Since she can remember she always wanted to be a performer, and through her teenage years, took voice lessons, dance lessons, and participated in community theater.
As the years went by and Susan Lucci became the grande dame of American soap operas, she also became famous for something else: being nominated for Emmy Awards without winning.
In high school she was the ideal student: took many honors classes, was a cheerleader, staff writer for the school newspaper, was a foreign exchange student to Norway, and performed in the school musicals, including lead roles in "Oklahoma" and "The King and I". After graduating with Honors from Garden City High School, she was accepted and attended Marymount College in Tarrytown, New York, which was noted for its theater program.
After graduating with a BFA in theater arts, she moved to New York City, and began going to auditions. One of her first jobs was that of a color girl for CBS. Every day she would report to the studio, and sit on a stool, as technicians developed the new color cameras. Most of her acting work consisted of Off-Broadway understudy roles, day-player roles on soap operas, and extra and stand-in work for movies.
In 1978, Susan received her first Daytime Emmy nomination. She was nominated again in 1981, and nominated almost every year since then. In the early 1980s, she became the first soap opera actress to appear on the cover of major magazines, as well as the first to star in Movies of the Week. But what made her a household name by the late 1980s was her string of Emmy losses.
Lucci was nominated 19 times altogether before finally, triumphantly, winning the daytime Emmy for best actress in 1999.
Susan Lucci has also starred in a string of breathless TV movies, including Mafia Princess (1986), The Bride in Black (1990), Seduced and Betrayed (1995) and Blood On Her Hands (1998). Lucci appeared on the 2008 edition of the TV show Dancing With The Stars, with competitors including Cloris Leachman and Kim Kardashian.
Now, after twenty one nominations, she is considered to be one of the most honored performers in the history of television, daytime or primetime
