Kathryn Hays, the actress who played Kim Sullivan Hughes for nearly 40 years on As the World Turns, died March 25 in Fairfield, Conn., the Connecticut Post reported. She was 88.

Born in Princeton, Ill., in 1933, Hays appeared on dozens of TV shows throughout the 1960s and early '70s, but her part on the CBS soap opera became her signature role, one she played continuously from 1972 until the series' conclusion in 2010. Introduced as the adulterous sister of Jennifer Sullivan Hughes, the loving but fiery Kim later became one of ATWT's most popular characters, aging into the Hughes family's matriarchal figure.