Emmy award-winning As the World Turns actress Eileen Fulton died on July 14, 2025, in Asheville, NC, “after a period of declining health.” Fulton was 91 years old, according to her obituary.
A Legendary Scene-Stealer
Fulton was born Margaret Elizabeth McLarty on September 13, 1933, in Asheville, North Carolina. With just a small role as a receptionist on Nero Wolfe on Television and a supporting role in the film, Girl of the Night, Fulton burst onto the daytime scene in 1960 as the vixen, Lisa Miller, on As the World Turns.
The role was meant to be a short-term role opposite Mr. Nice Guy, Bob Hughes (played by Don Hastings). It wasn’t long before she started earning her moniker as a legendary scene-stealer. Of course, to hear Fulton tell the story it was all about her feisty delivery of the dialogue that made Lisa so interesting and turned a short-term role into a 5-decade legacy.
Through the years, the character would enthrall, entice, enrage, and entertain the audience. Lisa married eight times, divorced three times, was widowed four times, and had one marriage annulled, making her name, technically, Lisa Miller Hughes Eldridge Shea Colman McColl Mitchell Grimaldi Chedwyn. At times, her character generated so much hate mail that she had to hire a bodyguard.
When Lisa Hughes hired a maid to clean her house while she traipsed around town, fans were known to confront her on the street, even slapping her indignantly. When her character’s daughter-in-law, Margo (played by Hillary B. Smith at the time), had a miscarriage in 1986 on the show, Fulton had to request protection. But she remained the character they loved to hate and managed to win their hearts as well.
A Storied Career
Fulton only left the show 3 times. In 1963, the actress left the show for several months when juggling the live daytime serial with the Off-Broadway production of The Fantasticks and the Broadway production of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf proved too much and was replaced by actress Pamela King.
In 1965, her character was gifted a primetime spin-off show titled Our Private World. She returned to ATWT in 1966 after the primetime show was canceled. And in 1983, she was replaced by Betsy von Furstenberg after a contract dispute with Mary-Ellis Bunim but Fulton returned to the role the following year.
There were also a few days in 2004 when Carmen Duncan stepped in to play Lisa when Fulton endured an illness. Yet the wily minx was lucky enough to spend the majority of her 50 years on the show front and center, keeping the fans riled up and riveted, until appearing in the final episode of As the World Turns in September 2010.
The spunky actress tackled daytime, primetime, stage, and film throughout her career. Other film credits included The Signs of the Cross, Tinsel Town, Rose Woes and Joe’s, The Drum Beats Twice, and The Life Zone.
Besides appearing in on and off Broadway, she appeared opposite Hal Holbrook in Abe Lincoln in Illinois, Many Loves, Summer of the Seventeenth Doll, and Nite Club Confidential. Fulton appeared in regional productions of Plaza Suite, It Had to Be You, The Owl and the Pussycat, Goodbye Charlie, and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.
The multi-talented powerhouse was also a published author with two memoirs, How My World Turns and My World Still Turns, and several fictional mysteries such as Soap Opera, Death of a Golden Girl, Fatal Flashback, Dying for Stardom, Lights Camera Death, A Setting for Murder, and Take 1 for Murder 1.
In 2004, the Daytime Emmy-nominated actress finally took home the statuette for Lifetime Achievement Award. But life is more than awards, and like her character, Eileen Fulton packed a lot in.
Soap Hub sends its sincere condolences to her family, friends, and fans during this difficult time.
