of their season by two weeks. Shirley Bassey was scheduled to appear only a couple of days after the attacks, but of course that didn’t happen. This meant that my show would be the first to open there after 9/11. I wanted to do something to honor those we lost and all of the brave men and women of New York City by putting a table aside for the firefighters, police officers, and rescue workers who were out there laboring so hard to piece our city back together. I felt it wouldn’t be right to open and not pay homage to these people for saving our lives, so I went to Mr. Tisch, the owner of the hotel, and asked if he would reserve a table each night for these brave workers. It was a very easy sell. Mr. Tisch was very much on board with my idea. The public relations team at the Regency reached out to several local heroes and invited them to come down and enjoy the show each night I was there. I opened the show by introducing the fine men and women so everyone else in the room was aware of their presence and contributions. That table was full every night as the audience showed their immense appreciation for those very special guests.

Doing a nightclub act is interesting. Much like my experience on Broadway, I didn’t do a dress rehearsal until the day of my first show. I worked with my band a couple of days prior to opening, but the first time I did a full run-through with them in the venue was a few short hours before going onstage. This is fairly common wherever you perform. John McDaniel was accompanying me, so he knew the music as well as I did. He spoke to the lighting designer before the show to give him an idea of our needs.

The most interesting thing about performing at Feinstein’s is that they serve lunch in the room where you will later perform. So during our dress rehearsal, waiters were breaking down tables and setting up for dinner. I had to laugh because I thought to myself, It can’t be any noisier than this at night, which was a good thing and maybe the best preparation I could have had.

I always get butterflies before going onstage, but on this particular opening night, I had big butterflies. Feinstein’s is a small room. Thank goodness I had been through the experience of having to sing for Marvin Hamlisch and the Weisslers in their living rooms because this felt eerily the same. Performing at Feinstein’s, you are very close to the audience. You can see every face in the room. It’s a small stage that’s placed a couple of feet in front of the first few tables. This was a very different experience from Broadway, far more intimate and very personal.

I sang a plethora of songs by artists ranging from Peggy Lee and Quincy Jones to Marvin Hamlisch. I especially liked doing a song called “New York City Blues,” a song John McDaniel and I both knew, yet hardly anyone ever performs. John was blown away that I was even aware of the song. I told him I remembered Peggy Lee singing it on The Ed Sullivan Show when I was a young girl. I don’t know why I remembered it, but I did. I thought it was a great New York song, and under the circumstances, appropriate to include in my act.

I also sang “Winning Isn’t Everything,” a signature song Marvin Hamlisch had written just for me. I was so excited to introduce this song. I closed with “Alright, Okay, You Win,” which seemed like a good choice, as the audience appeared to like it.

I was astounded that so many people came out on opening night to support my show. Liza Minnelli, Michael Feinstein, and Regis Philbin were all there to cheer me on. In a way, I think we were all there to cheer our great city on. Barbara Walters and Judge Judy Sheindlin came to see me during my two-week run, too. I didn’t know Barbara well. She had interviewed me as one of her Most Fascinating People in 1999, the year I won my Emmy and did Annie Get Your Gun. I didn’t feel all that fascinating, but it was a real honor to be included and thrilling for All My Children and Agnes Nixon because it crossed the show over from daytime into prime time. I often saw Barbara around the studio, in the hallways, on the elevator, and near the stage doors, as The View shared space with All My Children in New York. I had been a guest and even cohost on The View many times and loved that experience. I surely admire Barbara, as the rest of the world does. As busy as my schedule gets, Barbara Walters is someone who makes me wonder how many hours there are in a day for her. She does it all with such grace, dignity, and finesse. She interviews world leaders, hosts her talk show, and still finds the time to come out and support my nightclub act.

After seeing the show, Regis was more convinced than ever that we should take an act on the road together. And after this brief experience, I agreed. I asked John McDaniel to be my musical director, but he had other commitments, which didn’t allow him the freedom to travel. Much to my delight, however, he introduced me to another wonderful and talented musical director named Shawn Gough. Shawn looks like a picture-perfect, blond Ralph Lauren model. He is very handsome and a pleasure to work with. He appears too young to be doing what he does and yet he is so very talented and good at it. He conducts the Christmas show at Radio City Music Hall and has worked on many Broadway productions, including Billy Elliot, Sunday in the Park with George, and Emerald Man.

Shawn is a perfectionist and a lot like Joan Lader—he doesn’t miss a thing. He can listen to an entire orchestra and hear one violin miss a single note. Although he is an unbelievable musician who has the respect of so many people, Shawn doesn’t bring his ego to the stage—a trait I find is common among the very best and most talented artists.

Regis Philbin and I ended up taking our nightclub act on the road for five glorious years. We had a fabulous time performing with each other. There has always been great chemistry between us. We toured and toured and performed in casinos, nightclubs, and concert halls all over the country. We even appeared with the very funny Don Rickles in Mississippi. We usually played to crowds ranging from two to five thousand people and you never knew who was going to be in the audience.

Occasionally, I did shows without Regis. During one particular performance while I was headlining at the Kravis Center in Palm Beach, Vic Damone was present. It just so happened that I sang “Old Black Magic” that night—a song he is known for. If you’ve ever been to a cabaret show, you may have noticed that the performers often keep water somewhere nearby. The reason for this is that sometimes your mouth gets dry and it’s hard for you to sing unless you drink something. As luck would have it, I had just gotten off a plane—flying is notoriously dehydrating—and I was trying to belt out “Old Black Magic.” After the show, Vic came backstage to say hello. He asked if he could offer me some helpful tips for future shows. I’m sure he noticed how much water I drank onstage. He shared his experience and few tricks of the trade with me, which were very useful and greatly appreciated. Vic Damone! Believe me, I’ve used those tips ever since.

One of my favorite parts of my show is the overture. Shawn had done a great arrangement of “Too Darn Hot” for me to come onstage. When I appeared, I would sing and tell anecdotes for about forty minutes. I loved that connection with the audience because it was the first time I allowed myself to share a little bit more about me than I generally do. When I was done, Regis would come on and sing, then he’d ask me to come back out to do a few more numbers with him. Regis always brought me back onstage as “La Lucci” while singing “You Ought to Be in Pictures.” Hearing him sing that song to me is so charming. Regis and I always closed our show singing a wonderful arrangement of the great Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World.” The audiences really enjoy that song as a duet. What fun we had, and the audiences did, too.

Here’s a typical set list for the songs I sang while touring with Regis:

SUSAN LUCCI

RUNNING ORDER

Too Darn HotAlright, Okay, You WinDo You Wanna Dance?They Say That Falling in Love Is WonderfulNew York City BluesFeverIt’s All Right with MeWinning Isn’t Everything—SegueToo Darn Hot Playoff (Watch for Cut)It Don’t Mean a Thing—SegueIt Don’t Mean a Thing Bows

Segue to Regis Act

As much as I enjoyed doing these shows with Regis over the course of more than five years, I had to step away from doing them after I agreed to do a little television show called Dancing with the Stars. This time it was pretty clear that there was no way I could keep doing All My Children, tour with Regis, and learn to dance all at the same time and on two different coasts. Something had to give. Even I had to concede that sometimes, unfortunately, there really are limits.

The Cycle of Life

In early 1999, Helmut was set to have shoulder surgery as a result of an injury he had suffered while playing soccer in Europe as a young man. Golf is a passion for my husband and his shoulder pain was interfering with his game. His doctors assured him that the procedure was routine and that he had nothing to worry about. If all went well, he’d be back on the golf course swinging his club in no time.

When Helmut went in for the standard presurgical exam, the doctor discovered that he had a condition called atrial fibrillation, (also known as “A-fib”), which is an irregular heartbeat. I had heard of an irregular heartbeat, but I always thought that there were telltale signs, including dizziness, shortness of breath, or even the sensation of an irregular heartbeat. Helmut had none of these symptoms. Had he not gone in for his examination, we would never have known about his condition.

When he left the doctor’s office, we both felt like we had more questions than answers, so we began making phone calls to friends and other physicians we knew so we could talk about the diagnosis. I called a very good friend who is also a top cardiologist at a hospital not far from our home. We listened to everything he had to say before seeking out a second, third, and fourth opinion from other top doctors in Manhattan.

We found out that people who have A-fib are five times more likely to have a stroke, even if they don’t have any obvious symptoms. What’s more, if you have a stroke with A-fib, you double your chances of suffering a debilitating, or worse, a fatal one. These were not statistics I was willing to gamble my husband’s life on. Thankfully, we caught it early enough to get Helmut on a program that involves medication, diet, and exercise. He has to go to the doctor every six weeks for blood work so the doctor can monitor his condition and make sure there are no changes that could increase the likelihood of having a stroke. As long as he stays on top of this, he will be fine.

Helmut and I have a very close relationship. For the most part, he is the caretaker. But whenever he has faced an unexpected medical condition, those roles are quickly reversed. I want to be by his side every…step…of the way. If he has a doctor’s appointment, I like to go with him. I believe it’s important to always have an extra set of eyes and ears—especially caring ones—seeing and hearing what the doctor has to say. Sometimes the person with the injury or condition is dealing with their emotions instead of listening to the explanation or various treatment options being discussed. Their wheels are spinning, so they may not hear everything someone else might hear. Also, in the case of my husband, English is not his first language, so I always want to make sure he doesn’t miss something or misinterpret what is being said. I want to be there with him through the good times and the challenging times. He has always been there for me, too.

Shortly after that diagnosis, Helmut went to the doctor for some other tests because his PSA levels had gone up to alarming levels. The doctor recommended that he perform a biopsy. We were waiting for the results, but the doctor never called. We figured that no news was good news, so we decided to head out for dinner at a restaurant near our beach home. We had a visitor from Austria with us who was nineteen years old and who spoke almost no English. We wanted to have a casual dinner with this young woman so we could speak to her in German and help her feel welcome and comfortable in her new surroundings. When we got to the restaurant, it was surprisingly crowded for a Wednesday night. It turned out there were quite a few people we knew seated all around us.

Shortly after we arrived, Helmut’s cell phone rang. It was the doctor calling to say that my husband had prostate cancer. Just like that. He was direct and to the point. Helmut hung up and placed his phone on the edge of the table. I could see that he was shaken up.

“Do you want to leave?” I asked. It was obvious he had been given some disturbing news.

“No. Let’s stay and enjoy dinner.” Of course, I think Helmut worried it would call more attention to the situation if we abruptly got up and left, so I tried to follow his lead and acted as if nothing was wrong.

When we went home that night, Helmut broke down, as well he should have. Cancer is a word you never want to hear in relation to yourself. It was really smart that he had made a point of going for regular checkups because his cancer was caught early enough to be operable. We called the children right away to let them know what was going on.

I spoke to Liza, who was at her home in California. She had been in Los Angeles working on Passions. I told her that I was planning to go to the local library and would stay there until I found out who was the very best doctor for Helmut to see. Before I could finish my thought, Liza said she had already pulled that information up on the Internet. She and I sat on the phone for an hour going through every bit of information she could find. Helmut sat next to me on our bed listening in on another phone.

We found out right away who the leaders in the field were, who the number one physician in New York was, and what our next step should be. We learned what all of our options were and we all came to the same conclusion. If it was operable, get it out of there. I hadn’t had a lot of exposure to the wonders of the World Wide Web before that night, but afterward, I was a complete convert.

We wound up going to see Dr. Lapore in New York City, who’d studied with the leading physician in this field, Dr. Patrick Walsh, at Johns Hopkins. He was spectacular. He assured us that Helmut’s cancer was operable. We didn’t want Helmut left wondering if his cancer had spread, grown, or come back—he wanted it gone for good. We agreed and scheduled Helmut to have surgery as soon as possible. Thank God, there was no collateral damage from the procedure. Helmut was a great patient, and although it was quite a process, he recovered spectacularly.

Right after the surgery, he spent a couple of days in a room with four other men before transferring into a private room. Once he was there, I just wanted to do everything I could to make him feel better and to make him smile. I knew hospital food was never going to cut it with Helmut, so as a surprise, I arranged to have Café Boulud, one of our favorite restaurants in New York, cater dinner for him during the rest of his stay. I had to go to work during the day, but I was back at the hospital with him every single night. He had no idea I was doing this until a waitress from the restaurant showed up in his hospital room with a warming container and a complete, beautiful dinner for two. That excellent French food put a smile on his face from ear to ear.

Just two weeks after Helmut’s diagnosis, I received some bad news about my father’s health as well. My father was a lot like Helmut. He was an extremely athletic man. After he retired, my dad played golf three days a week and worked out three days a week in the gym; because he worked in construction for so many years, he had a really great physique. His big vice, however, was that he had been a longtime smoker. Worse yet, he smoked unfiltered cigarettes most of his life. This habit had plagued him before and it seemed as if it was causing some issues now, too. Years ago, when he was only fifty-one, he suffered a mild heart attack. My husband and I were only recently married at the time. We rushed to be at his side. When we arrived, I overheard one of the doctors telling my mother that “Mr. Lucci has done something very bad. He ripped out his IVs, ordered pizza for the staff, got dressed, and went outside for a smoke.” As amusing as that sounded, the doctor was making it very clear that he didn’t approve of my father’s actions.

Thankfully, my father gave up smoking shortly after being released from the hospital, although there were a few occasions when I’d catch him bumming a cigarette from a perfect stranger, thinking no one was looking. “Hey Johnny, ya got a cigarette?” he’d ask. I think that was a World War II expression. My mother was upset whenever she’d find out he was sneaking a smoke here and there. The doctor assured her that bumming a couple of cigarettes a week was a lot better than his previous habit of smoking a couple of packs a day. “Don’t give him too much stress over it,” he’d say, knowing my mother wouldn’t give up anyway.

Sadly, in 2002, at the same time as Helmut was ill, my father was diagnosed with a worsened heart condition. By this time, he was in his early eighties. His doctors were doing routine tests when they found a tumor in his lungs the size of a grapefruit. It could have been all of those years of smoking, or maybe the many years of working in construction, that caused the tumor. I don’t suppose I will ever know the true cause or why it wasn’t diagnosed earlier. Whatever the reason, the prognosis wasn’t good.

My father’s doctor wanted to take care of his weakened heart before addressing the issue of the tumor. That seemed like a wise course of action. Although I wanted to bring my father to New York City to see the very best doctors we could find, he seemed very content with the physicians he was seeing in West Palm Beach, Florida, where my parents were now living. When I met his surgeon, he seemed very confident and experienced. I knew why my dad was happy being in his care. The doctor inspired confidence in my father as well as in me.

The first leg of the surgery went very well. My father came out of the OR and the minute he could open his eyes and speak, he looked at my mother, who never left his side, and said, “Are you okay. How are you doing?” That was my dad. He was more concerned with how my mother was doing than with his own condition. He was selfless in so many ways.

My father recovered very well from this surgery. It was a good thing that he had been so active, as he was extremely physically fit for a man of his age. Even in his eighties, he was built like a much younger man.

The doctors sent him home with a lot of different medications. My father went from taking nothing before his surgery to taking lots of pills every day. Very late one night, he awoke and was completely disoriented. He got up out of bed and fell. He was taken back to the hospital, where they intubated him. That was not a pleasant experience. My mother spoke to the physician on duty to see if they could figure out what had happened. They soon realized that there were specific instructions on my father’s medical records to avoid giving him a certain medication. Somehow, those directions slipped through the cracks and he had been given that medication.

During that same night, my father had another adverse reaction to the medication he was on. This time when they intubated him, something happened to his vocal cords and he was no longer able to speak. We were told he might not be able to talk again. I think my father was terribly demoralized after that. I could see him losing his spirit. When I spoke to his doctor about his prognosis, he said they might be able to repair the damage if my father could get stronger. It was a catch-22 for my dad because he was on oxygen and just couldn’t eat well enough to fortify himself. He didn’t have the wherewithal to get stronger.

Throughout this time, Helmut and I had been involved in a massive remodeling job on our home in Garden City. We were essentially doubling its size. Helmut and I were living in our apartment in New York City while he recovered from his cancer and while our house remained in shambles for almost two years. It seemed as if everything around me was falling apart. The two most important men in my life were struggling and I didn’t know what else I could do to help them. I prayed to God to let my husband be well and to help my father to heal.

I wanted my house back the way it was because I thought that everything else would go back to being the same, too. My home became a metaphor for the great big mess that was happening all around me. I did my best to take each day one at a time, but it was very difficult.

After my dad’s surgery, he was taken to a nursing home to recover and gain his strength so he could ultimately go in for the reparative surgery he needed. Unfortunately, he wasn’t eating well, so his condition continued to deteriorate. I was touched to see my mother take such good care of my dad. She brushed his teeth, washed his hair, and kept him shaved and clean. My father was a proud man. We all knew how much he hated not being able to care for himself. My mother tended to my father like she was a teenager. She moved with such grace and never-ending stamina as she constantly checked his oxygen tank, monitors, and charts between visits from the doctors and nurses on staff. It was wonderfully comforting to see my mother being so attentive and nurturing when my father absolutely needed it the most—especially because I had never really seen her in that role. My father had been her rock, and now she had to be his.

She did everything she could to keep my dad comfortable, despite the obvious fact that he was miserable. My father was the kind of man who would have given you the shirt off his back. He was always so protective. He always held my arm when we crossed a street together. Always, even as an adult. It was really hard to see him so vulnerable. I flew down to Florida as many weekends as I possibly could to be with him and to make sure my mother was taking care of herself, too. Although my father wasn’t able to articulate what it meant to him, I could see in his eyes and in his face that he was so happy to have my mother and me there together. I wished so much that I could help him more. The main reason my father could no longer eat well was that his teeth began to bother him to the point where he was in a lot of pain and discomfort. I hadn’t been told until my father got sick that he had suffered some type of infection while serving in the South Pacific during the war. The solution the doctors came up with at the time was to pull out all of his teeth and put in dentures. When my father began losing weight from his illness, the dentures became loose and terribly uncomfortable. He couldn’t speak, and now he couldn’t eat. One weekend, while I was visiting my dad, I asked one of the nurses if she could let me speak to the hospital chef. Since I had experience making my children’s baby food, I had the idea that the chef might be able to blend some tasty and nutritious meals for my father so he could better manage his eating. I explained the problem to the chef, who was extremely open to my idea, but the facility manager said she couldn’t commit to helping my dad until she could file the proper paperwork with the hospital administrators. She thought this procedural formality might take a couple of days. Well, I didn’t think my father would last that long if he couldn’t eat. So I did the next best thing. I had a tray of his favorite cannoli and an assortment of other Italian pastries hand-delivered from Carmine’s in nearby West Palm Beach. I figured the creamy filling inside the pastries would be easy for him to eat—and I knew he’d enjoy it—and I thought the staff would, too.