How is Susan Lucci doing? Star shares health update after near-fatal blockages.

Eight years after Susan Lucci suffered her first near-fatal heart incident, the “All My Children” star is doing A-OK. 

Lucci, 79, is giving an intimate look at her personal and professional life in her new memoir, “La Lucci” (out now from Blackstone Publishing). And though “La Lucci” is filled with plenty of humorous anecdotes about her “All My Children” days, she also gets candid about grieving her husband Helmut (who died in 2022) and her health. 

Best known for playing Erica Kane on ABC’s soap opera for over forty years, Lucci has since adopted a new role as a heart health advocate, urging women to pay attention to symptoms and seek treatment. She's a national ambassador for the American Heart Association's Go Red for Women movement.

“I’m doing great,” Lucci tells USA TODAY. “I just had my yearly checkup, actually, and just a couple weeks before that I had the (echocardiogram) and the stress test and my doctor said to me, ‘You’re not just good – it’s perfect.’ So my heart is in very good shape and I’m glad to say that.”

Women’s health advocacy is personal for Susan Lucci

After experiencing symptoms in 2018 and 2022, doctors discovered two blockages in Lucci's coronary arteries. Left untreated, these blockages can lead to a heart attack or failure, according to the AHA. With quick medical intervention, Lucci had stents placed in her heart to hold open her clogged arteries. 

“I was so incredibly lucky, I had a guardian angel on each shoulder: My grandmother on one, my dad on another,” Lucci says. “I just couldn’t keep that good luck for myself, I just had to tell my story … hopefully, even one woman might hear it and save their own life.” 

The first time it happened, Lucci felt a slight pressure in her chest and assumed it would go away. “I had never had a health issue,” she writes. But the feeling came back, this time around her rib cage and her back. When it happened a third time, it felt like “there was an elephant pressing on my chest.” A friend drove her to the hospital.

You might not expect a primer on women’s health statistics from a celebrity memoir, but Lucci is careful to include essential facts about cardiovascular disease for readers. Women continue to be left out of cardiovascular research, yet women under 65 are twice as likely to die from a heart attack as their male peers, according to the AHA. 

“As women, we take care of our children, our homes, our husbands, our careers, and we are not on that to-do list very often,” Lucci says. “I was out in public. Thank goodness I wasn't home, because I would have just said, ‘Oh, I bet I need a nap for a little while, 15-minute power nap, have some water, and you'll be fine.’ So put yourself on your to-do list was the number one takeaway.

“Number two, listen to your body, and if it's not behaving in a way that's normal for you, take action, call the doctor. And the third thing is, don't be afraid to call the doctor. Even on the way to the hospital, I thought, ‘I'm too busy for this. I have so much to do today and I have to do it.’ … I didn’t take my symptoms seriously.”

Clare Mulroy is USA TODAY’s Books Reporter, where she covers buzzy releases, chats with authors and dives into the culture of reading. Find her on Instagram, subscribe to our weekly Books newsletter or tell her what you’re reading at [email protected].