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All My Children's Primetime Spin-Off


Last updated: July 16, 2023 | Open Since: January 24, 2021 | Email Us: Here

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Pine Valley
Series Writing Credits
Leo Richardson ... (creator)

Series Produced by
Mark Consuelos ... executive producer
Robert Nixon ... executive producer
Leo Richardson ... executive producer
Kelly Ripa ... executive producer
Andrew Stearn ... executive producer

"The great and the least,
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These are all your children."
-Agnes Nixon

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(All listings subject to change) (Pine's Episodes In Green)
  • Thursdays- Generation Gap (Kelly Ripa host, ABC)
  • Weekdays- Live with Kelly & Ryan (Kelly Ripa host, ABC)

  • Pine Valley

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    Susan Lucci highlights the importance of heart health in latest American Heart Association PSA

    (7/16/23) (Video) For nearly 100 years, the American Heart Association has had one goal: building healthier lives free of cardiovascular disease and stroke.

    By funding innovative research, fighting for stronger public health policies, and providing lifesaving tools and information, the American Heart Association is working tirelessly to make this goal a reality.

    In the latest PSA from the American Heart Association, hear renowned actress Susan Lucci as she candidly shares her personal experience with a heart event.

    Daytime Emmys To Honor Susan Lucci & Maury Povich With Lifetime Achievement Awards

    (6/16/23) Susan Lucci and Maury Povich will be honored with Lifetime Achievement Awards at the 50th Annual Daytime Emmys.

    The Emmys were supposed to be held today on CBS. But the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences in May announced it was postponing them, as well as the June 17 Creative Arts & Lifestyle ceremony, because of the WGA strike.

    Lucci and Povich will be celebrated in person once the awards are rescheduled.

    “I am truly humbled to receive this esteemed award from the Academy,” Lucci said in a statement. “Throughout my career, I have been incredibly fortunate to work alongside exceptional talents and embraced by my fans that have been with me every step of the way. This honor is not just a reflection of my journey, but a testament to the enduring power of storytelling and the profound connection we are so lucky to forge with audiences all over the world through television.”

    “I’m just blown away by this honor from the Academy,” Povich said in a statement. “I have always had great respect for its work as I served on the National Board and was President of the New York Chapter. I guess if you hang around long enough, some good things happen. It’s been a 60+ year ride for me in this business, so I feel extremely blessed with this acknowledgment.”

    Lucci starred as Erica Kane for over 40 years on All My Children. In May 1999, on her 19th nomination, she won the Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series.

    Povich hosted the first-run syndicated show Maury from 1998 to 2022.

    NATAS also announced the 2023 Gold and Silver Circle Honorees. Inductees are professionals who have performed distinguished service within the television industry, setting standards for achievement, mentoring, leadership and professional accolades for 50 or 25 years respectively. This year’s class is:

    Gold Circle

    Tanya Hart, Host / Producer, Entertainment News
    Wendy Riche, Producer, Daytime Drama
    Al Schwartz, Producer, Specials
    Vernée Watson, Performer, Daytime Drama

    Silver Circle

    Christina Knack, Production Coordinator, Daytime Drama
    Patrick Weiland, Producer, Lifestyle.

    Susan Lucci: “Paying Attention to This Weird Pain Saved My Life!”

    (6/15/23) (firstforwomen.com) Daytime Emmy Award-winning actress Susan Lucci, is best known for her effervescent personality, beautiful smile, and for playing the dynamic Erica Kane on All My Children for more than 40 years—who was often touted as the most popular soap opera character of all time. After surviving a major heart attack in 2018, Susan’s focus shifted, and she became a fierce advocate for women’s heart health, joining the American Heart Association’s “Go Red for Women” movement as a national ambassador.

    But on a January evening just last year, the 76-year-old found herself falling into an old pattern of ignoring and brushing off her symptoms, and it almost cost her her life…again. In the newest issue of FIRST for Women, Susan opens up in an exclusive interview about how she pulled through and what she’s doing differently now. Here’s a sneak peek:

    “Put yourself on your to-do list…I didn’t”

    “Those first three years since I avoided my ‘widow maker,’ I had been talking to women about what I had learned, trying to pass on my good luck and share my takeaways from my experience,” Susan told FIRST of the advocacy she began after her first heart attack, which is called a ‘widow maker’ because it’s caused by a full blockage in the heart’s largest artery—and only 12% of people survive. “I had two stents put in, but I was fortunate and I wanted to tell other women to listen to their bodies. If it’s not normal to you, don’t sweep your symptoms under the rug. And don’t be afraid of your doctor. Put yourself on your to-do list. As women, we do for everyone else: we’re taking the children to pediatricians, advocating for the ones we love…but we are not on that list.”

    “Why would my jaw hurt?”

    But late one night at the start of last year, Susan wasn’t taking her own advice. “I’m ashamed to say I reverted back to my original behavior, which was to say to myself, ‘Oh, it’s nothing, it’ll just go away’ and ‘I can’t go to the hospital right now.’ I was shocked that I was feeling some of the symptoms I felt in 2018 again and just thought, ‘This is crazy—it can’t be happening again.’”

    But it was happening, and Susan knew the statistics: cardiovascular disease accounts for one-third of the deaths in U.S. women, and is number one killer of women. But even though Susan was experiencing symptoms similar to those she had experienced during her first heart attack, like shortness of breath, radiating chest pain and a sharp pain in her jaw—a lesser known symptom of heart attacks in women—she still wasn’t sure. “It seems so counterintuitive: why would my jaw hurt? But it’s actually a common symptom of a heart attack in women. And I remembered an interview with a woman I heard a long time ago that taught me that sometimes, the pain from a heart attack is something you feel in the jaw.”

    “Even after all the signs, it was a shock”

    Still, it was only when her husband, Helmut, returned home from his night of playing cards with friends that Susan began to come around to the idea that something was truly wrong.

    “He said ‘We have to call the doctor,’” Susan recalls of the moment that changed everything. “I said, ‘Honey, it’s 10:00 at night, I can’t bother him…’ But he just said, ‘You have to.’”

    Saying she’d think about it, Susan laid down in bed—the pain still radiating through her rib cage and jaw—and finally made her choice. “We met my doctor at the emergency room,” Susan recounts, where she learned that she had a 75% blockage in her third artery and would need another stent.

    “Even after everything, all the signs, it was a shock,” shares Susan, who has since doubled down on her commitment to listen to her body. “I inherited the calcium buildup in my arteries from my dad. It’s hereditary and builds up over a lifetime, so when I asked the doctor if there was something that I’m doing to cause this or anything that I can change, he said no. This event in January was a little different because there was some cholesterol involved. It was post-COVID and my husband was cooking and I was eating anything that wasn’t nailed down that he made, which was so different for me.”

    “I know I was truly lucky”

    Thankfully, after pulling through that scare, and getting to the doctor before she had a second heart attack, Susan became more mindful, going back to her tried and true Mediterranean diet and daily Pilates. But then, she suffered a heart shattering injury of a different kind: losing her husband of 53 years, Helmut, just two months after her emergency surgery.

    “He was the love of my life,” Susan shares. “There are four factors that motivate us all: response, recognition, security and adventure, and they were all so true of my relationship with my husband. And laughter. When I lost him, I felt like half a person. Nothing else mattered and I wasn’t really sure if I would ever go on stage again or in front of the camera. So the better part of this year has been trying to get back to myself, and being grateful for the blessings I’ve had. To have known the kind of love that I experienced from my husband: I know how lucky I was to have that and I knew it then. I always knew it.”

    “Caring for yourself is most the important thing”

    Today, Susan keeps that gratitude going with the help of loving friends, family and the words Helmut used to say engraved on her happily healthy heart. “When things were maybe a little bit difficult or challenging, he used to say in his adorable Austrian accent, ‘After the rain, the sun, she shines. It’s a wonderful thing to keep in mind. I’m a work in progress, but I am making progress. I have learned acceptance and I have learned empathy. And I think that both acceptance and empathy come from challenges and going through grieving. I’m glad I acquired them, but I wish I didn’t have to learn those things at the same time. Still, I don’t want to give up. I don’t want to lose the fire in my belly. We’re never finished growing—but loving yourself and taking care of yourself is the most important thing.”

    For more of Susan’s brilliant tips on how she beats stress, keeps her bones healthy and boosts energy, pick up the latest issue of FIRST for Women at your local grocery store or subscribe and save here!

    Morning Show Appearance

    (4/29/23) Good Morning America - ABC

    May 2, 2023

    Susan Lucci

    Talk Show Appearance

    (4/29/23) GMA3: What You Need to Know - ABC

    May 2, 2023

    Susan Lucci

    Tongues wag as Susan Lucci meets much-younger man at hotel

    (4/20/23) Soap legend Susan Lucci had spies in a lather when she was spotted meeting up with a much-younger man at an Upper East Side hotel on Wednesday.

    When the “All My Children” star, 76, was spotted at the Lowell asking a stranger if he was the guy she was there to meet, an onlooker surmised she was on a blind date.

    She approached the guy and asked, as a source tells it, “Are you so and so?”

    “He said, ‘No,’ and she left,” the spy told us.

    The ever-stunning star eventually located her man, it seems. She was later spotted with a man who appeared to be “barely 30,” according to spies.

    “They were very into their conversation,” we’re told.

    But it turns out the late lunch meet up was all business and no play according to her rep, who told us, “She was there for a business meeting.”

    “She was with a producer, but that’s all I can share at this time,” they said.

    Besides, Lucci told Page Six back in February that dating isn’t in the cards after her husband of 52 years, Helmet Huber, died last year at the age of 84.

    “[Dating is] not on my radar… He was a very hard act to follow,” she said at the American Heart Association’s Red Dress Collection concert.

    Still, she likes to hang with “amazing friends who like to be out and about… And I like to be out and about,” she said.

    Lucci first met Huber when she was a waitress and he was the executive chef at Red Salt Room restaurant at Long Island’s Garden City Hotel in the ’60s. They went on to have two children together.

    Kelly Ripa, Mark Consuelos blasted for 3-day workweek: ‘What a joke’

    (4/20/23) “Live” by name — but not by nature.

    Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos are catching heat after it was revealed Thursday’s episode of “Live With Kelly and Mark” was pre-recorded.

    Viewers tuning in were met with a disclaimer from ABC stating that the show had been taped on a previous day.

    Consuelos, 52, joined “Live” as a co-host on Monday, sitting alongside wife Ripa, also 52, who has helmed the program for more than two decades.

    Given the strong interest in the couple’s first official week together on the air, it’s surprising to some that they chose to tape Thursday’s episode earlier.

    However, pre-recording “Live” is not a new phenomenon that has been introduced with Consuelos.

    During the six years that Ripa co-hosted with Ryan Seacrest, the pair occasionally pre-recorded episodes of “Live with Kelly and Ryan,” sometimes in order to accommodate the “American Idol” host’s busy schedule splitting time between New York City and Los Angeles.

    Ripa and Seacrest would most commonly tape a Friday episode prior to broadcast — something they did for Seacrest’s final episode last week.

    Given that this Friday’s installment of “Live with Kelly and Mark” has likely been pre-recorded, it appears Ripa and Consuelos will work just three days this week.

    The Post has reached out to ABC for clarification of how often “Live” would be pre-recorded in a regular week.

    Several fans were unimpressed by the fact that Thursday’s show was taped prior to airtime.

    “Three days live, two taped,” one raged.

    “Why not just record five in one day and call it a week? #youknowyouwantto” another sniped, with one more adding, “3 day a week contract, what a joke.”

    One speculated that Ripa and Consuelos would only be working three days per week on a regular basis as part of a deal they cut with ABC.

    Meanwhile, another wrote: “It would be nice to see an audience again and for the shows to actually be live and not prerecorded.”

    ABC is bringing back the “Live” studio audience, with the show’s Twitter account posting a callout to people wanting to attend.

    “Come see us live!” the post read. “Get tickets to be in our studio audience.”

    Criticism over the chat fest’s pre-recording comes amid a rocky first week for Ripa and Consuelos together on the air.

    Some viewers have taken issue with the married couple’s on-air PDA, while others criticized a discussion about Consuelos’ snoring.

    However, live or pre-recorded, other fans are relishing Ripa and Consuelos’ pairing.

    “Ahhhhh LOVE Kelly & Mark… just the morning show I’ve been waiting for. So glad you two are working together… and doing it SO WELL,” one cheered.

    “I’m like a proud parent watching the show. I smile throughout because I love them together. You can tell they are still madly in love,” a second stated.

    “Congratulations Mark!! When are y’all bringing the live audience back? I want to come to NYC and support in person!” they concluded.c.

    'Naughty' Daytime Star Susan Lucci: 'I Don't Feel My Age'

    (2/10/23) (parade.com) The 'queen of daytime TV' shares the joys of playing “naughty” Erica Kane, spoiling her grandchildren and the telling women to listen to their heart when it comes to their health.

    If you’ve caught an episode of All My Children, you’ve seen Susan Lucci in her element. The Emmy award-winning actress is known for portraying Erica Kane on the series for the show’s entire 41 years. “Erica was the bad girl in town, the naughty girl, the pot stirrer,” says Lucci, 76. Playing her, she says, was one of the best times of her life. “I never thought that the audience was going to love her as much as I did,” she says. But they did: The soap garnered devoted fans from across the nation, with Lucci’s notorious character becoming one of the genre’s most beloved roles of all time. She spoke with Parade about her years as Erica Kane and how she coped with a dangerous heart blockage that nearly killed her.

    An Audition That Would Change Her Life

    Lucci grew up on Long Island, New York, the daughter of an American-Italian father and Swedish mother. As a child, she admits to being painfully shy. But one summer day, her mother shooed her outdoors, encouraging her to play with the neighborhood kids. “The first time they knocked me off my tricycle. I ran home crying, but I went out again,” she recalls.

    Then, she discovered television. “I was the first one up in the morning and I would turn the TV on and watch all kinds of stuff,” she says. At night, she would lie in the hall outside of her parents’ bedroom, sneaking glances at the reflection of the TV on the far wall. “I saw a lot of stuff I probably shouldn't have seen,” she says. She remembers being 3 or 4 years old and thinking, I don't want to be watching. I want to be doing that.

    Before she knew it, she was blasting her parents’ Broadway cast albums, wrapping herself in her mom’s scarves to look like Grace Kelly and acting out scenes with those neighborhood friends. She went on to study drama at Marymount College in Tarrytown, N.Y., and one day in 1969, Lucci found herself at the audition that would change her life. All My Children was calling to her. And they called her a lot.

    “There were five callbacks,” recalls Lucci, who had gotten used to being told that she didn’t have the looks for television. People in the business would say to her, “If you only had blue eyes, if you had dark eyes but you had blonde hair, if you weren’t so ethnic looking,” she says. But on that humid day in New York City, the young actress tied a scarf around her head to tame her curls and met with casting directors. The show’s creator, Agnes Nixon, took a chance on the hopeful star, who admitted she wasn’t sure at first if she should accept the part. “I had to sign a four-year contract and I thought that was a big commitment. Four years is the length of high school, the length of college!” she says. But after an eight-page audition scene with Frances Heflin, who portrayed her mother Mona on the show, Lucci was hooked.

    “There was so much about Erica that an actress could sink her teeth into,” she says. “The character was unpredictable, so to dive into that and find out what made her tick was really fun for me.” Lucci, who was 23 at the time, was also thrilled to portray a teenager in her natural element on television. “And at that time, teenagers didn't have a major storyline; they were always sent out of the room to go do their homework or something like that while the grownups talked,” she says. “But [All My Children] had full storylines around us and introduced humor, comedy and glamour. And I got to be the character the show told a lot of those stories through.”

    A Star Is Born

    The fandom behind the show reached a level Lucci had never dreamt about. She was nominated for an Emmy in 1978 and 19 nominations later finally won the Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series in 1989. She knew that night that she wasn’t going to win…again. But her seatmate, Rosie O’Donnell, quelled her doubts. “She said, ‘Let me take your evening bag because when you go up there, you'll probably step on it,” Lucci recalls. Indeed her name was called and she would go on to be nominated two more times, for a total of 21 nominations.

    “Winning is much better than not winning,” she says with a smile, hopping out of the Zoom frame to grab her Emmy off her living room mantel and proudly show it off. “I was surprised how heavy they are,” she says, with a grin and the disclosure that after winning it, she took it to every interview she did that year.

    Her string of consecutive losses wasn’t forgotten, though, and has resulted in her being spoofed on Saturday Night Live and having people refer to themselves as “The Susan Lucci of” when they found themselves losing. She found the spoofing comical, she said, and then was flattered when Martin Scorsese once said, “I’m the Susan Lucci of the Oscars.”

    But all good things come to an end and in 2009 there were rumblings the show was getting expensive, and the cast moved to Los Angeles for more economical filming. Then in 2011, while Lucci was in the middle of a book tour for her bestselling memoir All My Life (fans would line up for hours to meet her), she was told that All My Children was coming to an end. “That was a very bitter pill to swallow and we all went into a mourning period, disbelief and denial and anger,” says Lucci. The fans, she shares, crashed the phone lines and computers at ABC demanding the studio execs reverse their decision. “There was a menu of numbers you could call, and you would hear the recording ‘if you are calling to protest the canceling of All My Children, press one. For all other ABC business, press whatever…’”

    Will All My Children ever come back? In recent years, there have been rumblings of a spinoff, titled Pine Valley, shepherded by previous cast members Kelly Rippa and Mark Conseulos. “If it does go, I know I'd be in good hands again,” says Lucci who says she’d absolutely consider revisiting Erica.

    A Scary Wakeup Call

    In 2018, Lucci experienced recurring chest pain that eventually landed her in the ER and learned she had a 95 percent blockage in the main artery of her heart and a 75 percent blockage in the adjacent artery. She was taken in immediately for surgery and had two stents placed into her heart. “The nurses said if you had not come in, there is no question you would not be here today; you would have had the heart attack called the Windowmaker. That's how serious it was.”

    Lucci, who had always assumed she had good genes (her mother lived to 104), found she had calcium buildup in her arteries, something that could have come from her father’s side of the family. She phoned her publicist on the way home from the hospital, desperate to figure out how to get the word out to women that they need to prioritize themselves, take their symptoms seriously and realize that unlike men—who predominantly experience chest pain with a heart attack—women can have entirely different symptoms like jaw pain and nausea. She’s a proud national ambassador for the American Heart Association, sharing the story of how her healthy diet of salmon and kale, plus her near daily Pilates habit, wasn’t enough to combat her family history. She had a third stent put in in 2022.

    “Without sounding corny,” she says, she had been praying for a way to do something meaningful with her platform. “I didn't know it was going to mean almost having a heart attack that would kill me!” she says. She lost her husband of 53 years, Helmut Huber, who was 84, to a stroke in 2022 and is also planning to do some work to raise awareness about atrial fibrillation. “It’s been nine months and there aren’t words to say how much I miss him,” she says. Huber, a TV producer whom she married in 1969, was the great love of her life, she says. “He was my rock. It was a great marriage. I was kissing all those guys and he would take so much ribbing from his friends, but he was very secure and had a sense of humor and was always right there, telling me, ‘oh, honey you can do this with two hands tied behind your back.’”

    Age Is Just a Number

    Age has certainly not shown on the outside of Lucci, who is famously asked, “How do you look so young?” Her secret, she says, is a lot of discipline—staying hydrated, being sun smart and focusing on posture. After competing on Dancing With the Stars in 2008, she learned to “let your power come from your core.” And the chorus boys at Radio City Music Hall, she says, taught her to “walk as if your legs begin right from your ribcage. Oh, it makes you feel like you have the longest legs in the whole wide world,” she says.

    These days, the resident of Garden City, NY (for more than 50 years!) has been leaning into being a grandmother. She has two children who both have children whom she dotes on. “I'm trying to spoil them. I have to follow the desires of their parents…but I have plans,” she says with a grin. After she turned 75 last year, she has learned to not get fixated on being in her 70s. “I don't feel my age,” she says, revealing that when she turned 60, she called her mother. “I was having trouble with the number and I asked, ‘mom how do you do this?’ There was a pause and my mother said, ‘Well, I just don't think about it.’ And I thought that's probably good. Just live your life, be who you are and don’t let it get you down.”

    Lucci's Loves

    Susan Lucci's favorite meal

    Italian food hands down. Veal meatballs, some pasta, I'm there.

    Everyday health ritual

    Drinking hot water with lemon and fresh ginger. It boosts your metabolism, balances your pH and hydrates you at the same time.

    On a Sunday, you’ll find me

    Having an extra cup of coffee. I love coffee.

    A character I wish I’d played

    Maggie in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

    Someone in the entertainment industry I look up to

    Jessica Chastain and Meryl Streep are amazing actresses. I admire Amal Clooney as a woman and for beauty and style.

    Someone I’d love to act with

    Martin Short

    What I’m watching

    My husband and I loved Yellowstone. And I’m late to the party but I just discovered Law & Order. Every episode is so well done.

    Most embarrassing moment

    Wearing a knit pantsuit in the '70s that started unraveling as I was walking through Penn Station!

    Favorite quote

    I saw one just a couple of days ago: “Whoever survives a test, whatever that may be, must tell his story. It's a duty.” That’s from Elie Wiesel. He survived quite a test with the Holocaust.

    What I’m reading

    The Maze by Nelson DeMille.

    Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos on Marriage, Kids and Co-Hosting 'Live' : 'It's Going to Be Off the Rails!'

    (4/12/23) (people.com) When Mark Consuelos pulls up that coveted chair beside Kelly Ripa as co-host of the newly titled Live With Kelly and Mark on April 17, it will be "a complete full circle moment" for the real-life married couple.

    "To have Mark join me at that desk every day, it's a dream come true," Kelly, 52, tells PEOPLE in this week's cover story. "We've been so uniquely blessed."

    As for what the pairing means for the irreverent and feel-good show? "It's going to be off the rails!" Kelly says, with a laugh.

    "It's indescribable [and] we're super, super grateful," says Mark, who first made an impression on Kelly when she eyed his smoking-hot headshot nearly 30 years ago.

    "I'm a very practical person, but there was something about him," says Kelly of the moment in 1994 when the casting director for All My Children showed her a photo of Mark, then a budding 24-year-old actor up for a role opposite Kelly, already one of the soap's breakout stars. "I was like, 'Oh my gosh, it's my person. This is my husband. My future hubs.' I just knew it."

    As fate would have it, Kelly's intuition was spot on. The pair fell hard and fast while working on All My Children, and over 28 years, built a family — they share kids Michael, 25, Lola, 21, and Joaquin, 20 — and thriving individual careers.

    And now, 22 years after Kelly began co-hosting Live and helped make it the No. 1-rated daytime talk show it is today, Mark, 52, is excited to get in on the action.

    "I had filled in so many times and had a blast every single time," says the Riverdale alum, who guest-hosted 92 times during Kelly's tenure before replacing Ryan Seacrest at the helm. "Some people would die to have this opportunity. No one does it like she does… I can't think of anybody that I feel more safe with, and protected by, than Kelly."

    For the power duo, teaming up on Live offers an ideal chance to hang out together after spending long stretches apart for work over the last decade.

    "During the pandemic when Riverdale was shut down for about six months, it was the first time we had been together uninterrupted for like, five years," says Kelly. "I prefer the togetherness. I really enjoy being around him — he's great company, so funny, so smart, insightful, pragmatic and super level-headed. He doesn't get rattled, and that's very reassuring and comforting to be around."

    Of course, like any enduring married couple, they've had to work hard at growing their healthy partnership. "I don't understand when people say, 'We never fight.' I go, 'Oh, they're in trouble,'" says Kelly, who eloped with Mark in Vegas in 1996.

    "Many people we know have gone through a divorce and a separation and when you ask 'Why did you guys wind up getting a divorce?', it's always the same answer: 'I don't really know.' I feel like we could have over the years let something small turn into that and [instead] we just put our heads down, got together and said 'Let's work it out…'"

    She adds: "Now we can work it out on camera!"

    While they don't intend to drag out all the dirty laundry ("We're not going to be like 'About that thing you said about my mother…'" she says), they've never been ones to hold back.

    "We're not afraid to go there," she says. "We have the confidence in our marriage that no matter what we discuss, I don't mind being the villain in the argument, nor does Mark. Neither one of us needs to be the hero."

    And given the already upbeat, playful tone of Live, Mark says, "If we think something is really going to be funny, then it can be magic."

    Watch the full episode of People Cover Story: Kelly Ripa & Mark Consuelos here.

    Talk Show Appearance

    (3/31/23) WATCH WHAT HAPPENS LIVE, Bravo

    Th 4/6: Kelly Ripa

    Kelly Ripa, Mark Consuelos admit they have ‘ludicrous’ FaceTime sex ‘rituals’

    (3/22/23) Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos keep their sex life spicy when they spend time apart.

    When the actor was in Canada filming “Riverdale” for 10 months in 2020, he and Ripa developed “sexual rituals” that were “ludicrous over FaceTime.”

    The “Live! With Kelly and Ryan” host, 52, joked on Wednesday’s premiere of her “Let’s Talk Off Camera” podcast that she got “really close to [herself]” during their virtual rendezvous.

    “I became so alarmed at my appearance over FaceTime that I started rigging the computer to hang from a ladder,” Ripa recalled.

    “I hung the computer over a ladder so that I could look up to Mark and he did not have to see what gravity was actually doing [to me].”

    She and Consuelos have been married since May 1996 and are now empty nesters as their three children — son Michael, 25, daughter Lola, 21, and son Joaquin, 20 — are all away at college.

    The “Pitch” alum told Ripa that the only “potential dealbreaker” in their relationship as it stands would be if she “cut [him] off sexually.”

    He amended, “Unless you had some type of medical condition where, like, you lost the use of [your body].”

    When Ripa noted that they had a sneak preview of abstinence when she went through menopause, Consuelos joked, “I didn’t give you a break. There have never been months [between having sex] unless I was in another country.”

    Later in the episode, Ripa poked fun at her husband, saying he only “recently” learned the difference between sex and intimacy after 26 years of marriage.

    “I’m going to blame it on the fact that I traveled so much,” Consuelos replied. “A lot had to happen in the time that I was home.

    “I wanted to get intimacy in and the sex in,” he explained. “So they became one and the same.”

    Ripa joked, “You wanted to get it in.”

    The couple, who were joined by their marriage counselor for the candid conversation, also spoke about how “insanely jealous” Consuelos acted early in their romance.

    “[It was] a hard pill to swallow,” Ripa told listeners. “It’s very hard being married to somebody who is jealous.”

    Their joint episode dropped one month after news broke that Consuelos will be joining Ripa on “Live!” in April once her current co-host, Ryan Seacrest, exits the talk show.l

    Kelly Ripa: ‘Insanely jealous’ Mark Consuelos made marriage ‘very hard’

    (3/21/23) Kelly Ripa called out her husband, Mark Consuelos, for making their marriage extremely difficult at the beginning.

    “It’s very hard being married to somebody who is jealous,” Ripa said in a preview clip of her new Sirius XM podcast “Let’s Talk Off Camera,” before adding that Consuelos’ jealousy was a “hard pill to swallow.”

    Ripa — who married the “Riverdale” alum in May 1996 — recalled that her husband revealed his jealous tendencies just one week after their wedding.

    “We went to this Italian restaurant and the waiter was this very cute old man,” Ripa, 52, began. “He was definitely in his 70s if not 80s, and he leaned down and he said, ‘And for the principessa?'”

    The “All My Children” actress — who shares children Michael, 25, Lola, 21, and Joaquin, 19 with Consuelos — went on to say that Consuelos, 51, “picked a horrible fight” with her after she gave the waiter her order in a “very smiley way.”

    After acknowledging that he remembered picking the fight, the actor joked to his wife that he was “pretty insane” at age 25, and while the “jealousy thing” followed the actor for “a while,” he is “not jealous anymore.”

    The couple agreed that Consuelos — who replaced Ripa’s co-host Ryan Seacrest on “Live” last month — has since managed to grow away from his jealous tendencies, crediting the work he’s done on himself for how he’s managed to improve.

    “I’m so grateful that you’re not [jealous anymore],” the “Live” co-host said, sharing that at times she would even “pray” for her hubby to “lose this personality flaw.”

    Despite the confession of rocky emotions in the past, Consuelos and Ripa consistently gush over each other online by posting PDA pics and thirst traps to Instagram.

    Ripa even celebrated their marriage by getting their wedding date, May 1, 1996, tattooed.

    Ripa’s new podcast releases on Wednesday, March 22.

    Mark Consuelos Announces When He Will Take Over for Ryan Seacrest on 'Live' at Oscars 2023

    (3/12/23) Kelly Ripa has two dates for Hollywood's biggest night!

    The television personality, 52, was joined by Live with Kelly and Ryan co-host Ryan Seacrest and her husband Mark Consuelos — who is slated to replace Seacrest on the long-running ABC talk show this spring — on the red carpet at the 2023 Oscars.

    On ABC's The Red Carpet Live: Countdown to Oscars 95, Seacrest shared that his exit is "bittersweet."

    "We have such a great relationship and friendship and working relationship," Seacrest said. "And Mark is going to take over, and he and I have the same kind of relationship and it's going to be an exciting last few weeks. I'm not done yet!"

    Ripa added: "We keep saying nothing will really change between the three of us. It's just Ryan will get to have his coffee later."

    Consuelos then revealed when he will be joining his wife on the talk show, sharing, "I am so excited, I start the show on April 17, which is a Monday, and I could not be more honored and excited."

    The dapper trio will film Live's annual After Oscar Show, which will air hours after the 95th annual Academy Awards wraps.

    "They move out and we move in," Ripa previously joked to PEOPLE about the show, teasing how it goes from Hollywood's biggest night to its biggest morning party. "We're like the changing of the guards."

    In addition to footage from red-carpet special correspondent Carson Kressley, the show will feature live interviews in front of a studio audience.

    This will mark Seacrest's final After Oscar Show as he announced in February that he'd be leaving Live after six years.

    Seacrest previously told PEOPLE hosting the show day-to-day has not changed his and Ripa's friendship.

    "We were in each other's lives before the show, and we'll be in each other's lives after the show," he said.

    "It doesn't feel like anything's really changed," Ripa added. "We won't see each other every morning, but we are so ensconced in each other's lives. I'm such a busybody in his life, so I don't really see our relationship changing."

    "I'll just be getting more sleep on Oscar night next year," Seacrest joked.

    Susan Lucci, 76, dazzles in corset and sheer skirt at Writers Guild Awards

    (3/7/23) (Pic1, Pic2) Va-va-voom.

    Susan Lucci may have just recovered from her recent heart surgery, but she’s making hearts pound with her latest look.

    The former “All My Children” star, 76, hit the Writers Guild Awards 2023 red carpet in NYC on Sunday wearing a waist-cinching black corset top and a sheer, sparkly skirt that showed off her legs.

    Lucci once told Page Six Style she works out “almost every day,” sticks to a “disciplined” skincare routine and relies on a “balancing act” when it comes to her diet to retain her ageless good looks.

    During the ceremony, she presented the Best Writing in Daytime Drama award to Lorraine Broderick, who won for “Days of Our Lives” but previously served as the head writer on Lucci’s soap opera as well.

    “LORRAINE BRODERICK!!! Last night, I was the lucky one who had the honor of presenting Best Writing in Daytime Drama at the prestigious Writers Guild Awards!!!,” Lucci captioned a photo of the pair embracing on Instagram.

    “Lorraine won for Days of our Lives—BUT, I had the privilege, thrill and fun of being inspired by her writing for me as Erica Kane on AMC!!!”

    Lucci told People she’s doing “really well” after doctors put a stent in her artery in January, marking her second heart procedure in four years. The first, which took place in 2019, corrected a 90% blockage in one part of her organ.

    She has since launched a jewelry line, called Empower Your Heart, in collaboration with Tiary; 25% of the purchase price of her heart-shaped necklaces benefit the American Heart Association.

    According to the brand’s Instagram, the design is meant to serve as a reminder for women to “put yourself on your own to do list.”

    Ryan Seacrest Announces He Will Leave ‘Live With Kelly And Ryan’ This Spring; Replacement Is Mark Consuelos

    (2/16/23) (Video) After six seasons, Ryan Seacrest announced on today’s Live with Kelly and Ryan that he is leaving the syndicated show.

    Kelly Ripa, who has hosted the show since 2001, will be joined by actor and husband, Mark Consuelos, and the show will be rebranded as Live with Kelly and Mark.

    Seacrest plans to head back to the west coast where he will remain part of the ABC Entertainment family, continuing to host American Idol and Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest. Seacrest will transition this spring as he prepares for American Idol live shows in Los Angeles.

    Seacrest said on today’s episode that he will occasionally fill in as a guest host on Live with Kelly and Mark, but didn’t say how often.

    “Working alongside Kelly over the past six years has been a dream job and one of the highlights of my career. She has been an amazing partner, friend, and confidant, and although we will always be a part of each other’s lives, I will miss our mornings together,” said Seacrest. “I also want to thank Michael Gelman and the entire staff and crew – we’ve made memories to last a lifetime, met some of the most incredible people and had the warmest welcome into the homes of so many viewers across America. It’s been a memorable ride and now I’m excited to pass the baton to Kelly’s ‘real’ husband, Mark.”

    “I’m so grateful to have spent the last six years beside my dear friend of too many decades to count and will miss starting my days with Ryan,” said Ripa. “Ryan’s energy, passion and love for entertainment is one-of-a-kind.”

    “Goodbyes are never easy, but we look forward to welcoming Ryan back regularly with open arms. As a fan-favorite guest host for years, Mark is no stranger to the ‘Live’ family. Having him join the show is so special for us and we’re sure that viewers will feel the same,” said Michael Gelman, executive producer of “Live with Kelly and Ryan.”

    Seacrest had initially signed on to host the show for three years and ended up staying on for six.

    This season, “Live with Kelly and Ryan” is the No. 1 daytime talk show network or syndicated in Households, Total Viewers and Women 25-54. “Live” has ranked as the top daytime talk show for 56 straight weeks among Women 25-54.

    'Naughty' Daytime Star Susan Lucci: 'I Don't Feel My Age'

    (2/10/23) (parade.com) The 'queen of daytime TV' shares the joys of playing “naughty” Erica Kane, spoiling her grandchildren and the telling women to listen to their heart when it comes to their health.

    If you’ve caught an episode of All My Children, you’ve seen Susan Lucci in her element. The Emmy award-winning actress is known for portraying Erica Kane on the series for the show’s entire 41 years. “Erica was the bad girl in town, the naughty girl, the pot stirrer,” says Lucci, 76. Playing her, she says, was one of the best times of her life. “I never thought that the audience was going to love her as much as I did,” she says. But they did: The soap garnered devoted fans from across the nation, with Lucci’s notorious character becoming one of the genre’s most beloved roles of all time. She spoke with Parade about her years as Erica Kane and how she coped with a dangerous heart blockage that nearly killed her.

    An Audition That Would Change Her Life

    Lucci grew up on Long Island, New York, the daughter of an American-Italian father and Swedish mother. As a child, she admits to being painfully shy. But one summer day, her mother shooed her outdoors, encouraging her to play with the neighborhood kids. “The first time they knocked me off my tricycle. I ran home crying, but I went out again,” she recalls.

    Then, she discovered television. “I was the first one up in the morning and I would turn the TV on and watch all kinds of stuff,” she says. At night, she would lie in the hall outside of her parents’ bedroom, sneaking glances at the reflection of the TV on the far wall. “I saw a lot of stuff I probably shouldn't have seen,” she says. She remembers being 3 or 4 years old and thinking, I don't want to be watching. I want to be doing that.

    Before she knew it, she was blasting her parents’ Broadway cast albums, wrapping herself in her mom’s scarves to look like Grace Kelly and acting out scenes with those neighborhood friends. She went on to study drama at Marymount College in Tarrytown, N.Y., and one day in 1969, Lucci found herself at the audition that would change her life. All My Children was calling to her. And they called her a lot.

    “There were five callbacks,” recalls Lucci, who had gotten used to being told that she didn’t have the looks for television. People in the business would say to her, “If you only had blue eyes, if you had dark eyes but you had blonde hair, if you weren’t so ethnic looking,” she says. But on that humid day in New York City, the young actress tied a scarf around her head to tame her curls and met with casting directors. The show’s creator, Agnes Nixon, took a chance on the hopeful star, who admitted she wasn’t sure at first if she should accept the part. “I had to sign a four-year contract and I thought that was a big commitment. Four years is the length of high school, the length of college!” she says. But after an eight-page audition scene with Frances Heflin, who portrayed her mother Mona on the show, Lucci was hooked.

    “There was so much about Erica that an actress could sink her teeth into,” she says. “The character was unpredictable, so to dive into that and find out what made her tick was really fun for me.” Lucci, who was 23 at the time, was also thrilled to portray a teenager in her natural element on television. “And at that time, teenagers didn't have a major storyline; they were always sent out of the room to go do their homework or something like that while the grownups talked,” she says. “But [All My Children] had full storylines around us and introduced humor, comedy and glamour. And I got to be the character the show told a lot of those stories through.”

    A Star Is Born

    The fandom behind the show reached a level Lucci had never dreamt about. She was nominated for an Emmy in 1978 and 19 nominations later finally won the Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series in 1989. She knew that night that she wasn’t going to win…again. But her seatmate, Rosie O’Donnell, quelled her doubts. “She said, ‘Let me take your evening bag because when you go up there, you'll probably step on it,” Lucci recalls. Indeed her name was called and she would go on to be nominated two more times, for a total of 21 nominations.

    “Winning is much better than not winning,” she says with a smile, hopping out of the Zoom frame to grab her Emmy off her living room mantel and proudly show it off. “I was surprised how heavy they are,” she says, with a grin and the disclosure that after winning it, she took it to every interview she did that year.

    Her string of consecutive losses wasn’t forgotten, though, and has resulted in her being spoofed on Saturday Night Live and having people refer to themselves as “The Susan Lucci of” when they found themselves losing. She found the spoofing comical, she said, and then was flattered when Martin Scorsese once said, “I’m the Susan Lucci of the Oscars.”

    But all good things come to an end and in 2009 there were rumblings the show was getting expensive, and the cast moved to Los Angeles for more economical filming. Then in 2011, while Lucci was in the middle of a book tour for her bestselling memoir All My Life (fans would line up for hours to meet her), she was told that All My Children was coming to an end. “That was a very bitter pill to swallow and we all went into a mourning period, disbelief and denial and anger,” says Lucci. The fans, she shares, crashed the phone lines and computers at ABC demanding the studio execs reverse their decision. “There was a menu of numbers you could call, and you would hear the recording ‘if you are calling to protest the canceling of All My Children, press one. For all other ABC business, press whatever…’”

    Will All My Children ever come back? In recent years, there have been rumblings of a spinoff, titled Pine Valley, shepherded by previous cast members Kelly Rippa and Mark Conseulos. “If it does go, I know I'd be in good hands again,” says Lucci who says she’d absolutely consider revisiting Erica.

    A Scary Wakeup Call

    In 2018, Lucci experienced recurring chest pain that eventually landed her in the ER and learned she had a 95 percent blockage in the main artery of her heart and a 75 percent blockage in the adjacent artery. She was taken in immediately for surgery and had two stents placed into her heart. “The nurses said if you had not come in, there is no question you would not be here today; you would have had the heart attack called the Windowmaker. That's how serious it was.”

    Lucci, who had always assumed she had good genes (her mother lived to 104), found she had calcium buildup in her arteries, something that could have come from her father’s side of the family. She phoned her publicist on the way home from the hospital, desperate to figure out how to get the word out to women that they need to prioritize themselves, take their symptoms seriously and realize that unlike men—who predominantly experience chest pain with a heart attack—women can have entirely different symptoms like jaw pain and nausea. She’s a proud national ambassador for the American Heart Association, sharing the story of how her healthy diet of salmon and kale, plus her near daily Pilates habit, wasn’t enough to combat her family history. She had a third stent put in in 2022.

    “Without sounding corny,” she says, she had been praying for a way to do something meaningful with her platform. “I didn't know it was going to mean almost having a heart attack that would kill me!” she says. She lost her husband of 53 years, Helmut Huber, who was 84, to a stroke in 2022 and is also planning to do some work to raise awareness about atrial fibrillation. “It’s been nine months and there aren’t words to say how much I miss him,” she says. Huber, a TV producer whom she married in 1969, was the great love of her life, she says. “He was my rock. It was a great marriage. I was kissing all those guys and he would take so much ribbing from his friends, but he was very secure and had a sense of humor and was always right there, telling me, ‘oh, honey you can do this with two hands tied behind your back.’”

    Age Is Just a Number

    Age has certainly not shown on the outside of Lucci, who is famously asked, “How do you look so young?” Her secret, she says, is a lot of discipline—staying hydrated, being sun smart and focusing on posture. After competing on Dancing With the Stars in 2008, she learned to “let your power come from your core.” And the chorus boys at Radio City Music Hall, she says, taught her to “walk as if your legs begin right from your ribcage. Oh, it makes you feel like you have the longest legs in the whole wide world,” she says.

    These days, the resident of Garden City, NY (for more than 50 years!) has been leaning into being a grandmother. She has two children who both have children whom she dotes on. “I'm trying to spoil them. I have to follow the desires of their parents…but I have plans,” she says with a grin. After she turned 75 last year, she has learned to not get fixated on being in her 70s. “I don't feel my age,” she says, revealing that when she turned 60, she called her mother. “I was having trouble with the number and I asked, ‘mom how do you do this?’ There was a pause and my mother said, ‘Well, I just don't think about it.’ And I thought that's probably good. Just live your life, be who you are and don’t let it get you down.”

    Lucci's Loves

    Susan Lucci's favorite meal

    Italian food hands down. Veal meatballs, some pasta, I'm there.

    Everyday health ritual

    Drinking hot water with lemon and fresh ginger. It boosts your metabolism, balances your pH and hydrates you at the same time.

    On a Sunday, you’ll find me

    Having an extra cup of coffee. I love coffee.

    A character I wish I’d played

    Maggie in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

    Someone in the entertainment industry I look up to

    Jessica Chastain and Meryl Streep are amazing actresses. I admire Amal Clooney as a woman and for beauty and style.

    Someone I’d love to act with

    Martin Short

    What I’m watching

    My husband and I loved Yellowstone. And I’m late to the party but I just discovered Law & Order. Every episode is so well done.

    Most embarrassing moment

    Wearing a knit pantsuit in the '70s that started unraveling as I was walking through Penn Station!

    Favorite quote

    I saw one just a couple of days ago: “Whoever survives a test, whatever that may be, must tell his story. It's a duty.” That’s from Elie Wiesel. He survived quite a test with the Holocaust.

    What I’m reading

    The Maze by Nelson DeMille.

    Susan Lucci talks heart health, opens up on loss of husband

    (2/3/23) (Video) Emmy-winning actor Susan Lucci, who played Erica Kane for more than four decades on “All My Children,” highlights the importance of heart health after suffering a near-fatal heart attack four years ago. Lucci also opens up on how she has been coping with the loss of her husband, Helmut Huber.

    Susan Lucci helps Hoda & Jenna deliver soap cliffhanger lines

    (2/3/23) (Video) Susan Lucci, who played Erica Kane on “All My Children,” helps Hoda Kotb and Jenna Bush Hager deliver over-the-top cliffhanger lines as made popular on soap operas.

    Kelly Ripa Gives Update on 'All My Children' Spinoff

    (7/11/22) (popculture.com) Nearly a decade after the beloved soap opera came to an end, an All My Children spinoff could still be on the horizon. In a recent chat with ABC 7, Live With Kelly and Ryan co-host Kelly Ripa gave an update on the long-in-the-works reboot, though it wasn't all good news for fans hoping to see the soap back on their TV screens sooner rather than later.

    Asked about the current status of the planned reboot, Ripa revealed that while the show, tentatively titled Pine Valley, is still "in the queue," though it currently doesn't seem to be at the top of her and husband Mark Consuelos' production company's list. Ripa told the outlet, "I don't even know where that is in the queue. Hopefully, it comes back and hopefully sooner rather than later because, for me, that's really, you know, that, to me, is the thing that I care about the most because All My Children is responsible for every good thing that happened to me in my life."

    Ripa starred on the hit soap as Hayley Vaughan from 1990 until 2010. The soap notably holds a special place in Ripa's heart, as it was while she was working on All My Children that she met her husband, Mark Conseulos. The pair met after Conseulos joined the series in 1995 as Mateo Santos Sr. and they immediately sparked romance, eventually eloping on May 1, 1996, at the Chapel of the Bells in Las Vegas. The happy couple is parents to sons Michael, 25, and Joaquin, 19, and daughter Lola, 21.

    While both Ripa and Consuelos have since moved on to other projects, All My Children has always remained in mind. After the series ended in 2013 following a 43-season run on ABC and a multi-season run on The Online Network, Deadline reported in December 2020 that a sequel series titled Pine Valley was "in early development" at ABC. Described as "a primetime version of the network's beloved daytime drama All My Children," Ripa and her husband were confirmed to be executive producing alongside Andrew Stearn and filmmaker Robert Nixon. Per the synopsis for the sequel, "a young journalist with a secret agenda comes to expose the dark and murderous history of a town named Pine Valley only to become entangled in a feud between the Kane and Santos families. The series explores all the secrets that come with the Kane and Santos family names."

    Further news about Pine Valley mostly fell to the wayside until January 2022 when Leo Richardson confirmed that the initial script for the show had been submitted to executives. At the same time, Eva LaRue confirmed to Soaps.com that the reboot was "very real." Currently, there is no tentative premiere date for Pine Valley or any further announcements.

    Ratings: Kelly Ripa's Generation Gap Premiere Leads Quiet Thursday

    (7/8/22) In the latest TV show ratings, the premiere of ABC’s Kelly Ripa-hosted Generation Gap quiz show delivered a very quiet Thursday’s largest audience — 3.6 million total viewers — while tying its lead-in, Press Your Luck, for the nightly demo win.

    Opening ABC’s night, Press Your Luck‘s Season 3 premiere (3.4 mil/0.4) was nearly on par with its sophomore averages (3.2 mil/0.5).

    Closing out ABC’s night, the debut of 20/20‘s sleep-inducing The Fatal Flaw true crime-meets-dollhouses series frittered away its family-friendly lead-in, retaining just 2 mil and a 0.2.

    Kelly Ripa's new comedy quiz show 'Generation Gap' begins July 7

    (6/29/22) Generation Gap: SERIES PREMIERE - To Infinity Stones and Beyond! (7/7)

    “To Infinity Stones and Beyond!” – Host Kelly Ripa hosts the new comedy quiz game show where teams of seniors and juniors are challenged to answer questions about pop culture from each other’s generations in the series premiere of “Generation Gap,” airing THURSDAY, JULY 7 (9:00-10:00 p.m. EDT), on ABC. Ryan Seacrest makes a special surprise appearance during the “Who Am I” challenge, and the winning team’s chance at a bonus prize is left up to their youngest family member in the “Toddler’s Choice.” (TV-PG) Watch episodes on demand and on Hulu the day following their premieres.

    “Generation Gap” is produced by MGM Television, Kimmelot and Milojo. Mark Burnett, Jimmy Kimmel, Barry Poznick, Kelly Ripa, Mark Consuelos, Albert Bianchini, Alycia Rossiter and Jonathan Kimmel serve as executive producers.

    Susan Lucci Pays Moving Tribute To Late Husband As She Introduces In Memoriam Montage At Daytime Emmys

    (6/24/22) Susan Lucci, one of the most celebrated actors in daytime television history, returned to the Daytime Emmy Awards stage tonight to introduce the In Memoriam segment, which featured Michael Bolton performing his 1982 hit “How Am I Supposed to Live Without You.”

    As she spoke of the Daytime Emmys “celebrating those whom we loved and have lost this year,” Lucci payed tribute to her husband and manager, Helmut Huber, who died March 28 at the age of 84.

    “My husband was larger than life force of nature,” Lucci said, he voice cracking. “Helmut was the love of my life. They say that the grief is the price we pay for live. Well, grief is an excruciating price but I would not give up even one second of the love.”

    With members of the audience also tearing up, Lucci kicked off the video montage. You can watch below her speech and the In Memoriam segment, which ends with a classic quip by TV legend Betty White whom we also lost this year. (Video)

    Talk Show Appearance

    (5/6/22) WATCH WHAT HAPPENS LIVE, Bravo

    Tu 5/10: Kelly Ripa, Mark Consuelos

    Kelly Ripa Book Release Date Announced

    (4/11/22) Live Wire: Long-Winded Short Stories by Kelly Ripa

    A sharp, funny, and honest collection of real-life stories from Kelly Ripa, showing the many dimensions and crackling wit of the beloved daytime talk show host.

    In Live Wire, her first book, Kelly shows what really makes her tick. As a professional, as a wife, as a daughter and as a mother, she brings a hard-earned wisdom and an eye for the absurdity of life to every minute of every day. It is her relatability in all of these roles that has earned her fans worldwide and millions of followers on social media. Whether recounting how she and Mark really met, the level of chauvinism she experienced on set, how Jersey Pride follows her wherever she goes, and many, many moments of utter mortification (whence she proves that you cannot, in fact, die of embarrassment) Kelly always tells it like it is. Ms. Ripa takes no prisoners.

    Surprising, at times savage, a little shameless and always with humor… Live Wire shows Kelly as she really is offscreen—a very wise woman who has something to say.

    Pre-order your copy here.

    Susan Lucci's Husband Helmet Huber Dead at 84: 'A Tremendous Loss'

    (3/30/22) Susan Lucci's husband, Helmut Huber, has died. He was 84.

    The TV producer, who wed Lucci in 1969, died peacefully on Monday on Long Island, New York, PEOPLE exclusively confirms.

    "A family man, he was a loyal friend, and loved them deeply," according to a representative for the family. "With a roaring sense of humor, larger-than-life personality, and a practical problem-solver, he lived his life to the fullest. Mr. Huber who formerly raced motorcycles in Austria was a first-rate skier, and avid golfer, belonging to the Garden City Golf Club and Westhampton Country Club."

    Huber is survived by the All My Children star, 75, and his two sons and two daughters as well as his brother, eight grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. In lieu of flowers, the family requests contributions are made to the American Stroke Association in support of stroke awareness and research.

    "Helmut's passing is a tremendous loss for all who knew and loved him. He was an extraordinary husband, father, grandfather, and friend," a statement from Lucci's publicist, Jessica Sciacchitano, said. "The family kindly asks for privacy during this incredibly difficult time."

    Born in October 1937, Huber became a citizen of the U.S. in January 1994. He leaves behind a long and impressive career, which included being Lucci's manager and the CEO of Pine Valley Productions.

    Huber was was also an esteemed chef.

    Previously, he had been asked to join the Austrian Ski Team but instead chose to complete his apprenticeship at the Hotel Maria Theresia. He eventually studied at L'Ecole Hoteliere in Lausanne, Switzerland as well, graduating at the top of his class.

    Upon coming to North America at 21, Huber kick-started his career in Canada before making his way to New York at 23.

    Though he spoke several languages fluently, he improved his English by watching John Wayne and Humphrey Bogart movies.

    Helmut Huber Dies: Husband And Manager Of ‘All My Children’ Star Susan Lucci Was 84

    (3/30/22) Helmut Huber, husband and manager of All My Children star Susan Lucci, died Monday, March 28, in Long Island, New York. He was 84.

    A spokesperson for Lucci said that Huber died peacefully, noting: “Helmut’s passing is a tremendous loss for all who knew and loved him. He was an extraordinary husband, father, grandfather, and friend. The family kindly asks for privacy during this incredibly difficult time.”

    Huber was born on October 10, 1937, in Innsbruck, Austria, and becoming a United States citizen in 1994, Huber met Lucci in 1969 while they were working at Long Island’s Garden City Hotel. Huber was the hotel’s executive chef, and Lucci had worked there during a summer vacation from college. After just three weeks of dating, the couple married on Sept. 13, 1969.

    Following Lucci’s success as Erica Kane on ABC’s All My Children, Huber transitioned professionally to become her manager and CEO of Lucci’s Pine Valley Productions and SL Enterprises. The couple would become a longtime and familiar presence on the New York social and philanthropic scenes.

    Huber began his career at age 18 with an apprenticeship at the Hotel Maria Theresia and study at L’Ecole Hoteliere in Lausanne, Switzerland. He moved to Canada at age 21, two years later relocating to New York. By his late 20s he was the head of Food and Beverage for the entire Knott Hotel Corporation, which included the United Nations and Pentagon. In the early 1960s he moved to Garden City, Long Island, as the executive chef at the Garden City Hotel.

    He met and married Lucci after his first marriage ended in divorce.

    Huber is survived by his wife of 52 years, two sons, two daughters (including former Passions cast member Liza Huber), a brother, eight grandchildren and two great grandchildren. The family requests that In lieu of flowers contributions be made to the American Stroke Association in support of stroke awareness and research.

    Susan Lucci Says All My Children Spinoff Series Is Coming Along

    (2/1/22) (people.com) Susan Lucci is sharing some insight into the current status of the All My Children spinoff series.

    While chatting with PEOPLE about her ongoing collaboration with the American Heart Association and its Go Red for Women initiative, the 75-year-old actress also opened up about the planned revival series to the Emmy-winning show, which was previously announced in December 2020.

    Noting that word about the forthcoming project comes "sporadically," Lucci told PEOPLE, "There has been movement. I wish it was a quicker movement, but yes, everything in terms of being in the right hands, as far as I know, would be in place."

    "It's really interesting, and the concept is so good," she continued. "[It's] in the right hands ... [with] Kelly Ripa and her husband, Mark Consuelos, who are both so terrific. They would be executive producers, so I'm really hoping that this is going to actually go forward."

    Lucci — who starred as character Erica Kane on the daytime soap opera from 1970 until its final episode in 2013 — did note, however, "COVID is in play again, and things are slowed down."

    Back in 2020, Ripa, 51, and Conseulous, 50, announced their involvement in the project, marking their return to their soap opera roots years after they first met on the set of All My Children. The duo is executive producing the spinoff series, which will be titled Pine Valley, according to a prior report from Variety.

    Named after the fictional Philadelphia town where the ABC series originally took place, Pine Valley will follow the story of "a young journalist with a secret agenda" who plans to bring the dark history of the town to light, "only to become entangled in a feud between the Kane and Santos families," per the outlet.

    Leo Richardson is writing and executive producing the project with Robert Nixon — the son of All My Children creator Agnes Nixon — who is also on board as an executive producer. Ripa and Consuelos are attached to the series under their Milojo Productions banner, Variety noted.

    On Twitter, EP Richardson shared his excitement over the news of the planned revival, writing at the time, "Beyond excited to be writing/exec producing this classic and giving it the full modern prime time treatment. Let's go! #PineValley @KellyRipa @MarkConsuelos." In response, Consuelos quote-retweeted the post from Richardson, and said, "So excited Leo!!!"

    All My Children aired for 41 years on ABC from January 5, 1970, to September 23, 2011. It was later revived briefly as a web series in 2013. (The show began in a half-hour format before changing to hourlong episodes in 1977.)

    In the series, Ripa starred as Hayley Vaughan from 1990 to 2002, while Consuelos portrayed Mateo Santos Sr. from 1995 to 2002. Both also appeared on the show in multiple episodes in 2010 for the series' 40th anniversary.

    The pair played an onscreen couple, which led to them dating and eventually marrying in real life. Ripa and Consuelos now share three children together: sons Michael and Joaquin, plus daughter Lola.

    In 2020, Entertainment Weekly reunited the All My Children cast for their #UnitedAtHome series amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. At the time, many of the former stars said they would be open to a potential reboot, including Lucci, though she remained cautious and said she would only be on board if the reboot was "in the right hands."

    Continuing to speak with PEOPLE, Lucci explained that her character Erica would currently "be up to something really exciting" in the present day. "She would definitely be involved [in the drama], she would never be just lying down somewhere," she said with a laugh.

    "With Erica, you never knew what she was going to say or do, and that made her really fun to watch," Lucci added. "She was full of spirit, and people identified with that spirit of her very much."

    "So certainly, I think, the same thing that women and men could identify with would still be there," she continued. "She was a woman you loved to hate, but, on the other hand, you also loved to love her and root for her."

    And though she remained mum on exactly whether or not she will make any form of an appearance on the planned spinoff series, Lucci did offer some insight into characters she would love to see return either way. "Well, certainly I would hope my two daughters would come back," she said of Alicia Minshew, who played Kendall, and Eden Riegel, who played Bianca. "We had wonderful, wonderful relationships, and they were [a part of] important storylines."

    Lucci also said that she'd similarly love to see other characters appear as well, such as Walt Willey's Jackson, Jill Larson's Opal and Julia Barr's Brooke, among others.

    "But I know the concept would also introduce some compelling new characters and that would be very exciting too," she noted.

    ABC Boss Addresses Oscars Host Plan, Status of Primetime All My Children, Grey's, Millionaire and Live Sitcoms

    (1/11/22) The Academy Awards airing on ABC in March will have a host — for the first time in four years.

    Appearing at the Television Critics Association virtual winter press tour on Tuesday, Craig Erwich, president of ABC Entertainment and Hulu Originals, affirmed that filmdom’s biggest night will have a host this year, though he had no details to share at this time — including whether ABC’s late-night star, Jimmy Kimmel, might make a return as emcee.

    Other topics addressed, even if vaguely, by Erwich during the TCA press conference:

    * Declaring Grey’s Anatomy to be “still at the top of its game creatively” (as well as broadcast-TV’s No. 2-rated entertainment program), Erwich said that beyond this week’s Season 19 renewal, “any decisions around that franchise are going to be made by the stewards of the franchise — [series creator] Shonda [Rhimes] and [showrunner] Krista [Vernoff] and [star] Ellen [Pompeo].” He then added, “We will have as much Grey’s as as we can have. It’s one of the things we’re most proud of at ABC.”

    * Erwich had no updates at this time on the primetime All My Children follow-up, titled Pine Valley, which was sent into development over a year ago. But he did say that a la NBC rival Days of Our Lives‘ recent streaming miniseries and standalone holiday movie, he is “always open to additional iterations or explorations” of ABC’s General Hospital franchise.

    *Erwich affirmed that there will be more installments of Jimmy Kimmel and Norman Lear’s Live in Front of a Studio Audience franchise, but again had no details to share.

    *Asked for an update on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire‘s fate (the primetime quizzer’s Season 2 finale aired back in late March), Erwich again had nothing to share.

    Videos: Nick Cannon interviews Susan Lucci and/ Susan Lucci - A Whole Lotta Children

    (11/6/21) SUSAN LUCCI FULL INTERVIEW
    Nick's FULL interview with soap opera ROYALTY - the QUEEN Susan Lucci: Video.

    SUSAN LUCCI - A WHOLE LOTTA CHILDREN
    Nick's starring in the newest Daytime TV sensation with ICON Susan Lucci: Video.

    Susan Lucci On ‘All My Children’ Reboot: ‘I Told Them, Yes’

    (10/28/21) (Video) Susan Lucci is all in on heading back into the world of “All My Children”.

    This week, the daytime star appears on the “Behind the Velvet Rope” podcast with David Yontef, who talks to her about everything from an “AMC” reboot to the “Housewives” franchise.

    Asked if she would ever star in a “Housewives” show, Lucci says, “Well, I would work for Andy any time, any place, I would. I never thought about being a housewife of anywhere, but I would give it a whirl for Andy. Of course, I would give it a whirl.”

    On the subject of a potential “All My Children” reboot, the actress is still waiting to see if it can come together.

    “I’m somebody who doesn’t like to talk about something until I’m on the set actually doing it. But it was leaked that there is a show in the works called ‘Pine Valley’ that Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos will be producing,” she says. “And that sounds really interesting because it’s very, very cleverly done and it takes into account the characters who the audience loves and it put some new characters in there that keeps it very fresh. So I’m excited to see if that really goes. They tell me yes. And I told them, yes, I’m interested.”

    Meanwhile, asked about whom she would want to play her in a movie about her life, Lucci says, “Well, you know, when I saw it, when I watch Ariana Grande on ‘The Voice’, it does occur to me. I think she would be very good. The other one who has struck me, who would be good to play me would be Camila Cabello. Both of them would have a lot of juice, I think.”

    Video: All My Children Interview- The Kane Women

    (7/21/21) (Video) Alicia Minshew, Eden Riegel and Susan Lucci dropped by The Locher Room for an All My Children reunion on Wednesday, July 21.

    Alicia Minshew took over the role of Kendall Hart Slater in January of 2002 after the character's seven year absence, Eden Riegel joined the cast as Bianca Montgomery in July of 2000, and Susan Lucci began playing the role of Erica Kane when the show made its debut in January of 1970 and played the iconic role for the entire run of the series.

    Don't miss the chance to catch up with these three talented women who reminisce about their time together in Pine Valley, their friendship and so much more.

    Viola Davis, Kelly Ripa To Publish Books In 2022

    (7/20/21) Books from actress Viola Davis and talk show host Kelly Ripa will be released next year, publishing houses for the separate projects announced today.

    Davis’ memoir Finding Me will be published by HarperOne, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, in partnership with Ebony Magazine Publishing. The book will go on sale April 19, 2022.

    HarperOne describes Finding Me as “Viola Davis’s story in her own words, and spans her incredible, inspiring life from her coming-of-age in Rhode Island to her present-day career. Hers is a story of overcoming; it is a true hero’s journey. Deeply personal, brutally honest, and riveting, Finding Me is a timeless and spellbinding memoir that will capture the hearts and minds of Ms. Davis’s legions of fans around the world.”

    Davis, whose recent Best Actress Oscar nomination for her work in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom makes her the most-nominated Black actress in the history of the Academy Awards, also produces, alongside her husband and producing partner Julius Tennon, through their JuVee Productions banner.

    Judith Curr, president and publisher HarperOne Group, acquired North American rights, including audio, from Creative Artists Agency. Gideon Weil, HarperOne, VP/editorial director, and Sydney Rogers, senior editor, will edit Finding Me.

    Ripa’s Live Wire will be the Live with Kelly and Ryan co-host’s first book, a collection of personal essays on childhood, motherhood, marriage and her career. The book, as described, will put “her thoughtfulness, assertiveness and deep understanding of the dynamics of gender and power on full display.”

    The book, to be published sometime in 2022, was acquired at auction by Carrie Thornton, VP and Editorial Director of Dey Street Books, and the deal was brokered by Creative Artists Agency.

    All My Children Interview: The Kane Women

    (7/14/21) (Watch here) Alicia Minshew, Eden Riegel and Susan Lucci will drop by The Locher Room for an All My Children reunion live on Wednesday, July 21st at 3 p.m. EST / 12 p.m. PST.

    Alicia Minshew took over the role of Kendall Hart Slater in January of 2002 after the character's seven year absence, Eden Riegel joined the cast as Bianca Montgomery in July of 2000, and Susan Lucci began playing the role of Erica Kane when the show made its debut in January of 1970 and played the iconic role for the entire run of the series.

    Don't miss the chance to catch up with these three talented women who will join me to reminisce about their time together in Pine Valley, their friendship and so much more.

    Eva LaRue Promises ALL MY CHILDREN Reboot “Is Very Real”

    (6/24/21) (soapsindepth.com) Fans of ALL MY CHILDREN got excited when it was announced that ABC was developing a primetime reboot of the much-missed daytime drama. But while the news about PINE VALLEY broke in December 2020, and there was a little more information revealed in February 2021, it’s been pretty quiet since then. However, during a visit to the syndicated television series DAILY BLAST LIVE, AMC alum Eva LaRue (Maria) promised: “It is very real. So it’s in the works.”

    Development on the ABC primetime series appears to be continuing, although details are still scarce. “This is the anniversary of the 50th year that the show would have been airing,” LaRue said. “This is the perfect year to launch the very first ever soap opera transitioning into a nighttime drama.” Her enthusiasm is commendable, even if AMC’s 50th anniversary was actually in January of last year and daytime soap DARK SHADOWS was rebooted in primetime back in 1991.

    While it appears that some stars from the original AMC will be making the move to the primetime PINE VALLEY, sadly, the late John Callahan (Edmund) won’t be among them. IN her interview, LaRue explained how they were able to remain so close even after their split. “Once I think we were able to really take responsibility for the things that helped dissolve the marriage, we were able to be best friends,” she revealed. “So it was really hard to lose him.”

    LaRue doesn’t have any details on PINE VALLEY. “That’s all I know so far,” she confessed. “We’re kind of in the dark until we’re up and shooting!”

    You can check out LaRue’s full interview segment on DAILY BLAST LIVE below. In it, she also discusses her craziest story as Dr. Maria Santos on AMC, her Daytime Emmy win last year for playing Celeste on THE YOUNG & THE RESTLESS, and the movie she shot during the pandemic, Finding Love in Quarantine, available now on PureFlix.com. (Video)

    At 28, Kelly Ripa Was A Working Mom Who Tolerated Too Much “Bullshit”

    (5/24/21) (bustle.com) In Bustle’s Q&A series 28, successful women describe exactly what their lives looked like when they were 28 — what they wore, where they worked, what stressed them out most, and what, if anything, they would do differently. This time, Kelly Ripa discusses the year she became a working mother.

    “I am the ab-so-lute worst,” Kelly Ripa says. Not just says it, promises it. Dares me to prove her wrong. We’re on the phone, reliving our greatest disasters from a year spent on Zoom, a mode of communication that surely favors an Emmy-winning talk show host.

    I accidentally video-called a potential ghostwriting client — a prominent American rabbi — wearing only Crest Whitestrips and a bath towel, I tell her.

    “Oh, that’s nothing,” the Live with Kelly and Ryan host says. “That's child's play.” Then, in a move familiar to anyone who’s been watching Live for the past 20 years, her volume dips. If you were at home on the sofa, you might notice yourself leaning a little closer to the TV.

    “Amanda, I was on a Harness call,” she tells me, referencing America Ferrera’s social justice nonprofit. They were talking about climate change with — and this is important — the video disabled. Or so Ripa thought. “It was all women. And then in walks my husband wearing nothing but a towel, and thank God he had the towel on. But it was a moment where everybody was finally like, ‘Your camera's on! Your camera's on!’ And then other people were saying, ‘Shh, don't tell her that the camera's on. Maybe he'll totally get undressed!’”

    The story is Kelly Ripa in a nutshell: her punchline is zippy, her laugh is fast, and her husband is hunky. Her Zoom gaffes are definitely not worse than yours, but she tells them better. Daytime TV has honed Ripa’s knack for exactly this kind of confessional humor; she’s spent years passing family peccadillos off as scandals, becoming more relatable in the telling rather than less.

    But before she became America’s Kelly, she was a soap star from Berlin, New Jersey — a nowhere town halfway between Philadelphia and Atlantic City. By 28, Ripa was newly wed to her co-star Mark Consuelos and living in New York City. Even more recently, she’d had a baby boy named Michael.

    Below, Ripa, now 50, talks about becoming the first person in her friendship circle to navigate working motherhood, how the movie Heartburn cured her baby blues, and what she’d do differently on the set of All My Children if she could.

    What did you like about being 28?

    My life changed dramatically, only it's taken me until now to realize how isolating it was. I was working full-time on a soap opera. I don't think people understand the hours that it takes to shoot a one-hour drama each day. We used to routinely work 12 to 14 hour days. That wasn't a long day. That was just your basic day.

    Mark and I got married two years prior in May of '96 and we had our first child in June of '97. By the time I was 28, I had a 1-year-old son and I was working long hours. I would bring him to work with me. I was the only one of my friends that was married, and I was the only one of my friends with a kid.

    Is that what was isolating?

    Here's what I noticed the most: Mark's life stayed exactly the same, and my life changed. And it was just something I don't think I really appreciated until right now, just in thinking about it. When you can't make it to brunch or you're not going out to dinner at 10 p.m. anymore, your friends lose interest in asking. Not that they lost interest in me, because I still have the same friends now that I had then, but I stopped getting invited to things because it was like, "Well, Kelly can't come because she's got a kid." And Mark was still going, he was still traveling. He would still go to Italy on the weekend to go watch Formula 1, to give you an example. And it never occurred to me that that would be strange. Nowadays I would say, "Are you out of your mind?"

    But back then... I hate to say it, but your perception of how things are changes. As a society, we are certainly in a different space now. I definitely worked a lot, but I was also very present in my child's life. I was very hands on. And part of that is because I had the help of my in-laws and my parents. It does benefit the person in the family to have the first grandchild because we didn't need a nanny. And of course Mark was an incredible father. I am not in any way diminishing his role. I'm just saying that socially his life didn't really change that much.

    I remember that year I started crying. I started crying, and I thought, "Oh, I read something about this." There were truly two parenting books then. There was What to Expect When You're Expecting. And then there was this book that my mom gave me that somebody had given her. It was Dr. Spock's parenting handbook.

    Neither one of them really told you much about parenting. It was more about what's normal in a baby or in a pregnancy. But somewhere, I read that you may start crying and that may be postpartum depression. This is going to sound like I gave birth in the 1500s, but a lot has changed from 23 years ago to now. I remember thinking, "This is that hormone shift where a person can suffer from postpartum depression." Not to be confused with the very serious postpartum psychosis.

    So I put on the movie Heartburn, which is basically Nora Ephron's love story starring Meryl Streep. And I watched the movie and then I listened to the soundtrack over and over again. I cried for about 15 hours and then I felt fine.

    Was it important to you to be a young wife and a young mom?

    At the time I didn’t think of myself as young, even though it's incredibly young. But I'd been on my own for 10 years at that point. I graduated high school, I moved to New York City, and I started working on a soap right away. By the time I met Mark, he seemed very much like a grownup. He had grown up all over the world, and he was also very mature for his age. It's funny when I look back at pictures of us, we look like our children. And to me, I think of them as glorified newborns.

    You met Mark at work, right?

    New York is a giant city that somehow seems like a very small town. And then we met in this very small industry, where we had no connections. That in and of itself is very strange, especially when you consider all of our children are somehow going into some facet of show business now. And they go, "Well, it's the family business." And I go, "It didn't used to be." The family business was being a government worker and a bus driver. That used to be the family business, if we're going by what our parents did.

    At 28, you'd been on All My Children for eight years. Did you have an inkling that acting wasn't going to be the job that defined the next part of your life?

    The reason I got into acting was because it was the job that would pay me. I never really fancied being on camera. I still don't. But that's the way I've found has been the easiest way for me to earn a living, which facilitates other things that I like doing. I like creating projects in entertainment, but I don't necessarily want to star in them, if that makes sense.

    Now that you've done Live, do you still feel that way about being on a camera?

    A hundred percent. I always feel like I'm slipping into a costume when I go out in front of the camera.

    Is there an obvious way to you that you've changed since you were 28?

    Yeah, I think that I am less tolerant of people's bullshit. And when people lie to me I can suss it out immediately. Whereas I used to give people the benefit of the doubt. I would twist myself into a pretzel to try to justify somebody lying to me, and now I don't tolerate it.

    I guess it's bad and it's good. I'm less tolerant, but in a really productive way. I've certainly, as my children got older, I grew to have more patience for them. And then you grow completely impatient with other things, like misogyny, with being underpaid in your workspace.

    What do you mean?

    I watched my husband who had no acting experience when he got his job at All My Children, much the same way I had no acting experience. But I got my job in 1990 and I think he got his job in '95. And he was paid more than me immediately. It was immediate. I just couldn't believe how quickly they were willing to pay the man more than the woman.

    That's infuriating.

    It's bothered me ever since. I've earned everything I've had over the course of 30 years of working for the same company, whereas I think that men still don't have an understanding of how hard women have to work to have the opportunity to say this statement that I'm saying right now. And that will no doubt get blowback. People will say, "Oh, but she earns such a good living." Yeah, I do, because I really worked hard for it.

    If you could go back and give 28-year-old Kelly advice, what would it be? What do you know now that she needed to know?

    Oh my gosh. Your instinct that you're born with, they call it women's intuition, but I think it's human intuition. Listen to it, because it's not lying to you. If something doesn't feel right, it's because it's not right. And if you think you're about to get screwed in a work deal, you are. I think the things that I listened to as a parent and as a wife, I didn't listen to in the workspace. And that's the big difference. I turned off the intuition, and I shouldn't have.

    Video: Susan Lucci on Dr. Oz

    (5/5/21) Susan Lucci On Getting Vaccinated And Being Separated From Her Mom For A Year Due To Covid: Video.

    Watch casts of A Different World, All My Children and more reunite in Reunion Road Trip trailer

    (5/5/21) (ew.com)(Trailer) The new four-part series also brings together the iconic casts of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and All My Children

    On E!'s new event series Reunion Road Trip, the casts of four beloved shows reconnect and reflect on their trailblazing series that helped shape the television landscape — and EW has the exclusive first look at the trailer.

    The clip, which you can check out below, teases a snippet of the series, which will feature candid conversations with the stars of Scrubs, A Different World, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, and All My Children as viewers have never seen them before. Each episode will delve into their earliest days from auditions to first impressions, their continuing legacy, and everything in between.

    Reunion Road Trip kicks off on June 10 with All My Children fan favorites Rebecca Budig, Eva LaRue, Cameron Mathison, and Jacob Young, who come together at an exclusive Hollywood mansion to celebrate the show's 50th anniversary with surprise visits from former cast members Alicia Minshew, Debbi Morgan, Kelly Ripa, and Darnell Williams.

    The second episode, on June 17, features the Original Fab Five from Queer Eye for the Straight Guy — Ted Allen, Kyan Douglas, Thom Filicia, Carson Kressley, and Jai Rodriguez — as they reassemble in Los Angeles to give Rodriguez a makeover for his 40th birthday.

    On June 24, A Different World stars Sinbad and Kadeem Hardison invite Darryl M. Bell, Jasmine Guy, Dawnn Lewis, and Cree Summer for an intimate, sit-down discussion to look back on the sitcom's overall success and long-lasting cultural impact on generations by tackling a range of substantive issues and giving a voice to the Black community. They are joined by the show's director and executive producer Debbie Allen and executive producer Susan Fales-Hill. (The episode was filmed before Sinbad suffered a stroke late last year.)

    The fourth and final episode on July 1, is about Scrubs. Zach Braff, Sarah Chalke, and Donald Faison reconvene to go on a quest to track down Rowdy, the show's treasured taxidermied dog, and encounter co-stars Robert Maschio and Judy Reyes along the way.

    Reunion Road Trip airs Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on E! beginning June 10.

    Kelly Ripa celebrates 20 years on Live, gives details on potential All My Children prime-time revival

    (2/5/21) (ew.com) Kelly Ripa "never, ever" thought about becoming a morning talk-show mainstay. Yet, two decades after replacing Kathie Lee Gifford as Regis Philbin's cohost on the iconic Live, Ripa is still going strong on the rise-and-shine perennial, with five Daytime Emmy awards for Outstanding Host to boot. "It happened to me by accident," the onetime soap star, 50, recalls. While still on All My Children, she was asked to fill in on Live in November 2000 for a guest host who had a family emergency. In the process, Ripa instantly became a frontrunner to replace Gifford.

    "The show had really reached an iconic level of pop culture where everyone knew Regis and Kathie Lee. ... Everyone was really questioning, could we go on?" executive producer Michael Gelman, who's often seen behind the cameras, interacting with the hosts, recalls. "Kelly immediately lit up the room, and we knew there was something special. There was a certain charisma and humor and quickness that was really innate — because she wasn't an experienced broadcaster at the time. She just had that It Factor."

    She still does. But on that first official day (above) — Feb. 5, 2001 — Ripa admits to thinking "I have no idea what I'm doing" and receiving little direction along the way. Perhaps for the better. "It was just sort of, 'This is your job now. Good luck, and godspeed," she explains. "It really is one of those places where they give you autonomy. There's guidance, of course — they'll tell you, 'Please don't bring up so-and-so's arrest.' Sure. Or, 'Please don't mention...' whatever. But it really was an autonomous situation where I learned on the fly how to do that job because I didn't really have a lot of time. I guest-hosted that first time, [and] I think I guest-hosted two other times, and then I started working there."

    Unlike the anticipation surrounding the announcement of Philbin's replacement, Michael Strahan in 2012 ("It was just, build, build, build, build, build, build, build, build, build... it was just an epic build," she says of the former NFL star landing the job), there wasn't nearly as much fanfare on her first day. "I don't think anybody was even expecting me to be the replacement host. It was really not a big announcement, it was just sort of, 'She is my new cohost," and it was business as usual," Ripa — who Philbin nicknamed Pippa — remembers.

    But one person in particular made it special. "The one person who wasn't there, which was Kathie Lee," sent Ripa flowers and a note, she recalls, telling the then 30-year-old — who was pregnant with her second child, Lola — "'it's going to be the ride of your life... you're so cut out for this, and have a wonderful time.'"

    Philbin and Gifford had been cohosts since 1985, when the show was still a local morning program on New York's ABC station. (The two and their families were close off-camera as well; Gifford visited with Philbin two weeks before he died last July.) So while there may have been pressure on Ripa to replicate the magic of Philbin and Gifford's dynamic, she didn't allow herself to feel it.

    "I never think anything is that important, but I did not want to be the person that ruined a show with such a storied history. I would hate for it to be a show that's been on the air for 15 years and suddenly goes off the air the day I get there. That would be a bad legacy," she says. "I think I didn't let myself ponder the notion of the significance of it because if I did, I probably wouldn't have gotten out of bed every morning — it would have been too scary for me to think about."

    Ten years later, though, Ripa found herself in Philbin's shoes, facing an uncertain future on the show that had made her a household name as she — and America — prepared to say goodby to him. It's Philbin's last episode (above) that she remembers perhaps more than any other. "His final show was significant," she says. "We were terrified, all of us."

    After Strahan's four-year stint, moving on to GMA where he's now co-anchor, Ripa welcomed a rotation of guest-cohosts for more than a year before Ryan Seacrest — who has known Ripa since the two of them and Philbin cohosted ABC's Walt Disney World Christmas Day Parade some 15 years ago — officially accepted the position. The American Idol host left Los Angeles, where he hosted (and still does) the city's top-rated morning radio show on KIIS-FM, for the NYC-based gig, a decision made easier by Ripa.

    "She really made it very clear to me how the show worked, how the schedule worked, what the team was like," Seacrest, 46, explains. "It gave me a sense of comfort knowing that she and I could speak directly and candidly about the role, and how it works and what she is looking for in that person. The chemistry with us wasn't the difficult part, the relationship wasn't the difficult part — the trickiest part was just figuring out and working into the puzzle having to move to New York City, which we did. And thankfully, it's been a great decision."

    When he started in July 2017, Ripa says Seacrest brought with him "all of his tricks" as a broadcaster. "He is very, very precise, in a way that is extraordinary," she says of his hosting abilities, explaining how he's made her more aware of the timing of the show. Not to mention how he took their "little local New York show" and turned into it "big time, Hollywood, on the marquee."

    But at the essence of Live is the show's first 15-20 minutes known as the "host chat," made famous by Philbin, who "was such a character" — always the "foil" and "person that screwed up" in his anecdotes, Ripa says. "He really gave me the gift of learning how to tell a story in a way that is so funny and so free of ego."

    And that tradition lives on today, thanks to Ripa.

    "She always comes ready to play," Seacrest says, describing how she has made him a better host. "She always has a story to tell, she's always got a joke, she's always got a reaction. And she brings incredible energy and honesty and candor to the show. She's probably made me more comfortable, just talking about myself — which I don't do on American Idol, I do a little bit more on the radio — being more vulnerable and more comfortable sitting back in the chair and having a conversation, versus performing. It's less hosting and more companionship conversation."

    But these three-and-a-half years with Seacrest by her side may not have happened were it not for him filling the empty seat next to her. In the midst of her 4,000-plus Live episodes and the same number of famous "host chats," after countless celebrity interviews and Halloween costumes, after learning how to ride a bike and facing her fear of roller coasters on air, after the departure of Philbin and then Strahan, she "was very much considering retirement," says Seacrest, adding he hopes "she wants to stay there for many years." For her part, Ripa credits her current cohost's "enthusiasm and his excitement" for changing her mind. "The two of us are partners," she says. "There's this energy between us because we both appreciate the amount of work that goes into making a show look effortless."

    Their off-screen friendship largely contributes. Ripa says it's more than that. "It's gone beyond just the work relationship where we're actually like family," she points out, telling a story about how she was buying T-shirts for her sons in a big Mr. Porter end-of-year sale and Ryan also needed new T-shirts, so she bought some for him too. While Ripa says Seacrest joining the show was like her "brother [was] coming to work," they've also adopted that common workplace phrase for each other: work spouses. "We share everything with each other, on the show and off the show," her work husband says. "It's an interesting dynamic. I'm very close to her husband as well. Mark [Consuelos] and I speak often in text, often talk to each other, about life and things that we're working on or things that we want to do."

    If one were to look for the secret to her success and longevity at ABC, family may be the key. Her actual family — husband Mark and children Michael, Lola, and Joaquin. Her work family. Her TV audience family. Her relationship with the latter is one she's been cultivating for 30 years at the network (she celebrated that milestone on Live in November), dating back to her debut as Hayley Vaughn on All My Children in 1990. And that may be coming full circle with a possible prime-time reboot of the iconic daytime soap, which was announced in December.

    "We would be the parents, and this show is really more about the children of Pine Valley," Ripa explains of how the original cast would figure into the new series. "It's a darker look at things, and I'm very excited about it. It was pitched to us and we were like, 'We will absolutely produce this. And we want to be a part of it.' Immediately we called [former All My Children costar Eva LaRue], all of our friends, and we started saying, 'Just be at the ready. Get ready.' "

    While fans undoubtedly are also ready to return to the fictional Philadelphia suburb, Ripa sounds just as anxious, for one major reason. "[All My Children] is responsible for every singular good thing that has happened in my life. I met my husband there, I had my children there – not in the studio but pretty close; they kept you there until your contractions were five minutes apart, as we like to say," she jokes. "It's from there that I got the talk show. It's from there that I got [Hope & Faith].... and our first production deal [at TLC]. So it's truly responsible for every good thing in my life that's happened to me."

    And that is something to talk about.

    "ALL MY CHILDREN" Game Night with Susan Lucci | Stars in the House, Thursday 2/4

    (2/4/21) (Video) ALL MY CHILDREN Game Night - Join James and Seth with special guests Susan Lucci, Christian Campbell, Norm Lewis, Richard Roland and Eric Woodall

    Susan Lucci to star in Amazon's faith-based series 'Wholly Broken'

    (2/3/21) (newsday.com) The onetime queen of daytime soaps is ready to begin her reign on Amazon Prime Video.

    Daytime Emmy Award winner Susan Lucci, 74, is set to star in "Wholly Broken," a faith-based musical series created by fellow Garden City-based performer Tom Humbert. In the series, Lucci will play a congresswoman whose husband was killed by a drunken driver. Further drama will revolve around her strained relationship with her neglected son, who has several addictions and is possibly bipolar.

    "Broken" is based on Humbert's 2016 movie of the same name, which began streaming on Amazon in September. The story follows Pastor Tom (Humbert), a recovering alcoholic minister, who is trying to rebuild his life after losing his job and his wife. The movie took the best feature film USA award at the 2017 International Film Festival Manhattan.

    The series, which will shoot in the Hamptons between August and October, will be something of a TV mother-and-child reunion: Alicia Minshew, who played Lucci's daughter for eight years on "All My Children," co-stars as Pastor Tom's estranged wife. Also in the cast is Baldwin's Martha Wash of The Weather Girls.

    Viewers will even get the chance to hear Lucci sing on the show, although she's no stranger to musicals. In December 1999, she played sharpshooter Annie Oakley opposite Tom Wopat in "Annie Get Your Gun" for three weeks on Broadway.

    Humbert said the series is slated to premiere sometime next year, though a trailer is already out. He also can't wait to work with his famous co-star.

    "I'm so excited to get Susan Lucci for this show," Humbert said. "This has been a dream."

    Talk Show Appearance

    (1/27/21) THE TONIGHT SHOW STARRING JIMMY FALLON - NBC

    Wednesday, February 3: Guests include Kelly Ripa

    Ellen Pompeo Producing Limited Series Based On Elin Hilderbrand’s ‘Paradise’ Trilogy In Works At ABC

    (1/25/21) ABC is developing Winter In Paradise, a limited series based on the first book in Elin Hilderbrand’s bestelling Paradise trilogy, from husband-and-wife writing team André and Maria Jacquemetton (Mad Men), Ellen Pompeo and her Calamity Jane production company, Andrew Stearn Productions and ABC Signature, where Calamity Jane and Andrew Stearn Prods. are based.

    Written by the Jacquemettons, based on Elin Hilderbrand’s Paradise trilogy, the series tells the story of a husband’s secret life and a wife’s new beginning. Irene Steele shares her idyllic life in a beautiful Iowa City Victorian house with a husband who loves her to an extreme. But when her husband dies in a perplexing manner, Irene soon learns that her husband has been living a secret life with an entirely separate family on the distant Caribbean island of St. John. As Irene untangles a web of intrigue and deceit, and as she and her sons find themselves drawn into the vibrant island culture, they have to face the truth about their family and their future.

    André and Maria Jacquemetton executive produce with Pompeo and Laura Holstein for Calamity Jane, Andrew Stearn for Andrew Stearn Productions and Hilderbrand.

    Hilderbrand’s Paradise trilogy is comprised of the novels Winter In Paradise, released in 2018, followed by What Happens In Paradise and Troubles in Paradise in 2020, published by Little, Brown and Company. Another book by Hilderbrand, 28 Summers, is being adapted by MRC Film.

    André and Maria Jacquemetton served as key writers-producers on all six seasons of Matt Weiner’s Mad Men, rising to executive producers for the final two seasons and sharing in the show’s three Drama Series Emmy Awards. They also served as consulting producers on Weiner’s The Romanoffs.

    Pompeo stars in and produces ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy, which is currently in its 17th season. She also serves as co-executive producer on Grey’s spinoff Station 19.

    Through his overall deal at ABC Signature, Stearn also is shepherding an All My Children primetime sequel, Pine Valley, which is in the works at ABC.

    Hilderbrand is repped by UTA, Michael Carlisle & David Forrer at Inkwell Management, and attorney Christine Cuddy at Kleinberg Lange Cuddy & Carlo. Pompeo is repped by CAA, John Carrabino Management, and Hansen Jacobson Teller. Maria and André Jacquemetton are repped by Dan Halsted at Manage-ment and attorney Wayne Alexander. Stearn is repped by attorney Abel Lezcano at Del Shaw Moonves.

    Mark Consuelos Dishes About AMC Reboot

    (1/22/21) (soapoperadigest.com) On today’s episode of THE TALK, Mark Consuelos (ex-Mateo, ALL MY CHILDREN) dished about the prime-time reboot of AMC that he’s working on with wife Kelly Ripa (ex-Hayley). “Man, you know, ALL MY CHILDREN was such a big part of my life and my wife’s life, and you know, I met my wife there, obviously, had kids and became a young man on that show,” he said. “We got the opportunity to, uh, reboot the prime time version and the idea was brought to us and we’re so excited. Of all the things that we’ve ever announced that we’re going to do this is one of the most, the biggest responses we’ve gotten from our fans, they’re so excited. It’s been a big piece of TV that’s been missing for such a long time and we’re going to bring it back and I’m excited about it.” As far as who we can expect to see, Consuelos demurred, “I think those decisions are way above my pay scale but I know they’re going to bring back some fan favorites and it will take place in Pine Valley and I’m really, really excited.”

    Stars Of ABC’s ‘All My Children’, ‘One Life To Live’ & ‘General Hospital’ Reunite For Streaming Concert Benefit

    (1/14/21) Stars of ABC’s classic daytime dramas All My Children, One Life to Live and General Hospital will reunite next month to present a streaming concert of their past musical performances benefiting Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS.

    ABC Daytime: Back on Broadway will gather musical performances by soap stars including Susan Lucci, Anthony Geary and Eva La Rue during the seven annual benefit concerts staged in New York from 2005-11. The daytime actors will revisit the performances in new interviews as part of the special.

    The special will stream free of charge on February 11. See viewing options below. The lineup of performers includes Bobbie Eakes, Melissa Claire Egan, Vincent Irizarry, Eva La Rue, Susan Lucci, Cameron Mathison, Eden Riegel, Chrishell Stause and Walt Willey (from All My Children); Kristen Alderson, BethAnn Fuenmayor, Kathy Brier, Kassie DePaiva, David Gregory, Renée Elise Goldsberry, Catherine Hickland, Mark Lawson, Hillary B. Smith, Jason Tam and Brittany Underwood (One Life To Live); and Bradford Anderson, Brandon Barash and Anthony Geary (General Hospital).

    “There are no fans like ABC Daytime fans,” said Lucci in a statement. “Their love and support continue to astonish us. We can’t wait to share these special performances with them and help raise money for so many in need during this difficult time.”

    The concerts were staged at New York City’s Town Hall, and included production numbers, Broadway show tunes, ballads and comedy skits. The concert series began in 2005 as a one-night-only benefit to mark the 35th anniversary of All My Children, but fan support prompted ABC to stage the annual event for another six years. Over its seven-year run, ABC Daytime Salutes Broadway Cares raised $1.85 million.

    Tom Viola, Broadway Cares Executive Director, said, “We are so thankful to the stars from ABC Daytime for joining us again as we relive moments from this delightful tradition, while helping to provide lifesaving medication, healthy meals and emergency support to those struggling during this ongoing pandemic.”

    This free streamed event can be viewed beginning Feb. 11, 8 pm ET, here, as well as on Broadway Cares’ YouTube channel, across ABC Owned Television Stations’ 32 connected TV apps on Amazon Fire TV, Android TV, Apple TV, Roku and each of the eight station’s websites around the country, including abc7ny.com in New York; and on Good Morning America’s Facebook page.

    While the stream is free, donations will be accepted for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, with all proceeds to provide people affected by HIV/AIDS, COVID-19 and other critical illnesses with healthy meals, lifesaving medication, emergency financial assistance, housing, counseling and more. The donations also support and champion organizations focused on social justice and anti-racism.

    All My Children Primetime Sequel Series in Development at ABC, From Soap Vets Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos

    (12/17/20) (tvline.com) Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos are raising Kane — maybe even Erica.

    The married alumni of daytime’s All My Children are among the team working on a primetime continuation of the long-running soap opera, our sister site Deadline reports.

    The new project is titled Pine Valley, aka the Pennsylvania community in which AMC was set. It will center on a young reporter with a secret agenda who arrives in town to bring Pine Valley’s deadly history to light. But, naturally, the young journalist gets tied up in a feud between the Santos and Kane families.

    Per Deadline, the prospective show will have a heightened tone, and a relationship to soaps similar to Jane the Virgin‘s relationship to telenovelas. The bulk of the cast would be new characters, with some familiar faces —including Consuelos and Ripa — possibly sprinkled in.

    Ripa and Consuelos played Hayley and Mateo Santos on the original daytime drama, which ran for more than four decades on ABC before a brief stint of new episodes that premiered online via The Online Network. Its biggest star, Susan Lucci, portrayed Erica Kane for the entire ABC run.

    Along with Consuelos and Ripa, the project’s executive producers include Andrew Stearn (Shameless); Leo Richardson (EastEnders, Star), who also will write the script; and Robert Nixon, son of late AMC creator Agnes Nixon. ABC Signature will produce.

    ‘All My Children’ Eyes ABC Return With Primetime Sequel ‘Pine Valley’ In the Works From Andrew Stearn, Kelly Ripa & Mark Consuelos

    (12/17/20) (deadline.com) An iconic daytime drama is getting a primetime makeover. ABC is in early development on Pine Valley, a primetime version of the network’s beloved daytime drama All My Children, with popular alums Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos executive producing alongside Andrew Stearn and filmmaker Robert Nixon, son of the late AMC creator Agnes Nixon.

    In the All My Children followup, written/executive produced by Leo Richardson (Katy Keene, Star), a young journalist with a secret agenda comes to expose the dark and murderous history of a town named Pine Valley only to become entangled in a feud between the Kane and Santos families. The seres explores all the secrets that come with the Kane and Santos family names.

    Kane was one of AMC’s founding families, with Erica Kane (Susan Lucci) becoming one of television’s most popular characters. Ripa and Consuelos, who played Hayley & Mateo Santos on the original series, executive produce via their Milojo Productions alongside the company’s Albert Bianchini. Stearn executive produces through his Andrew Stearn Productions. The company is based at ABC Signature, which is the studio on the project.

    Pine Valley will feature a new generation of characters and some old favorites. There are currently no deals in place with original cast members but the plan is to invite a number of them to make an appearance, with Ripa and Consuelos also possible making a cameo.

    Created by Agnes Nixon, All My Children aired for 41 years on ABC from January 5, 1970 to September 23, 2011, originally in a half-hour format before expanding to hourlong episodes in 1977. The series was set in Pine Valley, Pennsylvania, a fictional suburb of Philadelphia, which is modeled on the actual Philadelphia suburb of Rosemont.

    Pine Valley plans to continue the original series’ legacy of tackling difficult issues and being inclusive. AMC was the first series to comprehensively address the Vietnam War and to have a character undergo a legal abortion. The soap also featured a transgender storyline a decade and a half ago.

    As it will be in primetime, Pine Valley will have a heightened tone and will wink to the daytime soap genre similar to how the CW’s Jane the Virgin paid homage to telenovelas.

    Stearn has been the driving force behind Pine Valley. A lifelong fan, he watched All My Children growing up. Last year, when he was deciding between ABC Signature and one other studio for an overall deal, he chose ABC Signature because it was going to allow him to pursue his dream of rebooting All My Children. He started working toward that goal on Day 1 of his deal, beginning with tracking down the rights.

    Originally owned by Creative Horizons, the company created by Agnes Nixon and her husband, Bob, the show was sold to ABC in January 1975. Shortly after All My Children‘s cancellation by ABC to make room for talk show The Chew, the rights to it and fellow departed ABC daytime soap One Life To Live were acquired by Prospect Park with the idea to continue the shows as web series. After some major hurdles, new episodes of All My Children started taping in Feb. 2013. By November the show had been canceled again. The rights subsequently reverted to ABC after a legal battle.

    With the support of ABC Signature’s Tracy Underwood and the network’s then-head of daytime William Burton, Stearn pitched his idea for a primetime incarnation of the classic daytime drama to then-President of ABC Entertainment Karey Burke, who recently transitioned to a new role as President of 20th Television. She gave the concept thumbs-up, and Stearn proceeded to build a creative team. He brought in as executive producers All My Children alumni Ripa, who has a long history at Disney-ABC, and Consuelos.

    After meeting with a number of writers, Stearn went with Leo Richardson, who had worked on long-running primetime soap EastEnders in his native Britain. Stearn also got on board the estate of Agnes Nixon, with son Robert Nixon joining the project as an executive producer.

    Under his deal, Stearn executive produces the newly picked up ABC drama series Rebel, starring Katey Sagal, which is currently in production.

    Milojo has Mexican Gothic in the works at Hulu and ABC comedy pilot Work Wife starring and executive produced by Kelly Ripa, which is based on her and Live co-host, Ryan Seacrest’s relationship. Michael Halpern, Milojo Productions’ Director of Development, oversees Pine Valley for the company.

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