The World Turns for Eileen Fulton and Now She Sings Songs of Love

Eileen Fulton has played Lisa on CBS’ “As the World Turns” for so long that it’s hard to tell where she ends and the character begins.

“I sing songs about old, lost love--yours, mine and Lisa’s,” quips Fulton, who opens a weeklong stint at the Cinegrill on Tuesday. The thrice-divorced actress, who originated her role in 1960, says, “I get Lisa out of the way at the beginning of the show: acknowledge her, talk about how different we are.”

One would hope.

“My character started off being the biggest bitch ever,” Fulton says proudly. “Now I’ve mellowed; I keep giving people terrible advice. I’ve split up two marriages, and one person had some of his brain removed.” Her happiest time on the series, she recalls, was 15 to 20 years ago, “when I had to marry a man who’d fathered my child--it was the only way he’d keep quiet about my son being a drug user. The other great story line was finding out I’d sold a son at birth.”

Born in North Carolina to an itinerant Methodist minister, Fulton moved to New York, where she studied with Sanford Meisner, Lee Strasberg and Martha Graham. At one point, she was appearing Off Broadway in “The Fantasticks” by night and splitting her days between “As the World Turns” and two-matinee-a-week performances in the Broadway staging of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”

In her new nightclub act, “I’ll be doing love songs, torch songs, jazz and blues,” says the actress, whose concert album, “First Kiss,” will be released this week. “They’re songs people know . . . well, people my age will know them! Songs like ‘My Old Flame’ and ‘Summertime,’ which we do with a jazz upbeat.”

Then it’s back to New York and Lisa. “I don’t know what’s next for my character,” says Fulton, who’s authored seven books--including her 1970 autobiography. “But she does need some romance in her life.” After six husbands and 38 lovers, she says sadly, “I’ve gone four years without a man. That’s a record.”