On May 21, 1999, the Emmy Awards’ most famous losing streak finally came to an end when Susan Lucci won an Emmy for Best Actress. It had certainly taken long enough. She received her first nomination for Best Actress Emmy in 1978, and she received another nomination every year after that. She lost every single year.

Her nominations were for her portrayal of Erica Kane on the popular soap opera All My Children. When she started the role in 1970, Erica was a troubled teen. Over her years on the show, she got married several times, got into plane and car crashes, and eventually came to own her own cosmetics company. By the time of her first nomination, she was already one of the most famous soap opera actresses in the country. It seemed inevitable that she would win the Emmy soon, even if she didn’t win the first time. That didn’t turn out to be the case, though.

After losing for the first several years, she was reportedly getting rather upset about it. It became something of an obsession for her. Year after year, she continued to get nominated, and year after year, she continued to lose. Eventually, though, she started to develop a sense of humor about it. In 1990, she guest-starred in a Saturday Night Live skit that involved people parading Emmys around in front of her to make her jealous. Still, she never stopped hoping. So it was a pretty big deal when, in 1999, the announcer called out, “The streak is over… Susan Lucci!”

And what finally made the difference? According to a critic at the Los Angeles Times, she had finally changed up the way she submitted scenes for the judges’ consideration, showcasing her diverse range of acting talents instead of the scenes of soap opera melodrama she had always submitted in the past.