Cohen - Most talkative: stories from the front lines of pop culture

This book is dedicated to the strong women in my life: first and foremost my mom, Evelyn Cohen, and all those in these pages and each and every Housewife.

And of course Madonna. Just because.

CONTENTS

MY DATE WITH SUSAN LUCCI

Im standing on the corner of Sixty-seventh and Columbus Avenue in Manhattan waiting for a meeting that will change my life. Its December 11, 1987. Im nineteen years old and about to have my first encounter with a celebrity. Not just any celebrity. The Queen of Daytime, and my first diva: Susan Lucci.

I fell in love with Erica Kane the summer before my freshman year of high school. Like all red-blooded teen American boys, Id come home from water polo practice and eat a box of Entenmanns PopEms donut holes in front of the TV while obsessively fawning over All My Children and Erica, her clothes, and her narcissistic attitude. My sister Em and I even got my mom into the show. Which was a coup because Evelyn Cohen doesnt suffer fools: She gets the New York Times not Soap Opera Digest delivered to our house in St. Louis. And in general, Jewish women dont tend to sit around watching soaps. Dont ask me why.

Dinner conversation at the Cohens meant my sister, mom, and I relaying in brutal detail the days events in a state of amplified hysteria, while my father listened to his own smooth jazz station in his head. After dinner, my dad would rejoin the living, and I would inevitably hear the three words I dreaded more than anything else: Wanna play catch?

No, I did not want to play catch. Ever.

I would turn to my mom for a reprieve, who would instead give me a look that was simultaneously threatening and begging. Just humor your father and go TOSS THE DAMN BALL! I got out of it most times by just making a run for it and sliding into my home base, in front of the TV.

Susan Lucci was the biggest star in the daytime galaxy, and she served it up hot and fresh and chic five days a week. Before there was Joan Collinss Alexis Morrell Carrington Colby Dexter Rowan on Dynasty , there was Erica Kane Martin Brent Cudahy Chandler Montgomery Montgomery Chandler Marick Marick Montgomery on All My Children .

A few months earlier, the professor in my Boston University news writing and reporting class assigned us a feature story and challenged us to nab an interview with one of our idols. He said if we got someone good, we could get our article published in the BU newspaper. Finally, my ticket to something biga bylineand a chance to meet and interview one of my two idols: Susan Lucci or Sam Donaldson.

I didnt say Sam Donaldson just to impress my professor, either. I really loved him. During the Reagan years, he was the only member of the White House press corps who actually asked the man a direct question and held him accountable. (To this day, when Im interviewing someone, I try to channel Sam. Of course, today my hardest-hitting interviews are usually with Real Housewives.) My admiration for Donaldson aside, when you give yourself two celebrity options on an assignment like this, you can bet that the one without the weird hair system is going to win every time.

I wrote Luccis publicist an impassioned declaration of love, which secured me an interview, which was then postponed multiple times until this day. Fearful that I was one more postponement away from cancellation, I woke up at 7 a.m. and began calling that publicists office to nail down the details and get my instructions for the day. All I knew was that I was supposed to meet Susan Lucci. The rest was a mystery, and I wanted it solved. I dialed and dialed and the phone rang and rang. By 9 a.m. I was convinced this interview, like the others, wasnt going to happen. But I was already in New York City! I couldnt go home empty-handed. Ruefully, I decided that Sam Donaldsons publicist never would have blown me off, if Sam Donaldson indeed even had a publicist. Probably not. Sam Donaldson was too down-to-earth, and theres no way a publicist would have just let that hair thing go.

Three hours after Id begun, I deliberately punched in the now memorized sequence of numbers in a last-ditch effort. One ring. Two rings. Three, four, five, six, seven and then someone, an assistant I guess, finally picked up. I was told to report to the ABC studios on the Upper West Side at 12:30. And thats how I learned that people in New York dont start working until 10 a.m. How cushy.

I get momentarily dizzy when I see the marquee that says, In Pine Valley, Anything Can Happen. Of course, Ive arrived outside the studio an hour early wearing bar mitzvah attire: button-down, paisley tie, sport jacket, and a trench coat that could have been from the MiniDan Rather Collection. My hair is more awkward than normal, as Im in the midst of growing it out to Deadhead perfection. I tamed the Jewfro when I woke up, but its stability is threatened by the humidity of an unseasonably warm December day.

But I havent shown up with sixty minutes to spare just to stand around and gawk like a tourist. I have something else on my agenda. In addition to the Lucci interview, Im working on a creative writing paper examining whether Pine Valley is an accurate representation of society. (Just the sort of deep topic my parents expected me to be exploring when they signed my enormous BU tuition check.) Ive brought my tape recorder to nab on-the-street interviews with actors from the show.

Occasionally a Pine Valley resident walks out of the stage door and I first internally freak out (OMG ITS CLIFF!), then attack them with my recorder. I see myself as a Sam Donaldson type; they probably see me as a John Hinckley Jr. type.

IS PINE VALLEY AN ACCURATE REFLECTION OF SOCIETY?! I yell at every familiar face in a high-pitched panic. They are all initially terrified and must take a moment to process what is happening: overly hyper kid with tape recorder and fro yelling stupid question. Once they realize Im probably not going to shoot any of them to impress Jodie Foster, I get quick interviews with Donna, Cliff, Ross, Travis (who has dried shaving cream on his ear), and even the man who plays Palmers butler, Jasper. Their answers are grippingNot really. No. Maybe.

At 12:30, euphoric after my journalistic ramp-up to the main event, I walk into the building and announce that Im there as a guest of Ms. Lucci. Susan Lucci, I say, triumphantly. I am Andrew Cohen and I am here to see Susan Lucci.

The guard nonchalantly mumbles into a microphone, and his voice crackles over a loudspeaker, Susan Lucci, guest in the lobby. I am stunned at his informality and offended by his lack of respect when summoning the actress who plays Erica Kane.

I wait in terror, convinced that something, yet again, will go awry: Ive gotten the day wrong, or Ms. Luccis changed her mind. Or it could go exactly as Id imagineda minion would appear to spirit me away to Erica Kanes penthouse lair. After a couple of minutes, the double doors open, and she glides toward me. Susan Lucci. Radiant. Confident. Really, really small. Like, child-sized, even. My moment of disconcertion at how this person who is larger than life to me could be so alarmingly pint-sized is short-lived, as she opens her mouth to speak.