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It seems Susan Lucci was saving up all those undeliverable Daytime Emmy acceptance speeches and decided to let loose with them tonight. As she was eliminated from Dancing With the Stars in a very respectable sixth place, Susan thanked everyone, from the people that were dancing alongside her, to her husband, and to her partner, Tony Dovolani. She always comes across as the most gracious person, much more so than her character of Erica Kane on All My Children.

It also struck me that lost in our fervor to praise Cloris Leachman dancing at the age of 82, we forget that Susan is another person that is close to retirement age. I knew that, as I’ve been watching her on All My Children since I myself was a young girl, and that was on the high end of thirty some years ago. Yet in the completely silly dance commentary by Kenny Maynes, Jerry Rice, and Len Goodman, they mentioned Susan being in her 60s.

Watching Susan on the dance floor each weeek, she may have been a little stiff, but she didn’t look like a 60 year old woman. Looking at her close up, she  certainly didn’t look like a 60 year old woman. It was so easy to forget. She never once used it as an excuse, either, for sometimes struggling with the techniques. She kept up a schedule that would exhaust anyone, going back and forth from New York, where All My Children is filmed, to Los Angeles, to practice her dance routines with Tony.

Traditionally on Dancing With the Stars, we’ve always honored the dancers in their 50s, let alone 60+. We talked about Jane Seymour’s age a lot, and she’s five years younger than Susan. Here’s where Susan lays out with the others in the timeline. Cloris is older by twenty years, George Hamilton is seven years older, Wayne Newton four years older, Jerry Springer and Priscilla Presley are one year older, John Ratzenberger one year younger, and John O’Hurley eight years younger. So why did we mention the others as being older, but not Susan? It’s either because Cloris had the undeniable crown this year or because Susan simply defies the old age category.

That makes me think we need to sign ourselves up for Susan’s skin care line, as she obviously has something with that. There is absolutely no way, even close up, you would ever look at Susan Lucci and say I bet she’s 62. And the only reason that is a bad thing is because of that, she never got full credit for dancing as well as she did at her age, until it was mentioned tonight by Kenny, Jerry, and Len. And by the way? Len Goodman is only two years older than Susan.

Photos courtesy of abc.om

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