Nancy Hughes McClosky is a fictional character from the CBS Daytime soap opera As the World Turns. Portrayed by Helen Wagner for 54 years from the soap's inception in 1956 until 2010. Nancy served as the core family's and, by extension, the town's matriarch. Wagner was acknowledged by the Guinness Book of Records as being the portrayer of the longest-running character portrayed by one actor on television, and held the title until her death on May 1, 2010. Wagner spoke the first lines, "Good morning, dear," on the series debut on April 2, 1956. Throughout the course of the series, Nancy remained a matriarch figure in the lives of those she cared for. Over the course of the program, Nancy had appeared in some 19,700 scenes and has been described as a straitlaced, proper and unassuming woman who stood for "old-fashioned values". In 2004, Wagner received her first award for her work on the show in the form of a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Daytime Emmys after 48 years on the soap. Wagner died of cancer on May 1, 2010, and Nancy last appeared June 1, 2010. As the World Turns dedicated two episodes to both the character and actress with surrounding characters illustrating different ways of dealing with her death. Storylines She is one of the original characters of the long-running soap, and spoke the first line on the debut episode on April 2, 1956 ("Good morning dear, what would you like for breakfast?"). Show creator Irna Phillips modeled Nancy in the mold of a member of a Greek chorus: someone who stays mostly on the sidelines but nevertheless comments on the crises that more dynamic residents of the town faced. In many respects, Nancy's "moral voice" served to further how Phillips wanted certain characters to be perceived by the public. When Nancy spoke out against her son Bob's ex-wife Lisa in the mid-1960s, the Lisa character became, by and large, the character everyone "loved to hate." Likewise, when Nancy forgave Lisa for her past transgressions in the 1970s, public opinion softened toward Lisa and she became a respected character on the program. Traditionally a housewife, Nancy was bit by the feminism bug in the late 1970s and worked for a time as a secretary. In the early 1980s, she quit that job and returned to keeping house. For several years she worked as a volunteer at Oakdale