Born in Brooklyn, she was raised in Scarsdale, New York, and the Bronx. Her parents separated and she was raised by an aunt. She suffered from asthma.
Career
Stage
Gallagher was known for decades as a Broadway performer. She appeared in Make a Wish, Hazel Flagg, Portofino, High Button Shoes, Sweet Charity eventually assuming the title role, closing the original Broadway run. 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. 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 characterHazel Flagg, based on the 1937 Carole Lombard movie Nothing Sacred. The role earned her a feature photo shoot for Life magazine. Gallagher appeared in the 1977 movieRoseland opposite Christopher Walken. An aficionada of Rodgers and Hammerstein, she appeared on a special tribute to Richard Rodgers on The Bell Telephone Hour. ''
Television
Despite her extensive work on Broadway, she is perhaps best known as the gentle Irish American matriarch Maeve Ryan on the soap operaRyan'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. 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. 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, singing Danny Boy. Almost immediately after the cancellation of Ryan's Hope, Gallagher had a two-day guest stint on Another World, and has appeared in All My Children as a strict nurse and on One Life to Live as a sex therapist. She has continued to act in various Off-Broadway and professional theater productions.
Later years
In 1984, Gallagher starred in the title role of Tallulah, a musical stage biography of actress Tallulah Bankhead. In 1990s, she guest-starred on Law & Order and The Cosby Mysteries. In 1997, she starred in the independent LGBT-themed drama filmNeptune’s Rocking Horse. She is currently a faculty member at HB Studio in New York City.
