R.I.P. Eileen Fulton: ‘As The World Turns’ Star Dead at 91

Eileen Fulton, the actress who helped define the modern-day soap opera villain as Lisa Miller on As the World Turns, has died. She was 91.

Fulton passed away on July 14 in Asheville, North Carolina, following a period of declining health, her family shared in an obituary.

Dubbed daytime television’s first “bad girl,” Fulton embodied the role of Lisa Miller from 1960 until the show signed off in 2010 — a 50-year reign that made her one of the longest-serving soap stars in U.S. history.

Originally written as a short-lived “nice girl” character for actress Lois Smith, Lisa quickly evolved into the ultimate vixen, and Fulton rode the wave all the way to the Soap Opera Hall of Fame in 1998 and a Daytime Emmy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2004.

Born Margaret Elizabeth McLarty on September 13, 1933, in Asheville, Fulton grew up the daughter of a Methodist minister and a public school teacher. After graduating from Greensboro College in 1956 with a music degree, she made a bold leap to New York City to chase an acting career — a decision her parents enthusiastically backed.

She studied under some of the most legendary names in performance, including Sanford Meisner, Lee Strasberg, and Martha Graham, and made her feature film debut in 1960’s Girl of the Night.

Fulton was so booked and busy in her heyday that she appeared on As the World Turns — then broadcast live — while also performing in Broadway’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf and the off-Broadway musical The Fantasticks at the same time.

A cabaret regular in both New York and L.A., Fulton also authored two autobiographies (How My World Turns and As My World Still Turns), wrote several murder-mystery novels, and even penned a book titled Soap Opera.

She retired in 2019 and returned to her roots in Black Mountain, North Carolina.

Fulton is survived by her brother, Charles Furman McLarty, niece Katherine Morris and their children, as well as sister-in-law Chris Page McLarty.