Elizabeth Hubbard, who starred in the daytime soap operas The Doctors and As the World Turns, has died. She was 89. Hubbard’s son Jeremy Bennett, who shared the news on Facebook Monday, did not reveal a cause of death.
“I’m sorry to say with a broken heart mi mum passed over the weekend,” Bennett wrote from Roxbury, Connecticut. “Thank you for being an unmovable rock that guided me through life. I will try to honor your memory for as long as I live. Love & Prayers.”
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Hubbard began working on televisionย in 1962 and scored her breakthrough role as Dr. Althea Davis on The Doctors in 1964. She played the character during three stints, from 1964 to 1969, 1970 to 1977, and 1981 to 1982. During her second tenure with the show, she won the 1974 Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series. The Doctors aired on NBC from 1963 to 1982 and focused on the staff at the fictional Hope Memorial Hospital. Virginia Vestoff briefly played Althea in 1969 and 1970.
After The Doctors ended, Hubbard joined One Life to Live as Estelle Chadwick, but the role was short-lived. She quickly moved to As The World Turns in 1984, playing Lucina Walsh. Hubbard’s performance made her a fan favorite and an annual presence at the Daytime Emmy Awards during the late 1980s and early 1990s. She earned eight Emmy nominations for As the World Turns.
Although As the World Turns ended in 2010, as the number of soap operas collapsed on network television, Hubbard wasn’t done with the genre yet. In 2015, she joined the YouTube series Anacostia for a nine-episode run as Eva Montgomery. The role earned Hubbard her final Daytime Emmy nomination in 2016. Hubbard also won a Daytime Emmy in 1976 for the special First Ladies Diaries: Edith Wilson.
Hubbard was born on Aug. 22, 1933, in New York City. After studying theater in London, she returned to the U.S. to begin her Hollywood career. Aside from her work in daytime television, she appeared in a handful of movies, including I Never Sang for My Father (1970), The Bell Jar (1979), Ordinary People (1980), and Cold River (1982). In 2009, she traveled to the Netherlands to star in the long-running Dutch soap Goede Tijden, Slechte Tijden. Hubbardwas married to David Bennett from 1970 to 1972. They had one son, Jeremy Bennet.
