Most Talkative: Stories From the Front Lines of Pop Culture Andy Cohen (nice books to read .TXT) 📖

on leading this double life for years, but as it was, I had a choice to make. And though it saddened me, I quietly entered into a trial separation with AMC.

Regardless of that breakup, I was still dying to have Susan Lucci on CBS. My love for her transcended my allegiance to any soap. But while my heart ached to produce her in a morning show segment like she’d never been produced before, my mind knew it would be unlikely to have such a big ABC star appear on a competitor’s morning show.

It had been five years since I ran into her again, in June 1992, Daytime Emmy night. She’d just lost for the twelfth time but received a one-minute-thirty-second emotional standing ovation later in the show as she took the stage to present an award. At the end of the broadcast, she was surrounded by press and fans as she made her way out of the Marriott Marquis ballroom in New York City. I was now an assistant producer at CBS News covering the show. I fought my way through the crowd until we were face-to-face in the frenzy. Grabbing her hand, I said, “You wouldn’t remember me, but I’m…”

“You’re Andrew!” she said. “What are you doing with yourself?” she asked. When I told her I worked at CBS News, she turned to her husband and Dick Clark. “This is the boy who took me to lunch when he was a sophomore in college,” she told them. “And I said, ‘Oh, I’ll be hearing from Andrew Cohen again.’ And here you are! You brought me that sweatshirt,” she added, as though that day were as indelibly imprinted in her memory as it was in mine. I floated on air all night.

A few years later I was at the premiere of a James Bond movie at the Museum of Modern Art. In honor of the film, MoMA had been transformed into a casino, albeit the less fun legal kind. I saw her across the room—tiny and glamorous and glowing. Before I realized what I was doing, I walked halfway over to her. I broke out in flop-sweat. What was I supposed to say? Would she remember me? Would she NOT remember me? The fifty free hors d’oeuvres I’d eaten earlier combined with just the thought of approaching her had me right on the cusp of throwing up, but I knew I’d hate myself if I didn’t try to talk to her. I continued right up to her, praying my stomach contents would stay in.

“Susan!” I said. “It’s Andy Cohen. I interviewed you for the BU newspaper?”

I was relieved when Susan said, “Of course I remember you! Hello!” Then I said, “Hello!” She nodded and smiled. I had nothing to say beyond that, the exact thing I’d said to her the last time I’d seen her. I did an incredibly awkward nod/shrug/bow combo and backed away. I fake-cashed-in my fake-chips and left, convinced that she actually had no clue who I was.

But like any stalker worth his salt, I never gave up on her, and I did finally concoct a reason to get her on CBS This Morning. We were doing what might rank as our lamest series ever—which is saying something. This venture was called “Celebrity Secrets.” The people involved were neither big celebrities nor were they revealing anything that came close to being a secret. In fact, the only secret revealed by this segment was that morning shows have a lot of time to fill. No matter. I used it as an opportunity for another Close Encounter of the Lucci Kind.

I called Lucci’s publicist—a new one, I have no clue what happened to the woman who’d made my college dreams come true—and pitched this “Celebrity Secrets” idea. Surely there must be a “secret” that Susan would share with Paula Zahn on our morning show? To my unmitigated joy, they agreed that Susan would do the segment, and after some back-and-forth, we agreed on what unbelievable secret Susan would reveal to the world, for the first time ever, on our show: Susan Lucci Loves to Shop on the Top Floor of Bergdorf Goodman! In my mind, the image of Paula and Susan and Susan’s personal shopper strolling through Bergdorf’s seemed like Morning Show Gold. In retrospect, I realize a TV star shopping at Bergdorf’s was not really much of a secret. Where did people think she shopped?

Many preparations, walkthroughs, and schedule adjustments followed in the ramp-up to the Lucci shoot. All My Children helpfully rescheduled Lucci’s on-set day to accommodate Paula’s interview. Bergdorf’s agreed to close their top floor for several hours. I locked in our two best crews and lighting guys to ensure the women would look flawless. I was proud to be meeting Lucci this time as an established TV professional and not an awkward fan. It felt like another one of those out-of-body moments when you can see your dreams and reality meeting.

Then everything went to shit. The morning of the shoot, I got a call from my boss telling me to cancel the crew. “Why?!!” I practically screamed. “Why?!!!” I was given several explanations as to why the whole thing was off. One version was that Paula thought the segment was beneath a newswoman of her stature. Another version was that the executive producer hated the series and that this particular non-secret, at Bergdorf’s, was beyond his comfort level. I’ve come to believe the former.

Whatever the real reason, it was then up to me to break the last-minute news to Susan Lucci’s camp. And of course, I had to think of a fake excuse to offer them, because of the two excuses I’d been given, one version made our anchor look bad and the other made me look like an idiot for coming up with the idea in the first place.

Bumbling my way through an uncomfortable series of phone calls with the publicist, I’m sure I came across as a total nutjob because I hadn’t gotten