Helen Pryor

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American Dreams character
Helen Pryor
Gender	Female
Hair color	Blonde
Eye color	Blue
Portrayed by	Gail O'Grady

Helen Pryor (born c. 1927) is a fictional character from the NBC television show American Dreams. Helen, played by actress Gail O'Grady, is the mother of the Pryor household, an Irish Catholic family living in West Philadelphia between 1963 and 1966.

Helen was born as Helen Dolan in the Philadelphia area. She began dating Jack Pryor when she was 17. After Jack's return from the South Pacific (where he was serving in the Navy in World War II), Jack and Helen were married in November of 1945. She gave birth to John Pryor, Jr.("JJ") in 1946, followed by Meg Pryor in 1948, Patricia Pryor in 1951 and Will Pryor in 1956. Helen and Jack considered having a fifth child, but they decided not to do so early in the show's first season.

Helen, the strict Catholic, then struggled with the decision to begin taking birth control pills. While Helen enjoys being a homemaker, the show depicts Helen's growing interest in feminism, and as the years go by she becomes more and more willing to stand up to Jack when she disagrees with him. In the first season she began taking a literature course at Temple University, but took an incomplete after her professor made a pass at her. Early in the second season, she took a fulltime travel agent job at the Pine Street Travel Agency. After JJ was reported missing in action in Vietnam, Helen suffered from a near nervous breakdown, and like her daughter Meg, she turned against the Vietnam War. She secretly joined a Catholic peace group and began using her job as a travel agent to help young men flee country to avoid the draft. Only Meg knew that her mother was involved in doing this, though JJ suspected it.

The show was cancelled by NBC in May of 2005. Had the show been renewed for a fourth season, creator Jonathan Prince revealed that a major plotline would have had Jack, who supported the war, finding out about Helen's assistance to draft dodgers, causing a major conflict between them. [1]