Daytime alum Mary Linda Rapelye (Maggie Crawford, As the World Turns; Faith Kipling, One Life to Live) passed away on April 5 following a battle with cancer, reports the Boothbay Register (a local paper in Maine).
Rapelye began acting at the tender age of five and immediately gave the world a taste of her unique star quality; during the Frontier Pageant at the Starlight Theatre in her hometown of Kansas City, Missouri, she jumped off the stage and into her daddy's arms in front of a crowd of 10,000 people! That moment kick-started Rapelye's acting career, which eventually led her to soap operas.
Rapelye's first daytime character was One Life to Live's Faith Kipling, which she played from 1979 to 1980. As ABC soap fans may recall, Faith was the wife of Ivan Kipling (Jack Betts), one of Llanview's most notorious villains.
Following her time on OLTL, Rapelye took on the role of As the World Turns' Maggie Crawford, an attorney who turned out to be the glamorous sister of Lyla Peretti (Anne Sward). Rapelye played the role from 1981 to 1985, during which time Maggie led John Dixon's (Larry Bryggman) marital rape trial, fell in love with Frank Andropoulos (Jacques Perreault), and went through a long custody battle to win motherhood of Jill, an abandoned baby she'd found in the bushes outside Memorial Hospital.
Though most famous for her soap roles, Rapelye had several other acting credits, including the series Medical Center, Star Trek, and Ironside, as well as the films In Cold Blood, Marooned, and The Proposal.
In addition to acting, Rapelye was a businesswoman who created the toy company You're A Doll, the cosmetics company Rapelye Cosmetics, and the idyllic destination Lyric Meadow Farm, where she cared for animals and bred Goldendoodles. She was also a member of the Screen Actors Guild and the Maine chapter of the National Society of the Colonial Dames of America.
Rapelye is survived by her brother, Gardiner Rapelye Jr., nephews Beau and Tanner Rapelye; several cousins, and four stepbrothers.
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