Eileen Fulton, As the World Turns Legend, Dead at 91
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Very sad news this weekend out of the world of daytime television:
Eileen Fulton, an iconic actress best known for playing the role of Lisa Grimaldi on As the World Turns for nearly five decades, passed away in her hometown of Asheville, North Carolina on July 14.
She was 91 years old.
According to an obituary from Groce Funeral Home, Fulton died “after a period of declining health.”
Due to her advanced age, we may never learn the exact cause of death.
Fulton was married three times throughout her life.
She originally joined As the World Turns in 1960 as Lisa Grimaldi — in what was originally supposed to be a short-term role for actress Lois Smith.
However, when Smith became unavailable, Fulton was cast instead … and ended up staying on the CBS daytime soap for more than 1,800 episodes over 50 years.
“I had a lot of experience being conniving as a minister’s daughter,” Fulton told NPR in 2010. “I found the people in my daddy’s church fascinating. When I went up for Lisa, [the character] was just a nice girl next door. And just for the summer, for Bob’s interest. I didn’t want to play anything so close to myself. So I decided to just give her a background.”
Fulton went on to joke about being a “classic daytime meanie” who had “four husbands and one phantom fetus,” adding to NPR of viewer reaction:
“They hated her — and I thought it was fabulous.
“Once, she told the outlet, a woman even hit her in the middle of a department store.
“And people looked at me like I was rotten and this woman was a heroine. But I thought, you know what? I’ve reached them.”
By the mid 1960s, Fulton’s career was on fire.
She starred in Broadway’s original production of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and the off-Broadway musical The Fantasticks at the same time as she was filming As the World Turns.
Fulton was inducted into the Soap Opera Hall of Fame in 1998 and earned a Daytime Emmy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2004.
She remained a cast member on As the World Turns until its cancellation in 2010.
Aside from her incredible soap opera run, Fulton had a minor role in the 1960 drama Girl of the Night and also appeared in the short-lived prime time spinoff of As the World Turns, Our Private World.
The actress — whose funeral service will be held on August 9 — is survived by her brother, Charles McLarty (her second brother James died before her) and sister-in-law Chris McLarty and niece.
May she rest in peace.
