Soap star Eileen Herlie dead at 90

NEW YORK, Oct. 9 (UPI) -- Scottish actress Eileen Herlie died Wednesday in New York of complications from pneumonia at the age of 90, ABC announced.

Herlie joined the cast of "All My Children" in 1976, playing the role of Myrtle Fargate, a character who became a second mother to actress Susan Lucci's Erica Kane. Herlie also guest starred as Myrtle on two other ABC daytime dramas -- "Loving" and "One Life to Live."

Born and raised in Glasgow, 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 title character in "Hamlet" and played the same role in the film with Laurence Olivier.

Herlie 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."

Herlie's other film credits include "Freud" with Montgomery Clift and Sidney Lumet's "The Seagull" with Simone Signoret.

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