Helen Gallagher

Helen Gallagher (born July 19, 1926) is an American actress, dancer, and singer.

Early years

Born in Brooklyn, she was raised in Scarsdale, New York for several years until the Wall Street crash which heralded the Great Depression, and her family moved to the Bronx. Her parents separated and she was raised with an aunt. She suffered from asthma.^[1]

Gallagher was known for decades as a Broadway performer. She appeared in Make a Wish, Hazel Flagg, Portofino, High Button Shoes, Sweet Charity (for which she received a 1967 Tony Award nomination for Featured Actress in a Musical), and Cry for Us All.

In 1952, she won a Tony Award for her work in the revival of Pal Joey. In 1971, she won her second Tony Award for her role in the revival of the musical No, No, Nanette, which also starred Ruby Keeler and Patsy Kelly. Her song and dance number with Bobby Van from that show, "You Can Dance with Any Girl", is preserved on the cast album of that revival. She would later take on the role of Sue Smith in the Papermill Playhouse revival of the show, playing the role Keeler played a quarter century earlier.

Her first starring role on Broadway came in 1953 as title character Hazel Flagg, based on the 1937 Carole Lombard movie Nothing Sacred.^[2] The role earned her a feature photo shoot for Life magazine. Gallagher appeared in the 1977 movie Roseland opposite Christopher Walken. An aficionada of Rodgers and Hammerstein, she appeared on a special tribute to Richard Rodgers on The Bell Telephone Hour.^[3]

Television

Despite her extensive work on Broadway, she is perhaps best known as the gentle Irish American matriarch, Maeve Ryan, on the soap opera Ryan's Hope, a role she played for the show's entire duration, from 1975 to 1989. She was nominated for five Daytime Emmy Awards for her work on the serial, winning in 1976, 1977, and 1988.^[3]

At the time she was cast in Ryan's Hope, Gallagher taught singing in her home three times a week. Michael Hawkins, who would play the first Frank Ryan, was one of her students.^[4]

As the show progressed further into the 1980s, the ratings took a steep slide. When ABC executives cancelled Ryan's Hope, Claire Labine ended the final episode with Maeve at the family bar, Ryan's, singing her favorite tune, Danny Boy. Almost immediately after the cancellation of Ryan's Hope, Gallagher had a two-day guest stint on Another World, and has since appeared in All My Children as a strict nurse, and on One Life to Live as a sex therapist (whose son married Dorian Lord). She has continued to act in various Off-Broadway and professional theater productions.^[3]

Later years

In 1984, Gallagher starred in the title role of Tallulah, a musical stage biography of actress Tallulah Bankhead.^[5] She is currently a faculty member at HB Studio.

Theatre credits

Film and television

References

External links

• Helen Gallagher at the Internet Broadway Database
  
• Helen Gallagher at the Internet Movie Database
• Helen Gallagher at the Internet Off-Broadway Database
• Helen Gallagher at Broadway World