Eileen Fulton has died

Eileen joined As the World Turns in May 1960 until the CBS show went off air in September 2010, making her one of the longest-starring soap actors in US TV history, despite the role initially being created as a short-term character.

The actress - whose real name was Margaret Elizabeth McLarty - was inducted into the Soap Opera Hall of Fame in 1998 and received a Daytime Emmy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2004.

Eileen was raised in Asheville and moved to New York to pursue an acting career after graduating from Greensboro College with a music degree in 1956.

In the Big Apple, she studied with famed acting coaches Sanford Meisner and Lee Strasberg at the Neighborhood Playhouse, as well as dance teacher Martha Graham, and her feature debut came in 1960 in Girl of the Night.

Eileen was also a writer and singer and performed a cabaret act for years in venues in both New York and Los Angeles.

At one point during her time on As the World Turns - which was then broadcast live - she was also appearing on Broadway in Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf and in off-Broadway musical The Fantasticks.

She co-wrote her first autobiography, How My World Turns, in 1970 and jointly wrote her second, As My World Still Turns, 25 years later. Eileen also wrote a series of murder-mystery books and a novel titled Soap Opera.

She retired in 2019 and moved back to North Carolina.

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