Alison Stewart is a fictional character from As the World Turns, an American soap opera on the CBS network. Created by head writers Juliet Law Packer and Richard Backus, and introduced by executive producer Laurence Caso, the character was portrayed by several child actors, including Sarah Hyland. In 2002, the role was rapidly aged when Jessica Dunphy was cast in the role; she remained in the role until her exit in 2005. In 2007, the character briefly crossed over to The Young and the Restless with actress Marnie Schulenburg in the role, who would continue her portrayal on As the World Turns until the series finale in 2010.

For her portrayal of Alison, Schulenburg earned a Daytime Emmy Award nomination in the category of Outstanding Younger Actress in a Drama Series in 2010.

Casting

Upon the character's introduction in 1994, the role was portrayed by several child actors, including Kristi Richuitti and Sarah Hyland. In April 2002, Jessica Dunphy joined the cast in the role. In July 2005, it was announced that she would exit the role; she last appeared on July 20 of the same year. In 2006, Marnie Schulenburg was cast in the role; she made her debut when the character made a crossover appearance on The Young and the Restless on February 22, 2007, and later debuted on As the World Turns the following month. Schulenburg remained with the soap until its final episode on September 17, 2010, becoming the longest-tenured actor in the role.

Storylines

Backstory Alison was introduced on July 11, 1994, Susan Stewart and her much younger husband, fellow doctor Larry McDermott. Susan carried the baby, which was created with Larry's sperm and an egg donated by Susan's daughter, Emily Stewart.

2002–2005 In 2002, Alison (Dunphy) immediately made her presence known as a bad-girl blonde like her "sister," Emily: mischievous, witty, and willing to use her beauty to manipulate or just for fun. Even so, the character's vulnerability was clearly visible, caused by abandonment issues stemming from her absent father and her experiences growing up as the daughter of an alcoholic (Susan).

Her first-love relationship with Aaron Snyder was a teenage love triangle story, with Alison scheming to break up Aaron's relationship with Lucy Montgomery while pretending to be Lucy's best friend. Aaron and Alison developed a real friendship, which led to love. Alison got involved with Chris Hughes, who was older (in his 20s) and a doctor. The Hughes and Stewart family had a volatile past, with storylines involving Bob and Susan's affair, Tom and Emily's affair (and child), and Kim's marriage to Dan, whom Susan had seduced away from her decades ago. Kim Hughes, in particular, found it nearly impossible to accept Alison into the Hughes family. This situation was eased somewhat by Bob's mother, town matriarch Nancy Hughes, who formed an unlikely friendship with Alison.

After a somewhat painful transition from teenager to adult, including a miscarriage and finding out the truth about her parentage, Alison's rocky relationship with Susan and Emily changed to a tight bond of support as the three of them poked fun at their reputation as "those Stewart women".

In addition to her romances, Alison got involved in adventure and mystery storylines, often with a touch of comedy. She also became involved in trying to catch a hospital serial killer, who turned out to be Susan's new husband, Rick Decker. In 2005, Alison exited Oakdale to be with Aaron in Seattle.

2007–2010 In early 2007, when Emily was having sex with a man she met, they watched a porn tape, and Emily was horrified when she discovered that the girl in the movie was Alison (Schulenburg). Emily went to Dusty Donovan for help and the two tracked Ali down in Las Vegas, where she had made several porn movies and was addicted to crystal meth. They took her back to Oakdale, and Emily promised that she would not tell their mother, but Ali had to kick off in return. Ali pretend she was okay with it, but kept meeting her dealer in secret. When she had no money left, Ali offered herself to her dealer in return for more drugs. Emily and Dusty found her and took her back to their house, where Ali finally began to realize she had to get clean. With Emily and Dusty's help, she began to get better and got a job at Al's Diner. However, Ali was soon found by Lance, the man who made her a porn star, and he forced Ali to go back to work. Ali refused and told him to leave her alone. When he visited her in her room, he attacked her and Ali fought back, wounding him with a razor blade. Dusty came to the rescue in time and kicked Lance out of the room. He helped Ali get cleaned up and then the two slept together that night.

The next morning, they decided to not tell anyone, since, Dusty was about to be romantically involved with Emily. Shortly after, when Ali had gotten better, she was surprised when her ex-boyfriend Aaron Snyder returned to Oakdale. It was revealed that back in Seattle, Aaron barely had any time for her, and at one point, Ali thought he cheated on her, so she cheated on him to get back at him. It was all proven false in the end and Ali left Seattle because she felt ashamed of what she did to him. Aaron told her he did not care about that and came back to Oakdale to be with Ali again. After some more struggle, Ali gave and they gave their relationship another shot. It once again did not last very long, when Ali and Dusty discovered that their night had been filmed, and now, someone threatened to post the video on the web. Aaron found out and broke up with Alison. When Emily discovered, she was upset that she left town. Both Ali and Dusty felt guilty about Emily's hurt, but there was nothing they could do.

To keep herself busy, Ali got back to her old job, and volunteered at Memorial Hospital. She worked for a while at the hospital, and bumped into ex-fiancé Chris Hughes, who had just returned to town and got his job as a doctor back. The two were glad to see each other and decided to get a drink. There, they ran into Emily, who had also just returned. Emily had forgiven both Dusty and Ali, and she turned out to be involved again with Chris, whom she met during her time away. Ali was happy hat her sister had finally found a man who genuinely liked her and told Chris not to break her heart. Around this time, Chris' nephew Casey Hughes was released from 9 months in prison and returned troubled to Oakdale. He and Ali struck up an immediate friendship and she also welcomed his old cellmate Matt O'Connor into her life. She and Matt soon felt attracted to each other and started dating. Ali came clean to him and told him her past as a porn start and drug addict, but he was okay with it and said everybody makes mistakes sometimes. After a while, Ali, Matt, Casey and his mother Margo were locked in Casey's house by the criminal Gray Gerard, who wanted to take revenge on Margo for shooting his uncle nearly a decade earlier. It turned out Gray Gerard was Gerard Nevins, the nephew of Elroy Nevins, who raped Margo in the nineties. The four escaped safely and Gray was shot and killed. It was also revealed that Matt was a part of this plan and he was taken to jail. A month later, he wrote a letter for Ali where he apologized to her and told her he genuinely had fallen for her, and hoped she could forgive him one day.

After all this, Ali and Chris spent more time together, much to Aaron and Dusty's dismay, who both did not like Chris. Aaron decided to leave it alone, but Dusty would not give up and tried to sabotage Emily and Chris' happiness several times. He eventually revealed to Chris that Emily had been a prostitute a year before, and Chris was disgusted with Emily and broke up with her. He and Ali grew closer and eventually started to go on a date together. After this, Ali realized she was still in love with him, so she also came clean to him and showed him the DVD of her porn movie. She feared Chris would dump her, but he told her the reason he broke up with Emily was because she lied about it, but Ali did not. The two continued their dates and Ali got an offer to get into the nursing program. She wanted to use the money from the deceased Dusty (presumed dead at the time) to pay for nursing school, but Emily refused to unfreeze the money, because Ali was now dating Chris. Emily eventually gave in and Ali got into nursing school. When she failed her tests, Chris convinced the head of the program, Brenda, to give Ali another shot, one that she passed.

When Ali and Chris planned to make love that night, Ali froze and skipped Chris' room. The next time, the same thing happened and Chris became frustrated. He told Brenda to let Ali fall and Ali was kicked out of the programme. When she discovered Chris was behind this, she pressed charges against him for sexual harassment, but she lost the case when Chris lied in court. After this, she did not want to have anything to do with him, but the two could not stay away from each other. When Ali got another chance for the Programme, she and Chris grew closer again and he helped her pass her test. At the same time, Ali had also bonded with Aaron again. When Ali got ill, she was admitted to the hospital, where Aaron refused to let Chris get anywhere near Ali, believing he was the cause of Ali's condition. Shortly after, more victims fell ill, including Chris. He eventually discovered they were being poisoned and he found the cure to nurse everybody back to health. Ali was grateful towards Chris, who put his own life on the line to save her, but she continued to spend more time with Aaron. Chris asked Ali if she really wanted to be with Aaron instead of him, or if she was just choosing Aaron because he was safe and did not break her heart, as Chris did.

Chris got his answer when Ali and Aaron appeared to be engaged out of nowhere. Aaron had set up Chris to come to the Lakeview, where the engagement party took place, so Chris would witness Aaron speeching to his soon wife-to-be. Chris was deeply hurt and Ali could not bare to see him like that, but refused to break off the engagement. When a patient at Memorial was forced to live in an elderly home, she could not take her dog Voldemort "Morty" with her, and Chis and Ali became his new boss. Ali and Chris now saw each other at least twice a day, to take care of Morty, but also secretly because they could not stay away from each other. On the day before the wedding, Chris decided it was now or never and declared his love for Ali. They had sex that night, but Ali broke his heart when she told him she was not going to break off the engagement. On their wedding day, Chris showed up with the plan to object, but Dani Andropolous took him away before he could do anything. On the question from the priest if anyone had a reason to object, Ali expected and hoped for Chris to do this, but he was gone, and she was married to Aaron.

In order to keep her focused on Aaron instead of Chris, she wanted to start a family with him right away, However, a doctor's appointment revealed that she could not become pregnant anymore due to a disease she had when a porn star. She began to push Aaron away and talked to Chris about her problems instead. When Aaron witnessed one of their conversations, after which Ali left upset, he confronted Chris. He told Aaron that he and Ali had sex the night before the wedding. Aaron went to confront Ali about this, who admitted it was true. Aaron was disappointed by her, but was still willing to give their marriage another chance. At the same time, Ali had made up her mind and realized she was no longer in love with Aaron and they filed for divorce. Ali wanted to clear her head for a while and thought about what to do now. When she found that Chris was about to leave for Africa, she wished him good luck. Only one hour later, Ali realized she loved Chris and went back to beg him to stay. However, she was too late and Chris had already left for Africa.