Eileen Fulton, the actress who portrayed the villainess Lisa Miller on the CBS soap opera “As the World Turns” for nearly five decades, died July 14 in Asheville, North Carolina, following a period of declining health. She was 91.
Born Margaret Elizabeth McLarty on September 13, 1933, in Asheville, Fulton was the daughter of a Methodist minister and a public school teacher. After graduating from Greensboro College in 1956 with a degree in music, she moved to New York City to pursue an acting career, studying under renowned acting coaches Sanford Meisner and Lee Strasberg at the Neighborhood Playhouse.
Fulton joined “As the World Turns” in 1960, originally cast for what was intended to be a three-month summer storyline. The character of Lisa Miller was initially conceived as a sweet, wholesome character, but Fulton transformed her into one of daytime television’s first memorable antagonists. Her portrayal helped define the soap opera “bad girl” archetype that would become a staple of the genre.
The role made Fulton one of the longest-running soap opera actors in American television history. She remained with the show through its final episode on September 17, 2010, though she did exit and return several times throughout her tenure. During one departure in 1965, she starred in the primetime spinoff “Our Private World,” which aired Wednesday and Friday nights on CBS but was canceled after four months.
The fictional character Lisa Miller became notorious for her romantic entanglements, marrying eight different men throughout the show’s run. Three of her marriages ended in divorce, four ended in death, and one was annulled. By the show’s conclusion, her character’s full married name was Lisa Miller Hughes Eldridge Shea Colman McColl Mitchell Grimaldi Chedwyn. Two of her husbands were portrayed by the same actor, Nicolas Coster.
Fulton’s portrayal of Lisa generated intense viewer reactions, both positive and negative. She recalled being physically confronted by fans who disliked her character, including one incident where a well-dressed woman hit her outside a department store. Fulton noted, “I’ve reached them,” reflecting on the passionate responses her character evoked.
During the show’s early years, when it was broadcast live, Fulton demonstrated her strong personality behind the scenes. When a producer refused to reveal whether Lisa was responsible for a murder storyline, she reportedly threatened to improvise the answer on air, leveraging the live broadcast format to get the information she wanted for her performance.
Beyond her soap opera career, Fulton maintained an active presence in theater and other artistic pursuits. During her early years on “As the World Turns,” she simultaneously appeared on Broadway in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” and in the off-Broadway musical “The Fantasticks.” She also performed a cabaret act for several years in venues across New York City and Los Angeles.
Fulton authored multiple books throughout her career, including two autobiographies: “How My World Turns” in 1970 and “As My World Still Turns” in 1995. She also wrote six murder mystery novels in the late 1980s and a book titled “Soap Opera: A Novel” in 1999. Additionally, she had her own clothing line at J.C. Penney.
Her contributions to daytime television were formally recognized when she was inducted into the Soap Opera Hall of Fame in 1998. In 2004, she received a Daytime Emmy Lifetime Achievement Award, cementing her legacy in the genre. She received her first and only Emmy nomination in 1988.
During her tenure on the show, Fulton negotiated an unusual contract clause in the 1970s that prevented Lisa from becoming a grandmother, as she felt grandmothers at the time were not given romantic storylines. This restriction was eventually lifted as the character evolved over the decades.
Fulton retired from acting in 2019 and relocated to Black Mountain, North Carolina. Unlike her frequently married television character, she was married and divorced three times in real life. She married Bill Cochrane in 1957; Danny Fortunato in 1970 (divorced 1980); and Rick McMorrow in 1989 (divorced the same year).
She is survived by her brother Charles Furman McLarty, her niece Katherine Morris, and her sister-in-law Chris Page McLarty.
Fulton’s death marks the end of an era for soap opera television, as she represented one of the last connections to the golden age of daytime drama when shows were broadcast live and actors had the power to shape their characters’ development in real time.
