Lou Rocco/©ABC/courtesy Everett Collection
What To Know
All My Children featured numerous surprising guest stars over its long run, including Carol Burnett, Regis Philbin, Donny Osmond, Celine Dion, Wendie Malick, and even Donald Trump, many of whom played themselves or unique cameo roles.
Several now-famous actors, such as Sarah Michelle Gellar, Chadwick Boseman, and Michael B. Jordan, got early career breaks or notable roles on the soap opera.
The show’s crossovers and celebrity appearances highlighted its cultural impact and ability to attract high-profile talent from various entertainment fields.
Many famous faces landed some of their earliest roles on All My Children. Live cohosts Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos famously met and fell in love on the set of the ABC soap, while Sarah Michelle Gellar played a daughter of Susan Lucci‘s Erica Kane, and Christine Baranski appeared on the show opposite her late husband, Matthew Cowles. And Black Panther costars Chadwick Boseman and Michael B. Jordan even played the same character on the daytime drama during different eras!
But we’re guessing the following A-list cameos on All My Children may have slipped your mind — especially if you watched all 10,000-plus episodes of the show. Refresh your memory with the celeb-filled clips and anecdotes below.
The legendary comic actor made several guest-starring appearances on All My Children in the role of Verla Grubbs, long-lost daughter of Langley Willingford, from 1983 to 2011.
And in a 2024 interview on Live, Burnett recalled to Ripa and Consuelos how hooked she was on the show. She even had a friend send her telegrammed All My Children recaps to every hotel at which she stayed during a European vacation.
Dick Cavett
In 1979, the beloved talk show host made a cameo as himself; Erica swept him up in a scheme to promote her newly opened disco (a very 1979 plot point if there ever was one!).
© ABC / Courtesy: Everett Collection
Ripa’s onetime Live cohost also appeared on All My Children, playing himself on the soap in 1991 and again in 2005, according to his IMDb filmography. And when he died in 2020, Lucci was one of the many celebrities who eulogized him on social media.
“Oh, Regis — I am so shocked and so incredibly sad to learn of your passing,” Lucci wrote on Instagram. “Your warmth and charm and devilish sense of humor made the world fall in love with you — and all of us who had the privilege and joy to work with you adored you!”
Heidi Gutman / © ABC / Courtesy Everett Collection
In a 2006 episode, the pop singer played himself as a guest of Erica’s talk show, New Beginnings, as he hyped up his a role in the Broadway musical version of Beauty and the Beast. (“With a beauty like Erica on New Beginnings, I guess that makes me the Beast, huh?” he quipped at a party for the talk show.) It was a case of corporate synergy, as Beauty and the Beast was a Disney production, like ABC’s All My Children.
Maureen O’Sullivan
© ABC / Courtesy Everett Collection
The classic Hollywood actress was best known for her run portraying Jane in the Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan films of the 1930s and ’40s. But in 1983, she played a friendly woman who provided shelter to Erica Kane, who was on the run and in disguise as a nun.
This Canadian chanteuse stopped by All My Children as another New Beginnings guest in 2007. And she even performed her song “Taking Chances”!
“With recent appearances by some of today’s top recording artists, labels have realized that ABC Daytime provides an efficient way to reach our highly engaging audience of women 18-49,” ABC said in press notes at the time, per BroadwayWorld.
In a two-way crossover, Lucci appeared as herself a rival to Malick’s Victoria Chase on Hot in Cleveland, and then Malick played Victoria playing the role of housekeeper Gertie Stein on All My Children in 2011. “I think it’s harder to explain than it is to do,” Malick told Soaps.com.
And Malick, who actually got her first TV acting job as a child actor on All My Children, also observed how acting in soaps flexes a different muscle. “It’s just in warp speed here,” she said. “They just shoot such an enormous volume of stuff every day, so you have to just get in there and get on that train that’s just flying by. You just have to really be on your game and be prepared because they need to get through so much material every day.”
Ann Limongello/© American Broadcasting Company /Courtesy Everett Collection
Yes, the polarizing POTUS also made a brief visit on All My Children. In a 1992 episode, the businessman played himself as Erica crossed paths with muckety-mucks at the New York City nightclub Nexus.
“Candidly, this is what I remember about my appearance on All My Children. My driver pulled up at ABC, I dashed out of the car, and before I knew what happened, I was in the studio, standing in front of a camera and reading a line off a cue card,” Trump said of the experience, according to the book All My Children: The Complete Family Scrapbook (via Soap Opera Digest). “I shook hands with a few people, ran out the door, jumped back in my car, and I was gone. You have to remember, I’m a busy guy!”
Agnes Nixon
Rick Rowell / ©ABC / courtesy Everett Collection
And finally, we have the woman who started it all! Nixon, the “queen of the modern soap opera” who created All My Children in 1970, guest-starred on her own show in 2005, playing Pine Valley Hospital board member Agnes Eckhardt (a character with Nixon’s maiden name) as the show hit its 35th anniversary. She reprised the part in 2011 during the show’s final weeks on ABC. And in between those two spots, she played Pine Valley founder Aggy in a 2008 episode of the show.