Daytime divas duke it out

At the Daytime Emmys, the most suspense surrounds the best actress race where TV's grand divas square off against brazen young ingenues who dare to threaten their supremacy in a soap realm beset with treachery, heartbreak -- and even occasional murder.

Well, at least in the on-TV plotlines they enact.

The final five nominees will emerge from an early list of pre-nominations on March 14. Insiders who work on each of the nine daily soaps offered two candidates from within their ranks:

OUTSTANDING LEAD ACTRESS
"All My Children": Bobbie Eakes (Krystal Carey Chandler), Alicia Minshew (Kendall Hart Slater)
"As the World Turns": Martha Byrne (Lily Snyder), Maura West (Carly Tenney)
"The Bold and the Beautiful": Katherine Kelly Lang (Brooke Logan), Susan Flannery (Stephanie Forrester)
"Days of Our Lives": Kristian Alfonso (Hope Brady), Alison Sweeney (Sami Brady)
"General Hospital": Nancy Lee Grahn (Alexis Davis Lansing), Laura Wright (Carly Corinthos)
"Guiding Light": Crystal Chappell (Olivia Spencer), Kim Zimmer (Reva Shayne)
"One Life to Live": Kassie DePaiva (Blair Cramer Manning), Bree Williamson (Jessica Buchanan)
"Passions": Lindsay Hartley (Theresa Lopez-Fitzgerald), Juliet Mills (Tabitha Lenox)
"The Young & the Restless": Jeanne Cooper (Katherine Chancellor), Michelle Stafford (Phyllis Summers Newman)

Where's Susan Lucci, you ask? Talk about soap intrigue!

The "All My Children" superstar -- reputed to be the highest-paid performer in daytime TV with a yearly salary above $1 million -- has been mostly pushed out of contention of late, allegedly due to industry jealousy.