Andy Cohen reflects on how his fan letter to Susan Lucci led to their 35-year friendship

Washington [US], October 28 : American TV presenter Andy Cohen and actor Susan Lucci are looking back on the touching start of their decades-long friendship, reported People.
Sharing a photo from the pair's recent reunion, the 55-year-old Bravo mogul reflected on the history of his longstanding friendship with the 76-year-old 'All My Children' alum -- and how she encouraged his journalistic endeavours when he was just a teenager.
"How it started.... how it's going!" he captioned a post on Instagram that featured a side-by-side throwback photo of their first meeting and their recent reunion. "In 1988 I wrote Susan Lucci a fan letter begging (imploring!) to let me interview her for my school newspaper. She not only said yes, she took me to lunch."
"We've run into each other over the years and had a wonderful reunion today (and I finally got to return the favour of picking up the tab!) #EricaKaneForever," Cohen concluded, referencing Lucci's soap opera character.
According to People, now, the Watch What Happens Live host has built an illustrious television career, going on to become a longtime Bravo producer, executive and host. Cohen previously opened up about the close similarities between soap operas and reality TV -- and why he believes the Housewives franchise carries on that legacy in a primetime documentary called In The Story of Soaps.
"The goals of reality TV and soap operas are pretty similar: It's to educate sometimes, entertain always," Cohen explained in the May 2020 special. "Once you're telling the people who were watching soaps, 'Wait, watch this, this is compelling,' it was pretty easy to get sucked into that. And then you're starting to consider Court TV or CNN as a viable alternative to All My Children or One Life to Live."
"We're voyeurs, but we also love stories," he continued. "We want to be entertained, and I think that the ultimate expression of voyeurism is reality television.
Cohen added, "I know Lucci doesn't agree with me, but I think that the Housewives have replaced soap operas because truth is stranger than fiction. Soaps became kind of unnecessary because you could do it with real people, and they're writing the drama themselves."
From January 5, 1970 to September 23, 2011, ABC aired 'All My Children' for 41 years. It was temporarily relaunched as a web series in 2013. (The show debuted with half-hour episodes before switching to hour-long episodes in 1977.)
While chatting with People in February 2022, Lucci gave an update on the upcoming 'All My Children' spinoff that was announced in December 2020 and spearheaded by Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos.
Noting that word about the forthcoming project comes "sporadically," Lucci -- who starred as character Erica Kane on the daytime soap opera from 1970 until its final episode in 2013 -- shared, "There has been movement. I wish it was a quicker movement, but yes, everything in terms of being in the right hands, as far as I know, would be in place."
"It's really interesting, and the concept is so good," she continued. "[It's] in the right hands ... [with] Kelly Ripa and her husband, Mark Consuelos, who are both so terrific. They would be executive producers, so I'm really hoping that this is going to actually go forward," reported People.