RYAN'S
BAR ONLINE
THE UNOFFICIAL FAN
PAGE FOR RYAN'S HOPE
Ryan's Hope is the story of the Ryan family—the owners of Ryan's Bar—and their working-class, gentrifying neighborhood on New York's upper west side. The half-hour daytime drama series originally aired in the U.S. on ABC from 1975-89. Character-driven and realistic writing, acting, and directing set the show apart throughout (most of) its run.
Created by the late Claire Labine and Paul Avila Mayer, Ryan's Hope helped launch the careers of Kate Mulgrew, Marg Helgenberger, and other future stars of primetime and film, in addition to introducing now beloved soap opera veterans like Roscoe Born, Ron Hale, and Ilene Kristen to daytime television audiences. In its day, the series also featured a number of legendary stage performers, including the multiple Tony award–winning Helen Gallagher, who headed the cast as matriarch Maeve Ryan from the first episode until the last. And the memories of the multi-talented Nancy Addison Altman, Bernard Barrow, John Gabriel, and Michael Levin live on for generations of viewers through their dynamic portrayals of complex, distinctive characters that sat and/or poured at "Ryan's Bar" for more than a decade each.
Ryan's Hope won numerous Daytime Emmy and Writer's Guild awards, among other accolades. Critics in the genre hailed it as "a soap-writing class being broadcast right now," "a unique blend of the new and the traditional...that was damned near perfect," and "soap opera verismo." The show has been syndicated internationally, and in the early 2000s the American cable network SoapNet rebroadcast all but a few lost episodes of Ryan's Hope's early years.
This website is a fan tribute and in no way affiliated with ABC, Disney, Labine-Mayer Productions, or any other business. Previously published materials are copyrighted by their original owners and are reproduced herein for informational and non-commercial purposes only.