[6][7] During her run on All My Children, Lucci was nominated 21 times for the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series.

[15] Lucci graduated from Garden City High School in 1964 and from Marymount College, Tarrytown in 1968, with a BA degree in drama.

[16] Susan Lucci began her television career with bit parts on the daytime soap operas Love Is a Many Splendored Thing and The Doctors.

NBC's Saturday Night Live exploited this by asking her to host an episode; during her monologue, the show's cast, crew, and even stagehands nonchalantly carried (and utilized; for example, as hammers and doorjambs) Emmys of their own in her presence.

In addition, she appeared in a 1989 television commercial for the sugar substitute Sweet One, intended to portray her as the opposite of her villainess character, yet throwing one of Erica Kane's characteristic tantrums, shouting, "Eleven years without an Emmy!

Her name eventually became part of the language, used as an avatar for artists who receive numerous award nominations without a win (e.g., "Peter O'Toole was the Susan Lucci of the Oscars.").

"[21] Lucci publicly criticized ABC Daytime president Brian Frons over the cancellation of All My Children in the epilogue of her autobiography All My Life.

During the 1980s, she made guest-starring appearances in prime time series, such as The Love Boat, Fantasy Island and The Fall Guy.

[23] In 1986, Lucci played the role of Darya Romanoff in the Golden Globe– and Emmy Award–winning made-for-television movie Anastasia: The Mystery of Anna.

[25] She hosted NBC's Saturday Night Live in October of that year; in one skit, she appeared as Erica Kane competing on a game show.

Lucci played a Scrooge-like department store owner visited by Marley and the three ghosts on Christmas.Television critic Lynne Heffley from Los Angeles Times gave it a positive review writing: "Soap queen Susan Lucci of “All My Children” is fun to watch as a severely tailored, unsmiling boss, spreading misery wherever she goes on Christmas Eve, whether firing a security guard or deciding the store’s traditional window display has got to go.

Michael Logan of TV Guide said, "Susan Lucci didn't just take Great White Way by storm: she took it by tornado, hurricane and tsunami, too.

In 2013, Lucci began starring as Geneviève Delatour in the Lifetime comedy-drama series, Devious Maids created by Marc Cherry.

[41] In 2017, Lucci played one of Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard's grandparents (with Henry Winkler) in Sia's music video, "Santa's Coming for Us".

[43] In 2024, after seven years acting hiatus, Lucci returned to screen in the black comedy film, Outcome starring opposite Keanu Reeves, Jonah Hill and Cameron Diaz.

Lucci postponed making her experience public until shortly before the American Heart Association's annual Go Red for Women fashion event in February 2019.