Actor Eileen Fulton, known for her long-running role as Lisa Grimaldi on the CBS soap opera “As the World Turns,” has died at 91.
Fulton died July 14 in Asheville, N.C., after a period of declining health, according to an obituary posted by Groce Funeral Home in North Carolina.
She would become one of the longest-serving soap opera actors, playing Lisa with only a few interruptions from 1960 until the show’s end in 2010. Fulton played the character as a villain, telling The Times in 1990 that Lisa was initially “a conniving, screaming witch” who “lied and wanted everything her way,” a characterization that led fans to scorn her. Throughout the course of the show, Lisa was married eight times.
But over time, Lisa evolved and “matured and learned from her mistakes.” Fulton said she began to receive “love letters” from fans who admired the character’s spunk.
Fulton was inducted into the Soap Opera Hall of Fame in 1998 and received a Daytime Emmy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2004.
Fulton was born Margaret Elizabeth McLarty on Sept. 13, 1933 in Asheville. The daughter of a Methodist minister and a public school teacher, she graduated from Greensboro College in 1956 with a bachelor’s degree in music and performed in an outdoor drama in North Carolina before moving to New York to pursue a career in acting, according to her obituary.
She later adopted the stage name Eileen Fulton, and in 1960, she was cast in the drama “Girl of the Night.”
In addition to her soap opera career, Fulton had a cabaret act for years in New York and Los Angeles.
She retired in 2019 and moved to Black Mountain, N.C. She is survived by her brother, Charles Furman McLarty, a niece and other family members.
