Soap Opera Diva Gets Her Due

Daytime veteran Eileen Fulton is among recent inductees into the Soap Opera Hall of Fame, sponsored by Soap Opera Weekly.

"I'm thrilled, and I think it's about time, Fulton told CBS 'This Morning' Co-Anchor Mark McEwen.

Eileen Fulton originated the role of the colorful Lisa on As the World Turns in May 1960 and temporarily brought the character to primetime in the 1965 CBS spin-off series, Our Private World.

With eight husbands and plenty of steamy romances, Lisa keeps As the World Turns fans glued to the tube.

"I'm beginning to be just awful again, and that's the way I like it" says the Oakdale's resident bad girl and the first actress to have a grandmother clause in her contract.

"It just said Eileen Fulton will not be a grandmotherÂ… I was involved in a hot romance at the time. I knew at that time soap opera grandmothers had no fun," says Fulton.

So the writers came up with creative ways to deal with the clause. For a while, all the women her fictional son married had bad luck.

Fulton's work has been also recognized in 1991 with Soap Opera Digest's Editor's Award, and in 1996, she received a nomination for a Soap Opera Digest award.

She is the daughter of a Methodist minister and vividly remembers her first performance. She was two years old, and her father was preaching a Good Friday sermon.

"I jumped from my mother's lap and ran to the altar and sang, 'Mama's little baby loves shortening bread.' They couldn't shut me up, and they haven't been able to shut me up since."