Sadness and shock never cease when a celebrity dies, and the announcement that actress Marnie Schulenburg passed away on May 17, 2022, is no exception to the rule. Perhaps the situation that makes this even worse for everyone involved is that she died at the tender age of 37. She was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2020. To make matters worse, the young actress is the mother of a little girl who turned two on December 12, 2019. The shock and horror felt by all are only eclipsed by the absolute heartbreak we feel for her little girl and the loss she’s suffered at an age that will likely prevent her from ever remembering the time she did spend with her mother. No child should ever lose a mother, and our hearts break for her husband, her little girl, and their families and friends.
Her Early Life
Born and raised in Massachusetts, she was the kind of girl who lived a dream. She was raised on Cape Cod – the place so much of the world visits in the summer and only a handful of people get to call home. She and her two brothers were Cape kids raised by their mother and their father. Her entire childhood was spent performing. From being part of the musicals and the plays performed at her local high school to taking lessons in both voice and dance at the Cape’s Conservatory, she knew she would one day take part in the arts as her career. She loved it, and it was her calling. Following her high school graduation, she immediately went to college. Her 2006 graduation saw her enter the real world with a degree in theater she earned while spending four years at DeSales University. She continued to act and participate in musical theater during her college career. She immediately took it upon herself to head straight to the Big Apple to pursue a career in acting. She began auditioning immediately for roles, but her big break would come when she was cast as Alison Stewart in the daytime television show As the World Turns. Her character was so good that she was given crossover roles in shows such as The Young and the Restless. She went on to star in One Life to Live, and she had roles in many other shows on television including The Good Fight in 2019 and Army Wives in 2010.
Her Personal Life
She began dating actor Zack Robidas around 2003. While we are not entirely certain when they began dating, we know that they married on September 15, 2013, after nearly a decade of dating. He is from the town in which she went to college in Pennsylvania, and they met there during her college years when she was his college guide during a tour. They were married more than six years when they welcomed their daughter, Coda Jones. Their little girl was born on December 12, 2019, just before the Christmas holidays. Marnie was living in new mom bliss, though she was experiencing a very common issue many new moms face – tender, painful breasts. She was diagnosed as having mastitis, which any new mom who ever dealt with can tell you is beyond painful. Unfortunately, her diagnosis was inaccurate. Her particular form of metastatic breast cancer is often mistaken for mastitis. She announced in May of 2020, when her daughter was only six months old, that she’d been diagnosed with stage four breast cancer. The pandemic was brand-new at the time, she was a new mother, and she was heartbroken and devastated. She shared her diagnosis in 2020 sometime around her 36th birthday. She was born on May 21, 1984. She would have celebrated her 38th birthday only four days after her death in 2022.
Her life was changed dramatically because of her brother and his play. His name is Gus, and he wrote a play and took her with him to his own college campus – and she fell in love. She was a young girl who was a gymnast most of her life, planned to attend school in Boston when she was old enough and had a completely different life planned for herself. But she fell in love. First with the campus on which she would spend her college years living, and then with her husband when she happened to end up working as his college guide. Her life was a good one with many successes, much happiness, and so many things to celebrate. It’s crushing to know that it was cut so short. She shared her cancer journey with fans, recently sharing during the month of her birth as well as Mother’s Day that she just wants to be strong and beautiful for her daughter, but instead she’s dying at home attacked to an oxygen tank to give her life and knowing it could be cut short at any moment. She was a dynamic woman, and our hearts break for her little girl.
Follow Us
