LUCCI: FROM A SOAP TO A PRIME-TIME ‘PRINCESS’

“I’m just a red-blooded American girl trying to have it all,” Susan Lucci said, half-jokingly, half-seriously summing up her life’s ambitions.

One of daytime television’s most durable and reportedly one of its highest-paid continuing characters, Lucci is best known as Erica Kane, the villainous yet romantic heroine of ABC’s “All My Children.”

In one of her few ventures from daytime drama in 15 years, she will be seen in prime time Sunday in the title role of a two-hour NBC movie, “Mafia Princess.” The actress says she’s going through a “a decision-making process” to determine whether to remain on the popular soap or move full time into other areas as an actress. “Mafia Princess” is part of that process.

In it, Lucci plays Antoinette Giancana, daughter of the late Chicago crime syndicate boss Sam Giancana. Giancana’s 1970s autobiography about her life with her father is the basis for the NBC-TV film.

“I realized that I could leave the soap, be stimulated and return, and now I want more and more,” Lucci said recently during a break from her demanding four-day weekly schedule at the mid-Manhattan “All My Children” studio.

“Over the years I’d seen other actresses leave to go off to Los Angeles to look for other kinds of work, but for a long time I felt I needed experience as an actress,” said Lucci, who went directly from college (Marymount) to the daytime soap. “Here, I had a chance to grow in a complicated, very demanding role. And maybe the range (of Erica) has helped people see my possibilities.”

Lucci said the role of Giancana, whom she said she has not met, was far afield from Erica Kane. She pointed out that many TV viewers might not even recognize her, since she ages in the TV movie role from 16 to 40.

“She is much more of a victim than Erica,” said Lucci, citing Giancana’s troubled relationships with other men, alcohol abuse and even her suicidal tendencies. Most of her problems stemmed from her “stormy, often violent relationship” with her father, Lucci said.

“It was a constant father-daughter struggle, and a lot of people can relate to this,” said Lucci, whose father is Italian and whose mother is Swedish. “I had and have a wonderful relationship, and a lot of adoration and admiration for my father, but I also know something of this kind of struggle. There have been times when he hasn’t always responded to me in the way I would wish.”

Lucci pointed out that her family-oriented father “would have much preferred my growing up and having a family that would fill a pew in a church rather than becoming an actress.”

She said that only in recent years has she been free to move into other areas beyond the soaps. Her ABC contract for “All My Children” only recently has allowed her to act elsewhere. And as her children, Andreas, 5, and Liza, 10, get older she feels more comfortable expanding her acting horizons.

Lucci made a cameo appearance two years ago in her first feature film, “Young Doctors in Love,” and more recently has been seen in episodes of “Love Boat” and “Fantasy Island.” She also appeared in an ABC-TV movie last year, “Invitation to Hell.”

“My attitude from the start was that I would never walk through the role, for fear I’d be boring, or stupid, or laughable.

“There’s no telling that the same kinds of roles will come along for me in other areas, but I definitely want to make movies,” Lucci said of her future ambitions, whether or not she remains on “All My Children.”

“Actors need to grow,” she said.