Remembering ‘As the World Turns’ Star Eileen Fulton: Her 7 Best Lisa Storylines

AS THE WORLD TURNS, Eileen Fulton, 1990s, 1956-2010. — Danny Sanchez /© CBS /Courtesy Everett Collection

Eileen Fulton, who played Lisa on As the World Turns from 1960 until the show’s finale in 2010, has died at age 91. The actress passed away on July 14 in Asheville, North Carolina, after a period of “declining health.”

Fulton’s willful, ambitious, and exasperating Lisa was the gold standard for soap opera vixens. Viewers loved her as much as they loved to hate her.

While it might seem tame by today’s standards, Lisa infuriated viewers when she let her husband Bob (Don Hastings) think that she’d done all the housework; in reality, she’d hired a maid to do the cleaning while Lisa enjoyed a spa day!

Here are 7 other memorable moments and stories from Fulton’s life as Lisa Miller Hughes Eldridge Shea Colman McColl Mitchell Grimaldi Chedwyn (whew!).

1Lisa McColl v. Lucinda Walsh! “You’re going to find yourself going home in a box – C.O.D.!”

Lisa’s feud with Lucinda Walsh (Elizabeth Hubbard) was iconic. Lisa knew that Lucinda had lied about her husband Martin Guest killing himself due to debts called in by Lisa’s husband, Whit McColl (Robert Horton). Adding to the animosity between the two was the fact that both vied for the affection of Earl Mitchell (Farley Grainger). Lucinda also ran The City Times, a rival rag to The Argus, a respected newspaper that Brian McColl (Mark Pinter), Lisa’s stepson, edited.

Watch the clip here.

2 You Are NOT the Mother!

Surprise pregnancies are common on soaps. Only Lisa, however, could make a storyline out of not being pregnant! In the early 1970s, Lisa believed she was expecting, as she had several symptoms of pregnancy. However, Dr. Eric Lonsberry helped Lisa realize that while it appeared she was going to have another baby, she was not! The real-life medical condition is known as “pseudocyesis.”

For a fun bit of ATWT trivia: Lonsberry was played by the late Douglas Marland, who later became ATWT‘s head writer.

3“Robert Redford as a door prize!”

Fulton’s Lisa was thrown into many love triangles on ATWT. One of her most memorable ones was with ex-husband Grant Colman (James Douglas) and his manipulative fiancé Joyce (Barbara Rodell). A confrontational clip featuring the trio was shown at the 1994 prime time TV special 50 Years of Soaps.

Joyce extended an invitation to Lisa to attend her intimate wedding to Grant. “No, not me, Joyce. Not me,” Lisa informed her rival. “Oh, no, I’m sorry. I’m not coming to your wedding. I wouldn’t come to your wedding if you were giving away Robert Redford as a door prize!”

Lisa accused Joyce of choosing a small venue for her ceremony so people wouldn’t notice how empty it was, but she highly doubted Joyce’s claim that she had developed a sudden migraine. “I don’t believe for a minute she has a headache!” Lisa quipped. “But if I happened to have caused this headache, I think I’ll have my little method patented. I didn’t know I had such power over everyone!”

4Lisa and “Johnny” Dixon

Lisa didn’t care much for how Dr. John Dixon (Larry Bryggman) treated his ex-wife Kim (Kathryn Hays), or how he treated Bob (Don Hastings), John’s rival at Memorial Hospital. Their animosity went beyond verbal sparring, however, after Lisa sued John for medical malpractice over her husband Eduardo Grimaldi’s (Nicolas Coster) death.

John was exonerated, as Eduardo had been murdered by someone else. But he extracted his revenge upon Lisa by conning her into thinking he’d fallen in love with her. In 1996, Lisa was humiliated at her engagement party when John appeared on a big-screen monitor and eviscerated his fiancé in front of everyone.

Watch the clip here.

5The Willows

In between Douglas Marland’s stint as Lisa’s doctor and his magnificent turn as head writer, which began in 1985, he head wrote the show, briefly, in 1979, after leaving General Hospital and before taking on Guiding Light. And this storyline was one of his great achievements.

In a tale that combined elements of the film Rebecca and a dash or two of Dark Shadows, Lisa fell in love with Bennett Hadley (John Higgins), who ran an inn called The Willows. Lisa’s love for Bennett was tested by rumors he’d bumped off his first wife, as well as Bennett’s menacing housekeeper, Hester Pierce (Ann Stanfield). Fortunately, Lisa’s ex, Grant Coleman (James Douglas), came to her rescue.

6Falling Back in Love with Bob

In 1986, Lisa had realized what viewers had known all along – that her ex, Bob, was a catch and the best man she’d ever known. She’d fallen back in love with him.

Complicating the matter was that Lisa’s best friend Kim, who was dealing with a stalker, was now married to Bob. The list of suspects in Kim’s stalking was long, and we have to admit that Lisa was pretty near the top of the list! Of course, she’d never hurt her friend, but Fulton played beats with just enough coy uncertainty and occasional emotional outbursts that we couldn’t help but wonder.

7“The Grandmother Clause”

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On an episode of Donahue in the mid-1980s, Fulton confirmed that she indeed did have a “grandmother clause” in her contract, which assured that Lisa would not become a grandmother. The actress felt that grandmas on soaps were relegated to the backburner. Fulton quipped it was why her TV daughter-in-law Carol (Rita Walter) was known as “sterile-Carol.” Fulton received backlash in 1986 when Margo (Hillary B. Smith), Lisa’s daughter-in-law, lost her child, late into her pregnancy. However, Fulton explained that that Margo and Tom’s (Gregg Marx) loss was a story point and that her “grandmother clause” was no longer in her contract.

In her 1995 autobiography, How My World Still Turns, Fulton wrote, “I began receiving the most terrifying mail of my career. ‘You horrible bitch!’ one letter began. ‘You baby-killer! I don’t know how you can live with yourself!’…A few of the [letter] writers stated that they were going to ‘kill the baby-killer!’”