All Her Sins : Soapdom’s bad Girl Finds her Name Soiled Again--on Prime Time

When last seen on prime-time television, Susan Lucci had met her demise as villainous Hillary Taylor on “Dallas,” having first made Bobby Ewing a widower on his Parisian honeymoon.

The star of daytime’s “All My Children” turns up again in prime time in the title role of tonight’s ABC movie “The Woman Who Sinned.” Lucci plays Victoria Robeson, a married art gallery owner who has a brief affair with a man who, it turns out, has killed her best friend. Tim Matheson co-stars as the husband, an attorney who defends his wife when she is unjustly accused of the murder.

So why, if Lucci’s character commits adultery and not the murder, is she considered the sinful one?

“That’s one of the things that jumped out at me,” she said, in her trailer on a break from shooting scenes in a Marina del Rey home. “I objected to the title at first--I thought it was too overtly salacious. But it puts ‘sin’ in a different perspective.

“Stu Samuels, our executive producer, talked to us about it in rehearsal, and said that in some respects, maybe the character of police Lt. Girvetz (played by John Vernon) was the one who has sinned most, because he’s lost his humanity, his passion, his ability to care about other human beings--he just wants to do his work and get out of there.

“Victoria loves her husband, and once she got involved with another guy and realized it was a mistake, she went back to him. So maybe in the context of this picture, she’s sinned the least of anybody.”

Lucci was enticed by the project because “I couldn’t put (the script) down. It’s a very steamy, sexy, hot thriller, very interestingly shot, in some respects in the genre of ‘Looking for Mr. Goodbar,’ ‘Dressed to Kill’ and ‘Fatal Attraction.’ ”

On a deeper level, she was interested in the questions the film raises about taking responsibility for one’s own actions, particularly regarding relationships.

“Maybe we’ve gotten too involved in a disposable society. Maybe we’ve stopped seeing the person we’re actually in love with, simply because they’re around. How foolish to throw that relationship away simply for the thrill of the unknown, the thrill of the moment, whatever it is we think we need a Band-Aid on.”

The 41-year-old actress knows a thing or two about longstanding relationships. She has been married since 1969 to restaurateur Helmut Huber, with whom she has a son and daughter. And professionally, of course, Lucci has spent nearly 22 years on “All My Children,” playing a character who is probably daytime television’s best known figure: “Erica Kane Martin Brent Cudahy Chandler Montgomery Montgomery!” she reeled off with a laugh. “Only now she’s not married to anyone, so she’s Erica Kane again.”

Lucci continues to play the spoiled, self-absorbed queen of Pine Valley because, she said simply, “I love the role. I love Erica, the company of actors I work with, the producers, everyone at ‘All My Children.’ Erica has often been called the modern-day Scarlett O’Hara. I think that said it all.”

“The Woman Who Sinned” is one of several television films Lucci has made on her time off from soapdom: “Lady Mobster,” “Mafia Princess,” “Invitation to Hell” and last year’s “The Bride in Black.” Performing for an evening time slot rather than an afternoon one did not take much adjustment, she said, because “acting is acting is acting, wherever you are.

“But where I do see a much greater difference,” she added, “is between videotape and film. On ‘All My Children’ we’re shooting a scene with three cameras from beginning to end, basically shooting each show as if it were a play a day. That’s the purest way to play a scene, and the most fun. But it’s exhausting to do that play every day, and do it over and over. To do a film with one camera is wonderful because you can concentrate very much on the scene at hand. But you must do it a number of times and again, that can become tedious, so the challenge is to keep it fresh. I enjoy both, I must tell you.”

And speaking of acting, what about the infamous E-word--the Daytime Emmy, which has now eluded Lucci for a record dozen times?

“I really don’t feel like I’ve been passed over, like a loser,” she said. “I feel very honored by the 12 nominations. Those come from other actors, people who work just as hard as I do. If they think my work is worthy of that attention, I’m honored.”

“The Woman Who Sinned” airs tonight at 9 on ABC.