Happy 94th Birthday Helen Gallagher

From Broadway baby to the barkeep at Ryan's Bar.......

Her Emmy Reel from 1988 (where she won for the third time)

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) eventually assuming the title role, closing the original Broadway run. [2] and also appeared in 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.[2] Her song and dance number with Bobby Van from that show, "You Can Dance with Any Girl", is preserved on youtube through its performance on the Tony Awards television broadcast. 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.[3] 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.[4]

Here's an interview from 2019. I love how Helen refers to Miss Ann Miller as "the tap dancer with the nervous feet." Helen was evidently quite fond of Harold Lang and she disliked Gower Champion for not choreographing for Lang's immense dancing talent. The host makes a crack about how the "Pal Joey" revival featured someone called Elaine Stritch but Helen remains stony faced and doesn't take the bait to say anything about Stritch.

She admits that she openly lamented Nancy Walker being miscast as her replacement in a show, which was reported in a newspaper. When Helen opened in "Hazel Flagg," she received a telegram that Carole Lombard would have felt similarly about Gallagher being cast in her part. The telegram was from David... surname not provided. Merrick, perhaps?

She seems so sharp. It's a shame she was passed over for the "Follies" revival in favor of mugging Jayne Houdyshell.

Helen recalls that when her husband saw Verdon in "Sweet Charity" after seeing Gallagher play the title role (she did it quite a lot as Verdon was often out), he remarked that he had to admit Verdon had "something" Gallagher didn't... Helen finishes the anecdote with the assurance that she divorced him. Thus, she was married in the 1960s.

The great Hilary Knight is in the audience and speaks briefly.