Last month, we embarked on what I called a beautiful literary journey through the life of Susan Lucci. Having recently written about several of her made-for-TV movies (with more reviews still to come)—and having been an All My Children viewer during the days of Erica Kane’s daughter Bianca’s overwrought coming-out—I was curious about her 2011 memoir, All My Life.

It’s a guarded autobiography, padded by flowery, repetitious gushing (about everyone from Regis Philbin and Marvin Hamlisch to private drivers and her family’s treasured nanny) that holds readers at arm’s length. She references this in the first chapter of the book, when discussing her roots:

I believe in mystery. I am drawn to it and am very comfortable being surrounded by it. Maybe that is part of why I chose to keep an air of mystery over my own life as I stepped into the limelight years later. Maybe.

susan lucci, all my life: A memoir

At times her relentless cheerfulness, humility and gratitude lend the volume a MadLibs quality. The word “wonderful” appears at least 35 times; “beautiful” 25. Here is a full accounting of things she calls “gorgeous”:

  • Fred Leighton chandelier earrings
  • The handbag she carried the night she finally won the Emmy (technically it’s Rosie O’Donnell who refers to the bag as gorgeous)
  • Her mother’s freckles
  • Herself (when recounting the time she was called “a gorgeous girl” by an agent who advised her early in her career to modernize her look: “Kids your age are wearing jeans and love beads, not black dresses, white gloves, and pearls!”)
  • Hair extensions and Asian fan headpieces worn on AMC during one of Erica’s modeling assignments
  • The home kept by her Austrian sister-in-law, “the quintessential European wife”
  • Joy Philbin
  • The Rainbow Room
  • The sunny day on which she, her husband, and their friends John and Marylou landed in Anchorage, Alaska after a flight on John and Marylou’s private plane
  • The blouses, dresses and beautiful earrings gifted to her by flamboyant super-fan Carlos at ABC’s Super Soap Weekend events
  • A cream-colored Rolls-Royce Corniche she drove in an AMC scene
  • Mark LaMura’s hair

When Lucci ditches pleasant generalities in favor of specifics, things get more interesting. All My Life‘s brief second chapter details her adjustment to life at Marymount College and her workplace introduction to future husband Helmut Huber. We learn that from childhood on, Lucci paid close attention to the opening and closing credits of everything she watched. This takes an unexpected turn when getting to know her new classmates:

I learned as much about movies as I could, from the mainstream to the obscure. One night, at the beginning of my freshman year, I was watching a movie in the tearoom with the other girls when all of the sudden I heard someone from the back of the room shout out, “Oh, that’s Oscar Homolka!” Now, for those of you who don’t know Oscar Homolka, he was an old-time Austrian film and theater actor from the 1930s. He wasn’t exactly a household name, so when I heard someone else in the room recognize him, I thought to myself, “Someone else knows Oscar Homolka? I must meet this person.”

Susan lucci, all my life: a memoir

When the film was over, an enduring friendship was born. Who doesn’t have a story like that? In my twenties, upon meeting my first fellow Millennial who was not only familiar with Kay Francis but called her Kay Fwancis, I quickly fell in love.

My deepest, longest-running friendship as an adult is, after 20+ years, largely sustained by jabber about guest stars from old episodes of Quincy, M.E., or shared excitement about Faye Dunaway’s appearance on Columbo. It’s nice to know that glamorous TV legends are film geeks like the rest of us, even if we can’t quite relate to the exquisite Asian fan headpieces or Rolls-Royce misadventures.