HELEN GALLAGHER: AN APPRECIATION

By CHIP DEFFAA

Two-time Tony Award-winner Helen Gallagher, who just died at the age of 98, was a terrific musical-theater performer. Oh, she did work in television and film, too–winning three Emmy awards along the way. But it was in the theater, she felt, that she got to make the fullest use of her talents, and do her most memorable work.

I was just stunned by how strong she was in “No No Nanette,” which I saw twice on Broadway in the early 1970s. I was so taken by her performance of the “Where-Has-My-Hubby-Gone Blues” that I got a pianist to record a piano track for me of that little-known song, just so I could learn it. And she really knew how to make a number build; her theatrical instincts were just so sharp.

A quarter-century later, I got to see her do “No, No Nanette” again, at New Jersey’s Paper Mill Playhouse (one of my favorite productions of all the productions I’ve seen there since the 1970s). This time they had her playing a different role (the role Ruby Keeler had played on Broadway); it didn’t suit her quite as well, but it was still a thrill to see her–at an age when most people would be retired– starring in a musical. And a few years later, in her mid 70s, she was starring in the York Theatre Company’s  revival of “70 Girls 70.”

She made her Broadway debut in 1945. My parents, who loved her work on stage, enjoyed seeing her star in shows on Broadway in the 1950s. She did lots of Broadway shows–“Guys and Dolls,” “Finian’s Rainbow,” “Hazel Flagg,” “The Pajama Game,” “Finian’s Rainbow,” “Sweet Charity,” “Mame.” And a half-dozen Off-Broadway shows. She was highly regarded in the business.

But she understood the realities of the theater world, too–that you could get the greatest reviews in the world for one show, but still might have to wait years for the next show–which might then close quickly.  She got rave reviews for her own work in some Broadway shows  that flopped—like “Portofino” (1958), which lasted just one week.  Director George Abbott believed she should have become a huge Broadway star, but her career growth  was hampered by some weak shows.

Television work (“Law and Order,” “The Cosby Mysteries,” etc.) and teaching  helped pay the bills. (And she continued to teach musical performance, well into her 90s.)

 She noted that many people who never saw her on stage came to know her through her work on soap operas–including a whopping 2,145 episodes of “Ryan’s Hope,” from 1975-1989, as the matriarch of the Ryan family.