Daytime and Broadway Actress Eileen Herlie Dies at 90

Daytime mainstay Eileen Herlie, who played the wise Myrtle Fargate for 32 years on ABC's "All My Children," died Wednesday, ABC has announced. Her death came from complications from pneumonia. She was 90 years old.

Eileen Herlie joined the cast of All My Children in 1976, playing the role of Myrtle Fargate.

Born and raised in Glasgow, Scotland, Ms. Herlie worked for several years in the Scottish National Theatre and in the English theater in the company of Tyrone Guthrie. Among her first hit plays on the London stage was Jean Cocteau's The Eagle Has Two Heads.

On Broadway, she starred as Queen Gertrude opposite Richard Burton's Hamlet and played the same role in the film with Sir Laurence Olivier. She also starred on Broadway with Ruth Gordon in The Matchmaker, with Jackie Gleason and Walter Pidgeon in Take Me Along, with Ray Bolger in All American, and as Queen Mary in Crown Matrimonial. Ms. Herlie's other film credits include Freud with Montgomery Clift and Sidney Lumet's The Seagull with Simone Signoret.

Ms. Herlie guest starred as Myrtle Fargate on two other ABC daytime dramas, Loving and One Life To Live.

She is survived by her brother, AlfrEd Herlihy, and her nieces and nephews.

Photo: Eileen Herlie, ABC Daytmie