Helen Gallagher was an award-winning actress, decorated with two Tony Awards for her stage work and best known for her three-time Daytime Emmy Award-winning turn as Maeve Ryan on “Ryan’s Hope.”
- Died: November 24, 2024 (Who else died on November 24?)
- Details of death: Died in Manhattan at the age of 98.
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Helen Gallagher’s legacy
By the time Gallagher began captivating audiences as Maeve Ryan on the soap opera “Ryan’s Hope,” a role that earned her five Daytime Emmy Award nominations and three wins, she was already a highly decorated and respected actress, then best known for her work on the stage.
Gallagher’s career began on Broadway in the late 1940s, where she sang, acted, and – despite suffering from asthma – danced. When the 1940 musical “Pal Joey” was revived in 1952, she took up the role of Gladys. The show was a hit, and so was Gallagher, earning her first Tony Award, as well as a Donaldson Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Musical. Other notable productions featuring Gallagher include “High Button Shoes,” “Guys and Dolls,” “Oklahoma!,” and “Mame.”
In 1971, another Tony Award landed on her shelf, this time for her portrayal of Lucille Early in “No, No, Nanette,” a comedy based on the 1919 play, “My Lady Friends.” She also won a Drama Desk award for the role. Years prior, in 1967, she was nominated for a Tony for playing Nickie in “Sweet Charity.”
Gallagher had made many television appearances by this point, but almost all were as herself, performing pieces from her dozens of Broadway shows. That changed in 1975, when she took up the role of Ryan in “Ryan’s Hope.” Acting in over 2,000 episodes running through 1989, Gallagher won acclaim for her work, earning Emmy nominations in 1976, ’77, ’79, 1981, and 1988, and winning in ’76, ’77, and ’88.
She lightened her public workload in the years that followed, appearing sporadically on television (“Law & Order,” “One Life to Live,” “All My Children”) and stage (“Same Time, Next Year,” “Annie 2”), instead focusing on being a faculty member at New York’s Herbert Berghof Studio, teaching the class, “Singing for the Musical Theater.”
Tributes to Helen Gallagher
Full obituary: The Hollywood Reporter
