Marcy Walker

Marcy Walker
Born	Marcy Lynn Walker (1961-11-26) November 26, 1961 Paducah, Kentucky, U.S.
Other names	Marcy Smith
Occupation(s)	Actress, minister
Years active	1980–2005
Spouses	Stephen Ferrera ​ ​ (m. 1983; div. 1983)​ Billy Warlock ​ ​ (m. 1985; div. 1987)​ Stephan Collins ​ ​ (m. 1990; div. 1991)​ Robert Primrose ​ ​ (m. 1997; div. 1999)​ Doug Smith ​ ​ (m. 1999)​
Children	1

Marcy Lynn Walker (born November 26, 1961), also known as Marcy Smith, is an American youth minister and former actress known for her television appearances on daytime soap operas. Her most famous roles are those of Liza Colby on All My Children, which she played from 1981 to 1984 and 1995 to 2005, and as Eden Capwell on Santa Barbara from 1984 to 1991.

Personal life

Walker was born in Paducah, Kentucky and traveled the world during her youth. She lived in Lancaster, California from 1975 to 1978 and attended Antelope Valley High School there. After her junior year, she moved to Troy, Illinois and attended Triad High School where she was active in the drama club and graduated from there in 1979.

Marcy has married five times. Her first husband was Stephen Ferrera, whom she met on the set of All my Children in 1980. She married him and divorced him in 1983. She then had a brief relationship with Michael E. Knight, who was playing Tad in All my Children at the time. The two did not stay together for long, as Marcy wanted more than Michael could give her. In 1984/1985, she was cast in a movie called Hot Resort. There she met Bronson Pinchot, to whom she was briefly engaged before marrying actor Billy Warlock on November 2, 1985. The marriage broke up in 1987 because Billy had problems with Marcy becoming more popular than him. In November 1987, Marcy met Stephan Collins on the set of the film Desperado and announced in June 1988 that she was pregnant with their first child. Marcy and Stephan married in 1990 and divorced in 1991.

Taylor, Marcy's son, was born in February 1989 and died unexpectedly in November 2023.

In 1993, Walker was hired by CBS for the role of Tangie Hill in Guiding Light. There she also met her fourth husband Robert Primrose, to whom she was married from 1997 to 1999.

Life, however, can turn sour and dark. In New York City, Smith saw suffering and sorrow in her friends and acquaintances. She saw drug use, alcoholism, anorexia, cancer and AIDS. She was surrounded by death and questioned why. “I lost a very good friend to liver failure,” Smith says. “I said, ‘I can’t do this anymore. Marcy never knew faith or religion while growing up. She certainly didn’t find it on the daytime dramas she starred in while living in New York City or Los Angeles. She did, however, open a letter weekly from a woman in New Jersey who wasn’t a fan of the daytime soaps, but just a person compelled to write each week about God to a woman she never knew. “I wanted God in my life because of the gospel I heard through her,” said Smith! “I wouldn’t be here today, I wouldn’t have met my husband, I wouldn’t know Jesus as my Savior now if it wasn’t for her.”

Marcy became a Christian in 1997 and started to visit Hope Evangelical Church in Wilton Connecticut. During a Bible Study Class in 1999, she met her now Husband Doug who she later married after six month of Dating on December 11th 1999. Marcy goes now by the name Smith in her private life and is now married for almost 25 years.

Marcy´s Story how she became a Christian is extraordinary mainly because, to this day, the letters that a stranger sent for seven years straight are still a dear part of Smith’s life. “I hope my story encourages people to not give up on people they have hope for. It does matter, and what you say to others matters. Because of a housewive from New Jersey, I took the leap … and look at how many lives she’s changed.”

On X former Twitter Marcy announced in 2020 that she had Stage 3 Breast Cancer.

Acting background

In 1981, Walker was cast in her first acting job on a daytime serial as Liza Colby on the ABC Television soap opera, All My Children. (She had turned down an offer to join the cast of As the World Turns.) She was honored with two Outstanding Supporting Actress Daytime Emmy nominations in 1983 and 1984. After a successful three-year run, she decided to leave the show for other opportunities. She was replaced promptly with actress Alice Haining, as Liza Colby on the show.

In 1984, Walker created another popular soap opera role in the form of Eden Capwell on Santa Barbara. Her character, partnered with A Martinez's character, Cruz Castillo, became one of the period's most popular supercouples. For this role, Walker received three more Daytime Emmy nominations, this time in the category of Outstanding Lead Actress. She won the award in 1989 for an emotional storyline in which her character was brutally beaten and raped. She left the show in 1991.

In 1993, she started playing the role of Tangie Hill on Guiding Light. While the role was created specifically for Walker, the character didn't catch on with the audience and Walker declined to renew her contract. Walker left the show in mid-1995 before making a long-awaited comeback appearance as Liza Colby on All My Children in September of that year. In 2001, she was nominated for another Outstanding Lead Actress Daytime Emmy award.

On August 5, 2004, The Wilton Bulletin, a Connecticut newspaper, reported Walker's intention to become a full-time children's ministry director at Hope Church in Wilton, Connecticut upon the expiration of her ABC Television contract the following September. The actress had been interviewed for the article on July 20, 2004. On August 20, 2004, Dan J Kroll of soapcentral.com reported that Walker's All My Children contract had not been renewed. Her farewell appearance on All My Children aired on September 28, 2004.

A year after Walker left All My Children, she became a Full Time Childrens Director for Lake Forest Church in Huntersville, North Carolina. On July 22nd 2010 Walker resigned from Lake Forest Church and was hired by Good Chepard Church in Charlotte North Carolina. She stayed there for a year before she moved in Summer 2011 to Edmond/Oklahoma where she became a Childrens Director for LifeChurchtv. In 2015 Marcy and Doug moved to Dallas Texas.

The exit of Liza Colby occurred amid rumor that Walker would return to the show on a recurring basis. This rumor was fueled by the fact that her exit was very open-ended. She was not killed off, like some notable fan favorites like Jesse Hubbard, played by Darnell Williams, but rather assumed a new identity. Her character simply decided to take her daughter to live out of reach from her controlling ex-husband Adam Chandler, played by David Canary.

According to Soap Opera Digest magazine, Walker was at first hesitant to go on a recurring basis, but later warmed to the idea. In November 2004, the writers created a scene where Liza appeared making a phone call. Walker appeared again in January 2005, when her character assisted Babe Carey Chandler and Jamie Martin, in their attempt to flee from Adam's wrath. The characters of Babe and Jamie were played by Alexa Havins and Justin Bruening.

Former head writer Megan McTavish spoke to the soap media and publicly thanked Walker for working without a contract, but also hinted that she did not intend for Liza to return to the show any time soon. However, in 2009, the character of Liza returned, albeit played this time by actress Jamie Luner.

In addition to her work with daytime soap operas, Walker has starred in several movies of the week, including The Return of Desperado, Bar Girls, Midnight's Child, and Terror In the Shadows.

Walker did not participate in the All My Children reunion that was featured on the February 2, 2017 edition of the Hallmark Channel's Home & Family show. However, Home & Family did utilize footage of Walker with Michael E. Knight from the All My Children storyline where Knight's Tad Martin character had affairs with both Liza Colby and her mother Marian (played by Jennifer Bassey).

Filmography

List of television credits

Year	TV Movie/Series	Role
1995	Terror in the Shadows	Rebecca/Christine
1996	Sudden Terror: The Hijacking of School Bus #17	Lieutenant Kathy Leone
1993–1995	Guiding Light	Tangie Hill
1993	Nick's Game	Maxine "Max" Clift
1992	Overexposed	Ann Demski
1992	Midnight's Child	Kate
1991	Palace Guard	Christy Cooper
1990	Babies	Cindy
1990	Bar Girls	Melanie Roston
1990	Perry Mason: The Case of the Desperate Deception	Marie Ramsey
1988	The Return of Desperado	Caitlin Jones
1984–1991	Santa Barbara	Eden Capwell Castillo
1981–1984, 1995–2004, 2005	All My Children	Liza Colby
1980	Life on the Mississippi	Emmeline

List of film credits

Year	Film	Role
1994	Talking About Sex	Rachel Parsons
1985	Hot Resort	Franny

Awards and honors

List of awards and honors

Year	Award	Role (Show)
2001	Daytime Emmy Nomination, Outstanding Leading Actress	Liza Colby (All My Children)
1997	Soap Opera Award Outstanding Supporting Actress	Liza Colby (All My Children)
1989	Daytime Emmy Winner, Outstanding Leading Actress	Eden Capwell (Santa Barbara)
1989	Daytime Emmy Nomination, Outstanding Leading Actress	Eden Capwell (Santa Barbara)
1988	Daytime Emmy Nomination, Outstanding Leading Actress	Eden Capwell (Santa Barbara)
1987	Daytime Emmy Nomination, Outstanding Leading Actress	Eden Capwell (Santa Barbara)
1984	Daytime Emmy Nomination, Outstanding Supporting Actress	Liza Colby (All My Children)
1983	Daytime Emmy Nomination, Outstanding Supporting Actress	Liza Colby (All My Children)

Ministry background

In early 2005, after juggling two roles, one as an actress and another working part-time in her home church, Hope Church, in Wilton, Connecticut, she decided to pursue Christian youth ministry on a full-time basis. In 2005, she began working at Lake Forest Church in Huntersville, North Carolina as their Director of Children's Ministry. On July 22, 2010, she announced on her Facebook page that she was resigning her position on staff with the church to take a position at another Charlotte-area church. The Mission Pastor of her former church once said "Marcy is the coolest." In 2011, Marcy joined the staff of LifeChurch.tv at their Edmond, OK campus.

External

• Marcy Walker at IMDb
• Biography of Marcy Walker