Agnes Nixon dead as All My Children and One Life to Live creator passes away aged 93

Agnes Nixon has died aged 93.

She was known as the grande dame of daytime drama for creating, writing, and producing soap operas including All My Children, One Life to Live and Search for Tomorrow.

Nixon, who died on Wednesday in Rosemont, Pennsylvania, had been suffering complications from Parkinson’s disease, the New York Times reported.

The prolific producer was highly regarded as a pioneer for women in television who transformed the traditional soap opera by weaving real-world issues into her shows.

Nixon famously modeled the fictional Pine Valley setting of All My Children on the suburban region where she lived outside Philadelphia. She kept her home base there even as the TV production company she ran with her husband, Robert Nixon, expanded.

Nixon was also co-creator of CBS’ long-running As the World Turns with her mentor, Irna Phillips, who is credited with creating the soap opera genre on radio. Early in her career, Nixon was a writer on CBS’ The Guiding Light and NBC’s Another World.

A native of Chicago, Agnes Eckhardt attended Northwestern University and decided to focus on a career as a writer. Eckhardt’s father arranged a meeting with Phillips in an effort to dissuade her from going into writing, but Phillips wound up hiring Eckhardt to work on the radio soap “Women in White.”

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