Margo Hughes

Margo Hughes is a fictional character on the daytime soap opera As the World Turns, a show about working life in the fictional town of Oakdale. She was first played by Margaret Colin, and then by Hillary B. Smith for six years. However the actress most recognized for the role is Ellen Dolan, who played the character from December 18, 1989 until 2010, with a break from January 1993 to June 1994 when Glynnis O'Connor played the role.

Margo's storylines often focus on family dramas and police matters. The character is portrayed as a stoic, hard-nosed, determined and level-headed character, who in later years has begun interfering in the lives of her children. A pivotal storyline for the character came in 1992 when the character was raped by two criminals she was attempting to arrest during a holdup. The storyline was continually re-hashed by the show in the years after.

Margo's only marriage in her 30-year history on the show was with that of lawyer Thomas "Tom" Hughes. The couple met during their investigation of Mr. Big and married in 1983. The super couple endured many trials and tribulations over their 27 years of marriage, most notably when Margo had an affair with Hal Munson, and Tom cheated on Margo with Emily Stewart. For her work on the show, Dolan won Soap Opera Digest's Outstanding Supporting Actress award in 1993, and was nominated for a Daytime Emmy the same year.

The character of Margo Montgomery was brought in as the daughter of Lyla Montgomery and John Dixon. Marrying Tom Hughes three years after her arrival, the move connected her to the core Hughes family. Margo miscarried three children with Tom and gave birth to son Casey Hughes. In the 1980s, Margo gave birth to a son Adam Munson which turned out to be the son of policeman Hal Munson.

The character of Margo had been with the soap since 1980 and was played by several actresses:

Originating the role in 1980, The Edge of Night's Colin stayed for two years (eventually marrying her on-screen love interest Justin Deas). In 1983, Bailey took over the role and admitted Deas didn't agree with the idea of the character being recast. "Because he and Margaret (Colin), they were not yet together. This was his way of interacting with her at work, he didn’t like the idea that she wasn’t there anymore. I think I handled him the best and that’s why I got the job. Subsequently we became really good friends." In 1989, after six years with the show, Bailey Smith quit the role, admitting she was burned out after her time on As the World Turns. "I wanted to spend more time with my kids. I felt I had taken Margo to the length I could take her. I needed to do something else. Doug’s feeling was, “Go take a break and come back.” I said, “I’d loved to do that, I just need a break.”

Ellen Dolan was offered the role of Margo Montgomery Hughes in 1989 by then head-writer Douglas Marland. Dolan said four years of Guiding Light helped her prepare for the role. "I wanted her to be funny/quirky .... everything you don't get to see in her these days." Dolan's first scene on the show, she revealed to CBS, was aboard an airplane. "My first storyline Casey, my husband’s Casey, had some rare disease and he was going to die. And I unplugged his life support but the way they brought the character of Margo back was they brought her home, so my first scenes were on an airplane," Dolan recalled. Dolan said the writers never wrote the character funny and any humour there was she brought it to the show. "Anything that's in there that brings a twinkle to anybody’s eye is what I bring to it. In fact, they have to take a lot of it away. They don't let me do it a lot."

After several years of forecasting the cancellation of the 54-year-old show, Dolan's 20-year role came to an end when CBS ended the show, with the last episode airing in September 2010. When asked how she hoped her character would leave, she replied: "I don't hope anymore."