Actress Gail O'Grady

Gail O'Grady is an actress many TV viewers remember from the nineties and two thousand zeroes.

She played New York Police Department civilian aide Donna Abandando on the ABC series "NYPD Blue" for three years, 1993 to 1996, reprising her role briefly in 1999.  Later, in the new century, she played suburban Philadelphia mom Helen Pryor in the 1960s drama "American Dreams," set around the Philadelphia-based airing of Dick Clark's "American Bandstand," before that show moved to Los Angeles.   

Gail O'Grady has had recurring roles in other television shows, and she also played U.S. Navy Lieutenant Paula Coughlin in the TV movie She Stood Alone: The Tailhook scandal, about Lieutenant Coughlin, a naval aviator, and how she blew the whistle on how that 83 servicewomen and seven servicemen had been sexually assaulted at a 1991 meeting of the Tailhook Association, a naval aviation fraternity.  Lieutenant Coughlin herself was victimized.  Over a hundred naval aviators and Marines were involved.