Susan Lucci honored, Barbara Walters remembered at 50th Daytime Emmy Awards
Connie #Connie
LOS ANGELES –”General Hospital” won six trophies, including four for acting, at the Daytime Emmy Awards Friday, while “All My Children” star Susan Lucci won the Lifetime Achievement Award and “The View” creator Barbara Walters was memorialized by Connie Chung.
“Hospital” also won best daytime drama series. “This is really a special night and I feel very appreciative and a little anxious,” executive producer Frank Valentini said. Among acting winners was Sonya Eddy, who won for her role as “Hospital” head nurse Epiphany Johnson, but died last December at 55 from a post-surgical infection; producer N’Neka Garland, also a winner, worked as a producer on the series for 22 years before dying of a heart attack in March at 49.
Executive producer Frank Valentini and the team from “General Hospital” accept the award for outstanding drama series during the 50th Daytime Emmy Awards on Friday, Dec. 15, 2023, at the Westin Bonaventure Hotel in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)
“We’d like to dedicate this to Sonya Eddy and N’Neka Garland, we love you so much,” Valentini said at the ceremony, held at the Westin Bonaventure Hotel.
The ceremony marked the first major awards show since dual writers’ and actors’ strikes ended this fall, and had been postponed from a planned June 16 date until Friday.
Susan Lucci wins Lifetime Achievement Award, thanks late husband Helmut Huber
Shemar Moore, right, presents the Lifetime Achievement Award to Susan Lucci during the 50th Daytime Emmy Awards on Friday in Los Angeles.
Susan Lucci received the Lifetime Achievement Honor for her 40-year run as Erica Kane on ABC’s “All My Children.”
Lucci, 76, famously had one of the Emmys’ longest losing streaks. She was nominated 18 times in the lead actress category before finally winning in 1999.Shemar Moore, who shouted, “The streak is over!” when presenting her with the trophy back then, returned to introduce her. “She’s the leading lady of daytime,” Moore said before Lucci was greeted with a standing ovation.”How lucky was I to be put in the hands of (creator) Agnes Nixon. Agnes was the trailblazer. She was the visionary storyteller who gave me the part of a lifetime: The fabulously flawed Erica Kane.”
Lucci thanked her son, Andreas Huber, and her late husband, Helmut Huber, who died in 2022: “The icing on the cake for me tonight is that my son Andreas is with me. It means so much to me to have you here with me. And you know what else? I feel your dad’s presence here tonight with us, too. I thank my husband, Helmut Huber, because he has everything to do with my standing up here tonight, and receiving this incredible award.”
Fellow newswoman Connie Chung paid tribute to Barbara Walters, a trailblazer who, among other accomplishments, created ABC’s hit daytime talk show “The View” in 1997. She died last December at 93. Walters “revolutionized the face of daytime television” with the show as “the creator, the producer, the star – the engine behind it,” Chung said. “And this was on top of her pioneering career in news and interviews. She was the icon who paved the way for all women in television news, especially me. She mom-ed me. And although they would never admit it, she taught the men a thing or two, I can’t fathom she is gone. We remember her and all the others who passed, for their contributions to television.”
‘Wonder Years’ star Alley Mills wins first Emmy for ‘Hospital’
Alley Mills, 72, best-known for her role as the mom on ABC’s original 1988-93 version of “The Wonder Years,” won her first Emmy for guest performance on a daytime drama. (Her husband, actor Orson Bean, was killed in 2020 after being hit by two cars while crossing a street in the Venice neighborhood of Los Angeles.) “I had just lost my beloved husband – it was pretty traumatic – and then I get asked to play a seriously traumatized person who kills a lot of people, but she’s got a heart of gold,” Mills said. “And she’s barreling towards the light all the time and it gave me that ability to keep going and barrel towards the light. The world is so screwed up right now that all I can say to all of you traumatized people out there, just keep barreling towards the light.”
Among other notables, Thorsten Kaye won his first Emmy after seven nominations for lead actor in a daytime drama series for his role as Ridge Forrester on CBS’s “The Bold and the Beautiful.”
Kelly Clarkson, shown here at the November Rockefeller Center tree-lighting ceremony, was a no-show at the Daytime Emmy Awards but won her third consecutive talk-show honor.
Kelly Clarkson wins third Emmy for daytime talk show
Kelly Clarkson earned her third consecutive trophy for a daytime talk series, and won as daytime talk host. The singer, who didn’t attend, moved her syndicated show from Los Angeles to New York this year.”It’s a pleasure to work with her. She makes it fun, she’s a joy every day and that makes it a little easier,” executive producer Alex Duda said. “She wanted me to thank all of our viewers for sticking with us on this migration as we moved.”
The 50th annual ceremony honoring talk shows and soap operas is the first major awards show to return since the Hollywood writers’ and actors’ strikes ended. It was pushed back from its scheduled June date.To celebrate the awards’ golden anniversary, the previous winner of a category was paired with a long-ago winner as presenters.
Contributing: The Associated Press
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Daytime Emmy Awards honor Susan Lucci, pay tribute to Barbara Walters