Like many older celebrities who are striving to stay relevant in the age of social media, Susan Lucci initially struggled to embrace Instagram. “I’m a private person by nature, so at first I really didn’t think it was for me,” says the svelte 71-year-old. But two years ago, while vacationing in St. Barts, she decided to throw caution to the wind. “I put on a bikini, my husband took some pictures, and a friend of mine said, ‘You need to post this shot on Instagram!’” The image of the sexy sexagenarian frolicking in the waves in a teeny-weeny black bikini soon went viral, with breathless headlines (no doubt written by 22-year-olds) squealing “OMG! WTF?” and “Susan Lucci is a bikini babe!”
“The reaction was very unexpected— and sooo flattering,” says Lucci, gingerly sipping a cup of hot water and lemon at a corner table at BG, the restaurant in New York’s Bergdorf Goodman, on a recent Monday afternoon. She is dressed in a cream-colored Chanel jacket, tiny black skinny jeans, and skyhigh black Louboutins (her bag, a gray baby Birkin, rests on a nearby chair). “After the pictures came out—and they went everywhere—it occurred to me that Instagram could be a great way to stay connected to my fans,” she says. Last February, when she traveled to Sandy Lane in Barbados with her husband of 49 years, Helmut Huber, the paparazzi snapped dozens of pics, cementing her status as a bona fide social media star–fitfluencer. “I didn’t realize they were taking pictures until about the third day, when I saw two telephoto lenses following us.” When a friend called from England asking if she had seen the photos of herself on TMZ, Lucci wasn’t irate—she was tickled. “The pictures were so good!” she says. “By the fourth day I was looking for the paparazzi. I wanted to thank them.”
While many women of a certain age complain about being invisible, Susan Lucci is anything but. With more than 83,000 fans following her every Pilates move and low-carb bite on Instagram, a booming fitness empire (in addition to promoting the Pilates Pro Chair, she has also launched a successful activewear line on QVC), and a development deal with Hallmark Movies & Mysteries, the former All My Children star isn’t showing any signs of slowing down. And why should she? “I feel as good now as I ever did in my 20s and 30s, maybe even better physically,” she says. As if to prove her point, just then a man half her age saunters by the table, stealing an appreciative side glance.
“The pictures were so good! By the fourth day I was looking for the paparazzi. I wanted to thank them.”
Lucci credits Pilates, which she has been practicing for more than two decades, with reshaping her body—and her diet. “Once I started doing Pilates, I lost my taste for things like cheeseburgers and french fries.” She also found it less punishing to work out. “The Pro Chair is great because it allows you to do a full-body workout in just 20 minutes. You can do cardio on it too.”
As one might guess from her ridiculously fit beach body, Lucci is just as disciplined about her diet as she is about her exercise routine. “I rarely eat dessert, never snack, and I don’t eat a lot of bread and pasta.” (Except when she’s in Europe, where she has been known to eat “more carbs in three weeks than I normally do in six months.”) A typical lunch in the real world? A turkey-and-avocado sandwich made with beefsteak tomatoes in lieu of bread. “My husband calls it my concoction!” Besides limiting sweets (“if I really want something, I’ll just have one or two bites”), she carefully restricts her alcohol intake. “I’ll have one glass of champagne when we go out to dinner, but I don’t drink at home.” Take that, wine belly!
So how does someone who still gets shadowed by paparazzi in her 70s approach the aging process? “Oh, I’m kicking and screaming all the way,” she says with a laugh. She is particularly vigilant about skin care: “No matter how tired I am, I never go to bed with my makeup on.” After carefully removing her makeup each night with Neutrogena wipes, Lucci washes with a Clé de Peau Beauté cleanser and then uses SkinMedica TNS Essential Serum with growth factors. “My dermatologist, Ellen Gendler, turned me on to it.” Another anti-aging miracle worker her dermatologist introduced her to is Botox. “Dr. Gendler does a great job—very natural,” Lucci says, her wide smile and tiny crow’s-feet testifying to the truth of her words. “She doesn’t completely freeze your face. You still have expression, so it doesn’t look fake.” For Lucci, aging is less about a number than a state of mind—and body. “What I’ve learned is that if you train hard, you can offset some of what you’ve got going against you. People look at me and say ‘Wow, she doesn’t seem old, but she is old.’ Meanwhile, the reality is if you’re strong, you’re beautiful, no matter what age you are.”
All of the fashion stories from our October 2018 issue include women photographed by women, and have been published completely unretouched.
Hair: Leonardo Manetti for Davines; Makeup: Yuui for Chanel; Production: Tarayn Sanders.
