Classic Soap News: Soap Opera Queen Eileen Fulton Celebrates Major Milestone

On September 13, Eileen Fulton, born Margaret Elizabeth McCarty, will celebrate her 86th birthday. Fulton played Lisa Grimaldi on As The World Turns(ATWT)  from 1960 until its last episode in 2010.

Proctor & Gamble executives initially considered firing the young starlet, because they didn’t care for her acting. She would prove them wrong, turning her 3-month contract into a 50-year tenure on ATWT and a spin-off called Our Private World and eventually receiving the Lifetime Achievement Daytime Emmy Award.

Fulton took only three brief absences from the show and was once replaced by Another World star Carmen Duncan, who passed away in February 2019. Some of the soap stars who shared the screen with Fulton have become daytime legends themselves. Christian LeBlanc began his career in 1983 as Lisa’s stepson, Kirk McColl, before departing Oakdale for Genoa City and the role of Michael Baldwin on The Young and the Restless in 1991.

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Classic Soap News – Fulton Wrote Two Autobiographies About Her Acting Days

Fulton’s autobiographies, How My World Turns and As My World Still Turns: The Uncensored Memoirs of America’s Soap Opera Queen, detail her rise from a minister’s daughter in North Carolina to soap stardom in New York City. When she speaks, you can still hear that Southern lilt and a smile in her voice. She also penned a contemporary novel called Soap Opera, which takes place on the set of the show Another Life.

It’s described by the publisher as a “tale of sex, scandal, murder, betrayal, and back-stabbing,” subjects Fulton played out daily through her ATWT scripts. Fulton, who has been divorced three times, told the Associated Press that, between herself and her character, Lisa Miller Hughes Eldridge Shea Colman McColl Mitchell Grimaldi Chedwyn, they had “racked up more matrimonial miles than Elizabeth Taylor and Zsa Zsa Gabor combined.”

Fulton has an abiding love of daytime and remains in contact with her Facebook fan club. In her memoirs, she said of the soaps, “When you’re in an unfamiliar environment or situation—a new job, home, or city—there’s nothing more reassuring than turning on the television and being visited by your ‘old friends.’” However, Fulton will never forget the overzealous fans who punched her, volleyed death threats, and forced her to hire bodyguards because viewers were venomous over her conniving character’s antics.

Classic Soap News – Fulton Survived Being Stuck In Oxygen Tent During Filming

A talented cabaret singer, Fulton told Television Academy.com in a series of YouTube videos, that she wants to be remembered for being an “all-around performer.” And perform she did, taking on three jobs at once. As soon as she completed her lines for the live broadcast of ATWT from Grand Central Station, Fulton would rush to the theater to star in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and The Fantasticks.

In the early days of soaps, Fulton recalls that special effects weren’t as advanced. Real soap flakes replaced snow, but the snow wouldn’t melt, even in front of a fire, and actors would foam at the mouth when they got it in their mouths. Fulton once survived being stuck inside an airtight oxygen tent during a coma storyline. Because the show was live, she had to wait until the scene was over to cry for help.

#FBF with Eileen Fulton on the cover of TV: DAWN TO DUSK pic.twitter.com/pHfP7ijwH3

— As The World Turns (@CBSATWT) August 30, 2019

Fulton never disappoints for humorous quips. When ATWT ended, she told TV Guide Magazine that she loved her NYC apartment because it was central to her nightclub act and her therapist. She advised the interviewer, “Always make sure your shrink is within walking distance.” Words to live by.

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