HELEN WAGNER AS NANCY HUGHES
Helen Wagner,
who has played the role of Nancy Hughes on As the World Turns since it
premiered on CBS on April 2, 1956, is the program's sole original cast member.
After making
her television debut in the role of a queen in a fairy tale that General
Electric produced on its experimental station in Schenectady, New York, she
appeared in numerous dramatic television roles, including live productions of Studio
One, Philco Radio Television, and Suspense. Later, Charlie Ruggles
selected her to play his daughter in the series The World of Mr. Sweeney,
a role she played for five years.
Helen's
Broadway credits include the Sigmund Romberg/Oscar Hammerstein musical Sunny
River; Rodgers and Hammerstein's Oklahoma!; The Bad Seed; My Name Is
Acquilon with Jean Pierre Aumont and Lilli Palmer; and Love of Four
Colonels with Rex Harrison and Lilli Palmer.
She toured as
Blanche in A Streetcar Named Desire with Lee Marvin; and appeared in
regional theater in Illinois as Eleanor in The Lion in Winter and in all
of the women's roles in Lovers and Other Strangers. She has performed in
many off-Broadway and summer stock productions, at hospital benefits, and in
Gilbert & Sullivan tours. She also sang with the St. Louis Municipal Opera.
Helen studied
at Monmouth College in Illinois, earning degrees in dramatics and music. In New
York, she continued her voice and piano training, gaining experience as a
soloist in various church choirs.
In 1988, her
college alma mater awarded Helen an honorary degree of Doctor of Humane
Letters. The next year, to replace the college's turn-of-the-century
"little theater" with a state-of-the-art theater, Helen chaired a
national committee that raised more than one million dollars.
On November
1, 1990, Monmouth College's new theater's opening night, Helen reprised her
role as Eleanor in The Lion In Winter in a production directed by her
husband, Broadway producer Robert Willey.
Helen enjoys
reading, needlepoint, and knitting. Helen was born in Lubbock, Texas; her
birthday is September 3.