Steven Bergman/AFF-USA.COM / MEGA
Oh What A Night: (from l.) William Christian (Derek Frye), Kelly Ripa (Hayley Vaughan Santos), Eden Riegel (Bianca Montgomery), Susan Lucci (Erica), Andy Cohen, Jill Larson (Opal Gardner Cortlandt), Casting Director Judy Blye Wilson, Francesca James (Kitty Shea/Kelly Cole and former executive producer), Head Writer Lorraine Broderick and Jennifer Bassey (Marian Colby Chandler).
On January 14, 2025, a handful of former stars of All My Children gathered in New York City to celebrate the 55th anniversary of the fan-favorite soap opera. Billed as Susan Lucci in Conversation with Andy Cohen: All My Children at 55, the event was held at the 92nd Street Y, New York and was hosted by Bravo exec and self-avowed AMC fanatic Andy Cohen. The panel discussion led by Cohen gave those in attendance a behind-the-scenes look at life in Pine Valley.
In attendance were Daytime Emmy Lead Actress winner and Lifetime Achievement recipient Susan Lucci (Erica Kane), Kelly Ripa (Hayley Vaughan Santos), Jill Larson (Opal Gardner Cortlandt), Eden Riegel (Bianca Montgomery), Jennifer Bassey (Marian Colby Chandler), and Francesca James (Kitty Shea and Kelly Cole; former AMC executive producer). The actors were joined by Emmy-winning former AMC Head Writer Lorraine Broderick and acclaimed AMC Casting Director Judy Blye Wilson.
Here are five of the most fascinating takeaways from the evening’s lively conversation.
1. All My Children was supposed to have a totally different ending!
Created by the legendary Agnes Nixon, All My Children premiered on ABC as a new, 30-minute soap opera on January 5, 1970. On September 23, 2011, after airing 10,712 episodes, the show came to a shocking and arguably unnecessary ending.
To wrap up the iconic soap’s run, ABC brought back some of the show’s most memorable alumni and one of the show’s most visionary head writers, Broderick. The idea was to tie up all the ongoing narratives with a nice little bow and give closure to fans, but you know what they say about the best-laid plans.
“We had an entirely different, happy ending of All My Children, the final script that we all worked so hard on,” Broderick revealed. “And then they decided to pick up on this short-term Internet thing that happened” — Prospect Park’s ultimately short-lived AMC reboot, which streamed online in 2013 — “and we had to go back in and change everything so that everything was a cliffhanger so that they would have something [to launch with in the reboot],” which was initially intended to debut the very next week after AMC’s ABC finale.
As AMC fans will remember, the final scenes had nearly everyone in Pine Valley gathered at the Chandler mansion. A drunken JR Chandler lurked in the mansion’s hidden passageways armed with a gun. As the gun fired, the screen went black.
“If we tied everything up and Erica [was] happily married to Jack, what do you do then? So we had to change the whole thing,” Broderick continued.
However, a series of protracted legal and financial issues resulted in that online version being delayed by several years. When the AMC reboot finally did come to pass, only a scant 43 episodes were produced before production was once again shut down. (And if you’re curious, it was revealed who JR shot, and sadly killed: his ex, Marissa Tait, who was in a loving relationship with Bianca at the time.)
ABC
If the original vision for AMC’s end had been executed, JR (Jacob Young) wouldn’t have had a killer ending.
2. Erica Kane is dating a tech billionaire?!
It’s been more than a decade since All My Children last aired on ABC, but that doesn’t mean that life in Pine Valley has stopped. With the recent news that AMC might find new life in a pair of Lifetime movies, we couldn’t help but wonder if any of the AMC actors ever thought about what their Pine Valley alter egos might be up to today, and submitted that question, which Cohen read to the panel on stage.
“I think Erica would be married to a tech billionaire,” Ripa replied. “And she has a foundation that she’d be running, like a charitable trust, but maybe it has a dark edge to it. Naturally, she has an affair with her protégé who is also running the charitable trust.”
Lucci perked up and leaned closer to Ripa, commenting, “Ooh, I like that.”
Stephanie Augello/Getty Images
Cohen was enthralled by Lucci’s responses.
3. A little Chandler twin TMI
For more than a quarter of a century, the late David Canary masterfully portrayed both Adam and Stuart Chandler. His work bringing the All My Children twins to life earned him a whopping five Daytime Emmys in the Lead Actor category.
However, in a seemingly unthinkable alternate reality, Stuart Chandler never set foot in Pine Valley.
“Originally, Adam Chandler was going to have a wife up in the attic,” Broderick revealed. “I didn’t want to say anything stupid [to the AMC higher-ups], but I said, ‘We have such a wonderful actor in David Canary. What if he has a twin brother?’ So, then it became what it became.”
Jennifer Bassey, who worked with both of Canary’s dueling dual roles, shared that working with Canary was one of the highlights of her tenure at AMC. In fact, Bassey said that her favorite storyline involved Marian getting drunk and sleeping with Adam – only to find out that she’d gotten into bed with Stuart, not Adam.
Bassey explained that Canary had an unusual take on why the saucy Marian Colby chose mild-mannered Stuart over billionaire Adam. “Adam had the brains, but Stuart had the goods,” Bassey said, earning a roar of laughter from the audience.
Stephanie Augello/Getty Images
Bassey’s comments left Riegel in stitches.
4. Who Killed Will Cortlandt? No, really… who killed him?
Soap fans have an uncanny knack to remember just about everything. If Superman’s super power is being able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, then soap fans’ super power is being able to recall every minute detail of just about every episode of any soap that has ever aired.
With pages and pages and pages of dialogue to remember, do the stars of the shows have that same rapid recall? Well… maybe not with every story.
In the spring of 1992, All My Children fans were buzzing about the murder of Will Cortlandt, played by James Patrick Stuart (Valentin, General Hospital). It wasn’t that it was shocking that Will was killed, but more so that seemingly every single Pine Valley resident had a reason to kill him.
“Do we remember who killed Will Cortlandt?” Andy Cohen asked. His question was met with silence from the panel.
“It had to be Erica,” Kelly Ripa suggested after a few moments. She then looked at Susan Lucci and asked pointedly, “Did you kill Will?”
When several members of the audience shouted out “Janet From Another Planet,” and suddenly everyone on stage remembered the “who” in the whodunit. Janet Green, played by Kate Collins, had sneaked out of her hospital room and bludgeoned Will to death with a crowbar.
ABC
The ill-fated Will Cortlandt (James Patrick Stuart) did despicable things to Kelly Ripa’s Hayley.
5. Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos’s relationship was AMC’s worst-kept secret
Over the years, there were many reel-life romances at AMC that turned into real-life love stories. Perhaps the best known is that of Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos. Consuelos was cast as Mateo Santos in 1995 as a love interest for Ripa’s Hayley Vaughan.
Ripa and Consuelos fell in love and, now 30 years later, are married with three adult children. They have their own production company that was rumored to have been working on and AMC prime-time reboot. They’re also once again working together, this time as co-hosts of Live! With Kelly and Mark.
Back in 1995, the real-life couple went to what they believed to be great lengths to keep their relationship a secret.
“We always thought we were keeping it quiet because we didn’t want there to be this weird, ‘Oh they can’t possibly work together because what if they break up? Then we’ll have to get rid of one of them,’ ” Ripa confessed.
It turns out that Ripa and Consuelos’s supposedly secret relationship was anything but secret.
“I have to say something about Mark and Kelly,” Susan Lucci interjected. “I was happy to be in the hair and makeup room watching their audition scenes and we were all like, ‘Oh, get a room!’ Their chemistry was coming right through the screen!”
Despite those obvious sparks, Judy Blye Wilson revealed that the network hadn’t been 100 percent sold on Consuelos. While Consuelos was eventually hired for the role, Blye Wilson explained that she had been instructed to continue searching for another actor. Eventually, according to Wilson, ABC “relinquished” and Consuelos was allowed to remain in the role.
“Without Judy I would literally have nothing,” Ripa shared. “I would not have my husband. I would not have my children. You are responsible for everything good that has ever happened to us and I just want to publicly say that.”
Secret’s Out! By 1997, Ripa and Consuelos were married, expecting their first child and posing on the cover of Soap Opera Digest.
Steven Bergman/AFF-USA.COM / MEGA
Oh What A Night: (from l.) William Christian (Derek Frye), Kelly Ripa (Hayley Vaughan Santos), Eden Riegel (Bianca Montgomery), Susan Lucci (Erica), Andy Cohen, Jill Larson (Opal Gardner Cortlandt), Casting Director Judy Blye Wilson, Francesca James (Kitty Shea/Kelly Cole and former executive producer), Head Writer Lorraine Broderick and Jennifer Bassey (Marian Colby Chandler).
On January 14, 2025, a handful of former stars of All My Children gathered in New York City to celebrate the 55th anniversary of the fan-favorite soap opera. Billed as Susan Lucci in Conversation with Andy Cohen: All My Children at 55, the event was held at the 92nd Street Y, New York and was hosted by Bravo exec and self-avowed AMC fanatic Andy Cohen. The panel discussion led by Cohen gave those in attendance a behind-the-scenes look at life in Pine Valley.
In attendance were Daytime Emmy Lead Actress winner and Lifetime Achievement recipient Susan Lucci (Erica Kane), Kelly Ripa (Hayley Vaughan Santos), Jill Larson (Opal Gardner Cortlandt), Eden Riegel (Bianca Montgomery), Jennifer Bassey (Marian Colby Chandler), and Francesca James (Kitty Shea and Kelly Cole; former AMC executive producer). The actors were joined by Emmy-winning former AMC Head Writer Lorraine Broderick and acclaimed AMC Casting Director Judy Blye Wilson.
Here are five of the most fascinating takeaways from the evening’s lively conversation.
1. All My Children was supposed to have a totally different ending!
Created by the legendary Agnes Nixon, All My Children premiered on ABC as a new, 30-minute soap opera on January 5, 1970. On September 23, 2011, after airing 10,712 episodes, the show came to a shocking and arguably unnecessary ending.
To wrap up the iconic soap’s run, ABC brought back some of the show’s most memorable alumni and one of the show’s most visionary head writers, Broderick. The idea was to tie up all the ongoing narratives with a nice little bow and give closure to fans, but you know what they say about the best-laid plans.
“We had an entirely different, happy ending of All My Children, the final script that we all worked so hard on,” Broderick revealed. “And then they decided to pick up on this short-term Internet thing that happened” — Prospect Park’s ultimately short-lived AMC reboot, which streamed online in 2013 — “and we had to go back in and change everything so that everything was a cliffhanger so that they would have something [to launch with in the reboot],” which was initially intended to debut the very next week after AMC’s ABC finale.
As AMC fans will remember, the final scenes had nearly everyone in Pine Valley gathered at the Chandler mansion. A drunken JR Chandler lurked in the mansion’s hidden passageways armed with a gun. As the gun fired, the screen went black.
“If we tied everything up and Erica [was] happily married to Jack, what do you do then? So we had to change the whole thing,” Broderick continued.
However, a series of protracted legal and financial issues resulted in that online version being delayed by several years. When the AMC reboot finally did come to pass, only a scant 43 episodes were produced before production was once again shut down. (And if you’re curious, it was revealed who JR shot, and sadly killed: his ex, Marissa Tait, who was in a loving relationship with Bianca at the time.)
ABC
If the original vision for AMC’s end had been executed, JR (Jacob Young) wouldn’t have had a killer ending.
2. Erica Kane is dating a tech billionaire?!
It’s been more than a decade since All My Children last aired on ABC, but that doesn’t mean that life in Pine Valley has stopped. With the recent news that AMC might find new life in a pair of Lifetime movies, we couldn’t help but wonder if any of the AMC actors ever thought about what their Pine Valley alter egos might be up to today, and submitted that question, which Cohen read to the panel on stage.
“I think Erica would be married to a tech billionaire,” Ripa replied. “And she has a foundation that she’d be running, like a charitable trust, but maybe it has a dark edge to it. Naturally, she has an affair with her protégé who is also running the charitable trust.”
Lucci perked up and leaned closer to Ripa, commenting, “Ooh, I like that.”
Stephanie Augello/Getty Images
Cohen was enthralled by Lucci’s responses.
3. A little Chandler twin TMI
For more than a quarter of a century, the late David Canary masterfully portrayed both Adam and Stuart Chandler. His work bringing the All My Children twins to life earned him a whopping five Daytime Emmys in the Lead Actor category.
However, in a seemingly unthinkable alternate reality, Stuart Chandler never set foot in Pine Valley.
“Originally, Adam Chandler was going to have a wife up in the attic,” Broderick revealed. “I didn’t want to say anything stupid [to the AMC higher-ups], but I said, ‘We have such a wonderful actor in David Canary. What if he has a twin brother?’ So, then it became what it became.”
Jennifer Bassey, who worked with both of Canary’s dueling dual roles, shared that working with Canary was one of the highlights of her tenure at AMC. In fact, Bassey said that her favorite storyline involved Marian getting drunk and sleeping with Adam – only to find out that she’d gotten into bed with Stuart, not Adam.
Bassey explained that Canary had an unusual take on why the saucy Marian Colby chose mild-mannered Stuart over billionaire Adam. “Adam had the brains, but Stuart had the goods,” Bassey said, earning a roar of laughter from the audience.
Stephanie Augello/Getty Images
Bassey’s comments left Riegel in stitches.
4. Who Killed Will Cortlandt? No, really… who killed him?
Soap fans have an uncanny knack to remember just about everything. If Superman’s super power is being able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, then soap fans’ super power is being able to recall every minute detail of just about every episode of any soap that has ever aired.
With pages and pages and pages of dialogue to remember, do the stars of the shows have that same rapid recall? Well… maybe not with every story.
In the spring of 1992, All My Children fans were buzzing about the murder of Will Cortlandt, played by James Patrick Stuart (Valentin, General Hospital). It wasn’t that it was shocking that Will was killed, but more so that seemingly every single Pine Valley resident had a reason to kill him.
“Do we remember who killed Will Cortlandt?” Andy Cohen asked. His question was met with silence from the panel.
“It had to be Erica,” Kelly Ripa suggested after a few moments. She then looked at Susan Lucci and asked pointedly, “Did you kill Will?”
When several members of the audience shouted out “Janet From Another Planet,” and suddenly everyone on stage remembered the “who” in the whodunit. Janet Green, played by Kate Collins, had sneaked out of her hospital room and bludgeoned Will to death with a crowbar.
ABC
The ill-fated Will Cortlandt (James Patrick Stuart) did despicable things to Kelly Ripa’s Hayley.
5. Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos’s relationship was AMC’s worst-kept secret
Over the years, there were many reel-life romances at AMC that turned into real-life love stories. Perhaps the best known is that of Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos. Consuelos was cast as Mateo Santos in 1995 as a love interest for Ripa’s Hayley Vaughan.
Ripa and Consuelos fell in love and, now 30 years later, are married with three adult children. They have their own production company that was rumored to have been working on and AMC prime-time reboot. They’re also once again working together, this time as co-hosts of Live! With Kelly and Mark.
Back in 1995, the real-life couple went to what they believed to be great lengths to keep their relationship a secret.
“We always thought we were keeping it quiet because we didn’t want there to be this weird, ‘Oh they can’t possibly work together because what if they break up? Then we’ll have to get rid of one of them,’ ” Ripa confessed.
It turns out that Ripa and Consuelos’s supposedly secret relationship was anything but secret.
“I have to say something about Mark and Kelly,” Susan Lucci interjected. “I was happy to be in the hair and makeup room watching their audition scenes and we were all like, ‘Oh, get a room!’ Their chemistry was coming right through the screen!”
Despite those obvious sparks, Judy Blye Wilson revealed that the network hadn’t been 100 percent sold on Consuelos. While Consuelos was eventually hired for the role, Blye Wilson explained that she had been instructed to continue searching for another actor. Eventually, according to Wilson, ABC “relinquished” and Consuelos was allowed to remain in the role.
“Without Judy I would literally have nothing,” Ripa shared. “I would not have my husband. I would not have my children. You are responsible for everything good that has ever happened to us and I just want to publicly say that.”
Secret’s Out! By 1997, Ripa and Consuelos were married, expecting their first child and posing on the cover of Soap Opera Digest.