Soap star Marnie Schulenburg has died amid a battle with breast cancer. She was 37.
After Schulenburg’s rep confirmed the news to Variety on Wednesday, May 18, the One Life to Live alum’s husband, Zack Robidas, spoke out via Facebook.
“Please don’t say Marnie lost her battle to cancer. It’s simply not true. I watched her kick cancer’s ass everyday since diagnosis,” the actor wrote. “She is incredible. We chose to attack her diagnosis with blind optimism. We only talked about the future and continued moving forward. I don’t know if this was right but it’s all we knew how to do.”
Schulenburg and Robidas shared daughter Coda, 2. The twosome wed in 2013. The former As the World Turns star was diagnosed with cancer in May 2020, five months after she became a mother. Days before she died on Tuesday, May 17, Schulenburg, whose 38th birthday is May 21, penned an emotional post about motherhood.
“It wasn’t a guarantee that I was going to be home this Mother’s Day. I got released late Friday night but had to be sent home with an oxygen machine. It’s not my ideal to be a 38 year old Mom who needs an oxygen tank to survive right now,” she wrote on May 8 via Instagram. “I want to be strong and beautiful for her. I want to show her how to move throughout this world with compassion, strength, vivacity, humor and joy like my Mother showed me.”
Schulenburg encouraged her followers to remember to soak “up the imperfections.”
“I know that me being here for her is the best gift I can give her but right now it feels like settling since she’s getting a half-life version of myself,” she wrote. “My mother showed up 100% all day everyday for me growing up or at least it seemed that way. I want to give Coda the same but I must be kind to myself and remember that nothing is permanent. On May 8, 2020 I found out I had Breast Cancer and truly thought my life was over. Two years later I’m still here and my chances of sticking around her better each month that goes by.”
Schulenburg starred on more than 300 episodes of As the World Turns from 2006 to 2010. She also played Jo Sullivan on One Life to Live in 2013 and made appearances on Army Wives, Royal Pains and Elementary.
She is survived by Robidas and Coda.
