When All My Children debuted on January 5, 1970, Warrick was among the contracted cast, playing Phoebe Tyler (the character's full name via her marriages would eventually be Phoebe English Tyler Wallingford Matthews Wallingford). The show was an instant hit and Phoebe became a popular daytime character. Warrick received Daytime Emmy Award nominations in 1975 and 1977. In 1985, she played Hannah Cord in the television film Peyton Place: The Next Generation.
She was on Broadway with Debbie Reynolds in the 1973 stage play Irene.
Due to health problems, actor Louis Edmonds, who portrayed Warrick's All My Children husband, left the show in 1995. Combined with Warrick's own health problems from old age, that signaled a reduction in her screen time in the 1990s. Warrick broke her hip while on vacation in Greece in 2001 and thenceforth used a wheelchair.
Rumors circulated that head writer Richard Culliton was planning to kill off Phoebe and that Warrick would be dropped from the show for budgetary reasons (General Hospital had done this twice to Anna Lee, who had played matriarch Lila Quartermaine). Phoebe was not seen on screen until All My Children's 35th anniversary show on January 5, 2005. This brief appearance would ultimately be Warrick's final screen appearance. When she was wheeled into the building, the cast and crew gave her a standing ovation to welcome her back after such a long absence. This episode featured not only a rare appearance from Warrick, but the return of her stepdaughter Verla, played by comedic legend Carol Burnett. This episode also featured Agnes Nixon.
She published her autobiography, The Confessions of Phoebe Tyler (co-written by Don Preston) in 1980, the same year she won a Soapy Award (a prelude to the Soap Opera Digest Awards).
She received a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and was on hand to receive her Daytime Emmy Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2004.
Warrick was a member of the Democratic Party, working with the administrations of John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and Jimmy Carter on labor and education issues. Upon Carter's 1980 defeat, she sent him a long letter thanking him for his efforts. He replied, telling her that if he had hired her as a speechwriter, he would have been reelected. Warrick had generally liberal political views. In her first years at All My Children, Warrick was flustered by her character's strong right wing politics and support of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, which Warrick personally adamantly opposed.
In July 2000, she refused to accept a lifetime achievement award from the South Carolina Arts Commission because she was offended by legislators' decision to move the Confederate flag from the state Capitol dome to another spot on the grounds in response to a boycott of the state by flag opponents. A lifelong supporter of African-American rights, she felt the flag should be removed completely, and commented, "In my view, this was no compromise. It was a deliberate affront to the African-Americans, who see it as a sign of oppression and hate."
Warrick's name popped up in television infotainment shows and supermarket racks in 2002 in connection with the highly publicized courtship and marriage of Liza Minnelli and David Gest. Gest had long been spreading the rumor that he and Warrick, 38 years his senior, were romantically involved. Confronted by a reporter to confirm or deny this, Warrick predicted that Minnelli would be disappointed on her honeymoon. Minnelli and Gest escalated the tabloid war by scolding Warrick for her insinuation about Gest's sexuality. Eventually, while not recanting her statement, Warrick apologized.
In her senior years, she became a spokeswoman for the rights of senior citizens as well as the disabled and was appointed to the U.N. World Women's Committee on Mental Health.
She died of complications related to pneumonia, aged 88, on January 15, 2005.
She received a memorial tribute at the 11th annual Screen Actors Guild Awards. The day after the 2005 Academy Award ceremony, former castmate Kelly Ripa expressed her outrage on her national television show Live with Regis and Kelly that Warrick had not been included in the annual memorial tribute to actors who had died in the previous year on the telecast.
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