Marnie Schulenburg, who was best known for her parts on the soap operas As The World Turns and One Life to Live, has died at the age of 37. Her agent at Industry Entertainment, Kyle Luker, confirmed that Marnie suffered a fatal breast cancer battle two years ago. She had been battling stage 4 metastatic breast cancer since she was diagnosed with it two years ago.
Marnie Schulenburg who played Alison Stewart on “As the World Turns” and Jo Sullivan on the “One Life to Live” reboot, died Tuesday, stated her manager Kyle Luker.
Coda, the daughter of Shulenburg and “Succession” actor Zack Robidas, was born two years ago.
In December 2020, Schulenburg discussed her diagnosis on Soaps.
“On the eve of my 36th birthday, instead of searching for a place to drink multiple Bloody Marys (my birthdays always involve Bloody Marys, boats and lobster, not in any particular order), I was repeating the same question over and over again in my head: “How does one celebrate a birthday with a new baby in the middle of a global pandemic while coming to terms with a Stage IV, metastatic, borderline triple negative inflammatory breast cancer diagnosis?'” she wrote.
Schulenburg, who has a background in gymnastics, was born and raised in Barnstable, Massachusetts. According to The Morning Call , Schulenburg’s plans to go to school in Boston were halted after her older brother Gus, a published playwright, took her to DeSales University, where she fell in love with the campus.
She found a new form of love when she arrived on campus, however, and it was Robidas, who acted as his school guide.
She was offered the part on “As the World Turns” soon after she graduated from high school in 2006, when she was only 17 years old.
She subsequently guested on the web reboot of “One Life to Life” in 2013.
Shulenburger, who would have been turning 38 on Saturday, has appeared in several television series, including “Blue Bloods” and most recently Showtime’s “City on a Hill,” as well as off-Broadway.
On social media, she described her battle with cancer in a Mother’s Day message, stating that she had been discharged from the hospital on oxygen.
“It’s not my ideal to be a 38 year old Mom who needs an oxygen tank to survive right now. I want to be strong and beautiful for her,” she added in the caption on a sequence of images showing her daughter and her own mother, Candace. “I want to show her how to move throughout this world with compassion, strength, vivacity, humor and joy like my Mother showed me.”
Marnie’s spouse, actor Zack Robidas, offered a heartfelt remembrance of his late wife:
“Please don’t say Marnie lost her battle to cancer. It’s simply not true. I watched her kick cancer’s ass everyday since diagnosis. She is incredible. We chose to attack her diagnosis with blind optimism. We only talked about the future and continued moving forward. I don’t know if this was right but it’s all we knew how to do.”
Rest in peace, Marnie. You’ll be sorely missed!
