As we all know, every good soap opera needs a villain and, according to Susan Lucci's new epilogue to the paperback edition of her book "All My Life," ABC Daytime head Brian Frons is without a doubt the bad guy in the saga of the network cancellations of All My Children and One Life to Live. "I watched Brian Frons' decisions destroy the production of our show and the lives of people on both sides of the country," Lucci writes.
According to the New York Post, which obtained text from the epilogue, Lucci also says that Frons appeared "self-congratulatory" when he told the AMC cast of the decision to cancel the long-running soap, and that he "has what, for me, is that fatal combination of ignorance and arrogance. I cannot fathom any network executive choosing to alienate millions of loyal viewers in these economic times."
Lucci writes that she personally told Frons, "I think our being in this position is the result of some very bad decisions by you," including the hiring of Chuck Pratt as head writer in 2008, a move many fans considered the last nail in the AMC coffin, moving the show to Los Angeles from its long-time base in New York, and getting rid of beloved creator and soap pioneer Agnes Nixon.
Nixon, who was heavily involved in wrapping up the show's storylines for the finale on ABC September 23, told the Chicago Tribune that she plans to continue with AMC as a consultant when it moves online with production company Prospect Park at the helm. "We're going to have a hiatus, you know, for three months. And the head of Prospect Park [the production company taking over the shows] said, 'We've got to have a big cliffhanger for that three months.' And so I came up with one which I can't tell you. But they loved it."