An actor diagnosed with breast cancer just five months after the birth of her daughter in 2019 has died of the disease at age 37. Marnie Schulenburg first gained fame for her portrayal of Alison Stewart on CBS' As the World Turns, for which she earned a Daytime Emmy nomination in the show's final season in 2010, reports Variety. Later, she portrayed Jo Sullivan in a reboot of One Life to Live, notes The Hollywood Reporter. Husband Zack Robidas, a fellow actor perhaps best known for his role as Mark Ravenhead in Succession, informed fans on social media.
"Please don't say Marnie lost her battle to cancer," he wrote, per Variety. "It's simply not true. I watched her kick cancer's ass everyday since diagnosis." They "chose to attack her diagnosis with blind optimism," wrote Robidas, adding that "I don't know if this was right but it's all we knew how to do." People notes that Schulenburg herself posted an update on Mother's Day. "I want to be strong and beautiful for her," she wrote on Instagram of daughter Coda, now 2. "I want to show her how to move throughout this world with compassion, strength, vivacity, humor and joy like my Mother showed me." (More obituary stories.)