‘All My Children’ Almost Had a Different Ending — Why It Changed

It’s been 55 years since All My Children premiered, and the legacy of the ABC soap lives on. During the Susan Lucci in Conversation with Andy Cohen: All My Children at 55, writer Lorraine Broderick opened up about the show’s ending and why it had to be altered at the last minute.

“We had an entirely different happy ending of All My Children, the final script that we all worked so hard on,” Broderick revealed to the panelists and audience during the 92NY Recanati-Kaplan Talks program on January 14. “And then they decided to pick up on this short term internet thing that happened and we had to go back in and change everything so that everything was a cliffhanger so that they would have something.”

All My Children was canceled by ABC in 2011 after 41 years on the air. That same year, the rights to the soap were sold to Prospect Park, which revived AMC for a short-lived web series in 2013.

“If we tied everything up and Erica were happily married to Jack, what do you do then? So we had to change the whole thing,” Broderick continued. “That’s an interesting inside glimpse into what happened when they moved the show up to Connecticut for a short while.”

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Broderick was joined by Susan Lucci, Kelly Ripa, Jill Larson, Eden Riegel, Jennifer Bassey, Francesca James, Judy Blye Wilson, and moderator Andy Cohen for a conversation about the world of Pine Valley.

Lucci reunited on stage with Riegel, who played her beloved onscreen daughter, Bianca. “Susan always made an effort to approach every new person on the set and welcome them and make them feel comfortable and take all the stress and drama away and save it for the scenes,” Riegel gushed about her onscreen mom. “She was so welcoming and so warm and that has just continued. I mean, she’s a very special person in my life, in of our lives.” Lucci sweetly responded, “Back at you, my goodness.”

Riegel stressed that the cast is still so close after all these years. “We really are a family,” she said. Let’s hope that revival comes to fruition!