Cleaning soap Opera icon Leslie Charleson, who for many years performed Monica Quartermaine on “Normal Hospital,” died Sunday morning after an extended sickness. She was 79.

“It’s with a heavy coronary heart that I announce the passing of my expensive pal and colleague, Leslie Charleson,” “Normal Hospital” govt producer Frank Valentini introduced. “Her enduring legacy has spanned almost 50 years on ‘Normal Hospital’ alone and, simply as Monica was the guts of the Quartermaines, Leslie was a beloved matriarch of the complete forged and crew. I’ll miss our every day chats, her fast wit and unimaginable presence on set. On behalf of everybody at ‘Normal Hospital,’ my heartfelt sympathy goes out to her family members throughout this troublesome time.”

The beloved actress, who joined the cleaning soap in 1977, has had some well being ups and downs over the previous few years, which has restricted her time on the ABC cleaning soap, on which she hadn’t appeared since December 2023. Lately, Charleson suffered a number of falls that prevented her from getting round. Though it impeded her mobility and resulted in her want for a walker, it by no means obtained her spirit down. Charleson was hospitalized final week after one such fall.

The Kansas Metropolis native started her lengthy profession on daytime tv in 1964 when she was simply 19 within the short-lived ABC cleaning soap opera “A Flame within the Wind.” Just a few years later she started a three-year run on CBS’ “Love Is a Many Splendored Factor,” the place she performed Iris Donnelly Garrison, who was in a preferred love triangle with characters performed by Donna Mills and David Birney. Within the Nineteen Seventies, she guest-starred on lots of the finest identified primetime reveals of the time, together with “The Rockford Recordsdata,” “The Wild West,” “The Streets of San Francisco,” “Marcus Welby, M.D.,” “Mannix,” “Ironside” and “Completely happy Days,” on which she performed divorcée Dorothy Kimber and was the primary on-screen kiss for actor-director Ron Howard (who performed Richie Cunningham). In 1973, Charleson starred reverse Shelley Winters within the movie “The Day of the Dolphin.” She fell in love with the aquatic mammal, and picked up dolphins for the remainder of her life.

In later years, she guest-starred on “Dharma & Greg,” “Analysis: Homicide,” “Buddies” and starred alongside fellow cleaning soap stars Deidre Corridor (“Days of Our Lives”) and Colleen Zenk (“Because the World Turns”) within the 1993 made-for-television film “Girl on the Ledge.”

Though her primetime appearances have been plentiful, Charleson returned to the world of cleaning soap operas in 1977, when she was employed to exchange Patsy Rahn as Monica Bard on “Normal Hospital.” Charleson used to joke that she wasn’t obtained with open arms by lots of the forged and crew, who have been upset that her predecessor was given the heave-ho. Nevertheless, her humor shortly gained them over.

Throughout her 40-plus years on “Normal Hospital,” Charleson’s Monica was a part of one in all daytime’s greatest and hottest love triangles (Rick/Monica/Alan), has given audiences doses of each comedy (she had a factor for slapping individuals and was as a member of the super-wealthy, perennially quarrelsome and dysfunctional Quartermaine household) and drama (together with surviving breast most cancers and the lack of three kids) and has been shot and held at gunpoint greater than as soon as. Alongside the best way, Charleson earned 4 Daytime Emmy nominations for excellent lead actress.

After 30 years on “Normal Hospital,” Charleson was taken off contract and diminished to recurring standing in 2010, which her followers and followers of the present protested. In 2017, Charleson tripped whereas strolling her canine and injured her leg, inflicting her to get replaced for 2 months on the present by one-time youngster star Patty McCormack whereas she recovered. A number of years later, she suffered one other fall and was as soon as once more recast for a single day. Final October, it was introduced that Charleson was unlikely to return. Monica, nevertheless, continues to be talked about in storyline when the Quartermaines are gathered — she’s known as being upstairs at their mansion.

I personally knew Leslie. Very nicely, in truth. She was an excellent pal to me. Nobody was extra sort, fun-loving, loyal and beneficiant. I bear in mind occasions at her stunning home, when she’d let her turtle wander in her luscious yard and it will disappear into the bushes; once we’d sit within the kitchen nook and gossip; once I would tease her about her love of Elvis Presley and the Eagles. She was a superb laugher, she was. It was deep, and appeared to work its approach up from her ft. And there have been the issues she cherished most, similar to her horse and “Normal Hospital.” She cherished the present, and being part of its legacy. And the followers — she cherished them along with her complete coronary heart. I hope she is aware of how a lot she was cherished again … and the way a lot she can be missed.