May 04 (THAINDIAN NEWS) Many of you may remember her as the mild mannered “Nancy Hughes” on the television show, “As The World Turns”, a CBS soap opera. She starred on the show for over half of a century, and spoke the first words ever said on the long running series, when it opened on April 2, 1956 with her line “Good Morning, Dear.” Ms. Wagner, who held the Guinness Book of World Records place for playing the same role in a television show for the longest amount of time, 54 years, died Saturday, at the age of 91. The death was announced by TeleNextMedia, Inc,the New York producer of “As The World Turns”. They did not reveal where she passed away or what was her cause of death.

Wagner was born in Lubbock, Texas. She had made fewer appearances in the last few years, but still held her role to surpass the mount of time anyone has held a television role by far. Her final appearance on the show aired on April 5, a show which was taped in March. Julianne Moore returned for a guest walk in on Wagner’s last episode. A tribute video is embedded below which shows scenes from her life and career.

“As The World Turns” had recently been canceled after 54 years, in December of 2009. The show was dropped by CBS, putting the company which had coined the phrase ’soap opera’ out of the business of making the daytime dramas for the first tine in 76 years. The last episode is due to show in September. It’s cancellation came just after the same fate befell “Guiding Light”, another CBS daytime soap opera.

Both shows were produced by a subsidiary of Procter & Gamble, the company for which the term “soap operas” was created because it used the shows to hawk products like Ivory soap and Duz laundry detergent. Procter & Gamble first began producing soap operas in 1933 with the radio show “Ma Perkins,” and has made a total of 20 such programs in its history. “As the World Turns” was the first daytime TV drama to run a full half-hour rather than 15 minutes. It rose to No. 1 in the daytime ratings and, in the 1970s, was expanded to an hour.

Real life intruded on the show in historic fashion on Nov. 22, 1963, when “As the World Turns” was still performed live on air. Wagner’s character was talking about upcoming Thanksgiving plans (”I’ve thought about it, and I gave it a great deal of thought …”) when the broadcast was interrupted mid-sentence with a “CBS News Bulletin” sign. Viewers then heard Walter Cronkite announcing that President John F. Kennedy had been shot in Dallas. The actors themselves weren’t told at the time.