Services set for ‘One Life to Live’ actor Nathaniel Marston

Services have been set for soap opera actor Nathaniel Marston, who died this week but was getting sober for a Hollywood comeback, his mother said.

"He was going to go back to LA. He'd gotten his sobriety back," his mother, Elizabeth Jackson, said Friday.

Marston was best-known for his role on ABC's "One Life to Live" from 2001 to 2007, first playing Al Holden, and then later reincarnated as Dr. Michael McBain. He also played Eddie Silva in CBS' "As the World Turns." IMDB.com listed his most recent roles in 2011.

Authorities said Marston died Wednesday at a Reno, Nevada, hospital after suffering critical injuries in an Oct. 30 crash on a state highway near Nixon.

Marston, who was from nearby Gerlach, was driving a 1985 Ford F-150 truck when it drifted across the lane, overturned multiple times and landed on the dirt shoulder. The actor wasn't wearing a seat belt and was thrown from the vehicle. He was flown to the hospital with critical injuries.

The cause and manner of Marston's death were pending further investigation, said Rudy Bein from the Washoe County Medical Examiner and Coroner's Office.

Marston was a Connecticut native who grew up in Hawaii and California.

The actor had largely been out of the spotlight since his soap opera days, after a 2007 New York brawl while he was still on "One Life to Live." He left the show shortly after his arrest.

Marston was accused of attacking three men with a metal crate and kicking at police officers during the scuffle at a Manhattan gas station. The fight left an officer bruised and one man with a broken leg.

Marston initially was charged with four counts of second-degree assault, menacing, reckless endangerment and resisting arrest. In March 2010, he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge, admitting to resisting arrest.

A plea deal had Marston complete an anger-management program in exchange for his case to be closed without jail time or probation.

Jackson said Marston had been sober for three months after battling drug and alcohol addictions.

In the rural community where he lived in recent years, Marston helped his mother at the school where she worked and did ranch work.

"He was the best cook in the whole wide world," Jackson said. "For Christmas, he cooked 150 dinners and hand delivered them to everyone in town with a voucher to mow their lawn."

Services have been set for 4 p.m. Sunday at Bruno's Country Club in Gerlach. Another memorial is scheduled for December in New York. His ashes will be scattered in Hawaii.

"He gave, gave, gave all love to everybody, all the time," his mother said.

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