R.I.P. Helen Gallagher: ‘Ryan’s Hope’ And ‘One Life To Live’ Soap Opera Legend Dead At 98

Helen Gallagher, the soap opera veteran who starred in over 2,000 episodes of Ryan’s Hope, has passed away. She was 98.

Gallagher reportedly passed away Sunday (Nov. 25) in a Manhattan hospital. Edith Meeks, executive and artistic director of New York’s Herbert Berghof Studio where Gallagher taught classes, confirmed the news to the Washington Post. A cause of death was not shared.

The award-winning actress enjoyed a prolific life both on and off stage. Many will recognize her from her memorable run on the ABC soap opera Ryan’s Hope, centered on an Irish-American family living in New York City. Gallagher played the matriarch Maeve Ryan, who helped her husband run a bar in the Upper West Side.

Gallagher starred in a whopping 2,142 episodes of the show between 1975 and 1989. Her performance earned her three Daytime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Lead Actress in 1976, 1977 and 1988.

After Ryan’s Hope ended in 1989, Gallagher appeared in two episodes of Another World. It would be another eight years until she returned to television with a guest appearance in a 1993 episode of Law & Order.

Gallagher praised her time on Ryan’s Hope in a 1997 interview. “Ryan’s Hope was the best,” Gallagher told RyansBarOnline. “First of all, it was a half-hour show — wonderfully cast and wonderfully written. There were plenty of times when it was boring, but as a rule, it was really interesting — the people were centered and had work to do.  It wasn’t just a matter of sitting around on couches talking about your emotional problems. There was a life going on in that place, maybe because it was centered on a bar. It was just magic.”

She also later appeared in All My Children in 1995 and One Life to Live in 1997.

One of her last acting credits was in the 1997 drama Neptune’s Rocking Horse, which is among the few films she dabbled in throughout her decades-long career. She also starred in the Kirk Douglas feature Strangers When We Meet in 1960. The last television appearance of her career was in the PBS program American Masters in 2009.

Born in 1926 in New York City, Gallagher forged a formidable career on Broadway after making her debut in 1944 in the Cole Porter musical Seven Lively Arts.

She earned two Tony Awards for her performances in the 1952 play Pal Joey and the 1970 musical No, No, Nanette.

Gallagher was also a longtime educater. During her television career, she taught a class in “Singing for the Musical Theater” at New York’s Herbert Berghof Studio, per Playbill.