Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Associated Press
NEW YORK
Erica Kane wouldn’t leave quietly if she felt she’d been wronged. Neither is Susan Lucci as “All My Children” nears its end on ABC.
Lucci has memorably portrayed Kane on the drama, which airs its last episode on ABC on Sept. 23, and it’s unclear whether she will be a part of an attempt to migrate the series online.
In a newly published epilogue to her memoir, Lucci sharply criticized her ABC bosses for axing “All My Children,” which has been on the air since 1970. She said the decision to cancel the show was motivated by greed and said the head of ABC’s daytime unit, Brian Frons, has “that fatal combination of ignorance and arrogance.”
Frons, in canceling “All My Children” and “One Life to Live” in April, said the soap operas were a victim of declining interest.
Lucci told her own story in the paperback edition of “All My Life,” a memoir published in hardcover earlier this year. The actress said Frons said, in telling her about the cancellation, that it would be 40 percent cheaper to make the cooking and weight-loss series that are replacing the two soap operas.
“If Brian Frons could show his bosses that he could save the network 40 percent in production costs, he could keep his job even if the rest of us lost ours,” she wrote.
The future for Lucci and “All My Children” is uncertain. The media company Prospect Park has a deal to continue the two soap opera stories beyond their TV lives on other platforms.