Agnes Nixon dead: ‘All My Children,’ ‘One Life to Live’ TV creator was 93

Agnes Nixon

In this June 27, 2010 file photo, Agnes Nixon arrives at the 37th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards in Las Vegas.

The grand dame of daytime television drama, Agnes Nixon liked to say that “everyone’s life is a soap opera.” For proof, she offered up her own.

She had an “abandonment complex” because her parents divorced soon after she was born. Growing up in an Irish Catholic enclave in Nashville, Tenn., in the 1930s and 1940s, she felt painfully different because the other children all seemed to have fathers. Hers was “nearly psychotic” and schemed to crush her post-collegiate dream of being a writer.

He wanted his daughter to follow him into his burial garments business and arranged for her to meet Irna Phillips, a pioneering writer of radio serials who her father was certain would “set me straight” regarding the foolishness of a writing career, Nixon often said.

And then Nixon invariably inserted a soap opera staple into the story — the plot twist. During the meeting, Phillips looked up from reading the sample script that was Nixon’s resume and asked, “How would you like to work for me?”

“It was one of the greatest moments of my life,” Nixon later said. “It was freedom.”

Nixon, who went on to create such enduring daytime TV dramas as “One Life to Live” and “All My Children,” died Wednesday at a senior living facility in Pennsylvania. She was 93.

Daytime stars, as well as behind-the-scenes personnel, took to social media to express their sadness.

“I am devastated to learn that we have lost Agnes,” said “All My Children” star and soap opera royalty Susan Lucci. “I adored her and admired her — and I am forever grateful to her! May this liveliest and loveliest of women rest in peace.”

“Days of Our Lives” head writer Dena Higley called Nixon a “tiny lady, but a force of nature,” while “The Young and the Restless” actress Melissa Claire Egan remembered her as a “true trailblazer.”

Robert A. Iger, chairman and CEO of Walt Disney Co., said in a statement: “It is with a heavy heart I mourn the passing of television pioneer Agnes Nixon, someone I was proud to call a friend.