Teri Garr starred in the films “Young Frankenstein” and “Oh God! An actor with comedic talent who is known for his roles in “. And “Tootsie,” the latter of which was nominated for an Oscar, has passed away.
Garr, who became a publicist after disclosing her multiple sclerosis diagnosis in 2002, died peacefully on Tuesday in Los Angeles surrounded by family and friends, publicist Heidi Schaefer said. confirmed to the Times. She also underwent surgery to repair a brain aneurysm in 2006. Garr was 79 years old.
Michael Keaton, Gar’s “Mr. Mama” co-star, praised her not only for her acting skills, but also that she was an amazing woman, writing on social media.
“[Garr was] Not only great to work with, but great to spend time with,” Keaton wrote alongside a photo of “Mr. Mom’s poster. He also encouraged his followers to revisit his late co-star’s comedy work. “Hey, she was great!!”
David Letterman, Michael McKean, Patton Oswalt and Paul Feig also paid tribute to Garr on social media. For “LA Story” actor Marilu Henner, Gar “has always been an icon.”
“I was in awe of her dramatic acting, comedic ease, and huge heart,” Henner tweeted. “Whenever I met her, no matter how hard she was going through it, she was always so much fun.”
When Garr played Dustin Hoffman’s long-suffering girlfriend in the 1982 hit film Tootsie, New Yorker critic Pauline Kael called her “the funniest, nervous, giddy woman on screen.” I called. Ms. Magazine said she “radiated anxiety and satire at the same time.”
Exhausted housewives were a specialty. She was the wary wife of Richard Dreyfuss in Close Encounters of the Third Kind and the faithless wife of John Denver in Oh God! And Keaton’s workaholic mother in “Mr.” mother. ”
“I seem to excel in those roles,” Garr told Reuters in 1986. I can’t say I resent it, but then I would hate my entire career. ”
Her first major film, The Conversation, directed by Francis Ford Coppola, received positive reviews for her small role as Gene Hackman’s girlfriend. That same year, she landed her breakthrough role in Mel Brooks’ monster movie parody Young Frankenstein. Garr played a free-spirited research assistant with a German accent and proved she was a “fantastic comedienne,” the Times review said.
Garr told National Public Radio in 2005.
When she played an unstable, crazed waitress sketching 1960s idols in After Hours, The Times called her performance “movingly strange.” Kale praised her “brilliant eccentricity”.
Gene Wilder (left), Teri Garr and Marty Feldman starred in the classic 1974 comedy film Young Frankenstein.
(United Archives via Getty Images)
Coppola gave her an early lead role in One from the Heart, where Garr, a former professional dancer, tangoed with Frederick Forrest on the streets of Las Vegas. During filming, a piece of glass cut a tendon in Gar’s leg. Later she wondered if the accident had triggered her multiple sclerosis.
After Garr publicly announced that he had MS, a degenerative disease that affects the nervous system, he often joked, “In Hollywood, getting older is worse than being handicapped.” I continued to get roles.
As a paid spokesperson for MS LifeLines, an educational program sponsored by pharmaceutical companies, Garr traveled the country speaking about the disease.
She first became aware of the disease in 1983 when her legs began to “clank” while jogging. The disease wasn’t diagnosed until 1999, when she visited what is now the chair of neurology at the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California.
“MS is a sneaky disease. Like some of my boyfriends, it tends to show up at the most troubling times and then disappear completely,” she wrote in her 2005 autobiography, Speed Bumps: Through Hollywood. “Fall to the floor,” he writes in “Fall to the floor.”
Teri Garr was a regular guest on many late-night talk shows, including “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.”
(Frank Carroll/NBC Universal via Getty Images)
Terry Ann Garr was born into a show business family in Los Angeles, but spent her childhood moving around the country so her father, Eddie Gonow (later Garr), could work in vaudeville. . Her mother Phyllis was a Rocketeer.
When Garr was 8 years old, his family, including his two older brothers, moved to North Hollywood. Her father worked in television and in the Marilyn Monroe film, “Ladies of the Chorus.”
Born Dec. 11, 1944, Garr was cautious about his age, but repeatedly said he was 11 when his father died of a heart attack. His obituary was published in the New York Times in September 1956. This means that she was born in 1944, although that year is cited in early biographical sources.
Ms Ga said she owed her optimism to her mother, a “tough character” who, after becoming a widow, found creative ways to make ends meet, including renting out the front of the house. Her mother was also a costumer at NBC.
By the end of fourth grade, Garr’s comic timing was evident, and her teacher handed her a note that read, “One day you’ll make a great comedienne,” she recalled in her autobiography. There is.
Gar aspired to be a prima ballerina and pursued that goal relentlessly even after her father passed away. While in high school, she toured with a professional ballet company based in San Francisco, and began yearning to perform to popular music when she heard Elvis Presley songs playing from her hotel window. It has become.
After graduating from North Hollywood High School, he participated in the tour of the stage play “West Side Story”. She had one line, a laugh, and wanted to be an actor.
Terry Garr speaks at the 16th Annual Race to Erase MS Dinner in Los Angeles, May 2009.
(Matt Sayles/Associated Press)
Her first real success was in television commercials, and she dropped out of California State University, Northridge, after two years of studying speech and theater to try her hand at full-time show business.
“I remember saying I made it all the way to the middle,” Garr told the Ottawa Citizen in 2000, with characteristic wit.
She laughed on ABC’s musical showcase “Shindig!” She appeared in the mid-1960s and danced in nine Presley films, including “Viva Las Vegas.”
In an early role, Garr played a grumpy secretary in a 1968 episode of “Star Trek.” To showcase her big break, she tapped into Hollywood tradition and ran an ad in Variety inviting readers to watch her “smile on Star Trek.” The attached photo showed an X-ray of her teeth.
For several years in the early 1970s, she served as Cher’s sidekick in skits on CBS’s “The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour” and even played Cher’s dog.
After his film career reached its peak in the mid-1980s, Garr increasingly turned to the small screen.
She appeared on the 1986 CBS soap opera Fresno and several short-lived television series. She primarily had guest roles on dozens of shows, including playing the eccentric biological mother of Lisa Kudrow’s character Phoebe on NBC’s “Friends” in the late 1990s.
Garr, a popular talk show star who was a frequent guest on David Letterman’s late-night show, often had to deny romance rumors.
Although Ga vowed never to get married, fearing it would negatively affect her career, she found herself in her late 40s looking for a family. She married contractor John O’Neill in 1993 on the same day her adopted daughter Molly was born, but the marriage ended after three years.
Ga, who walked with leg braces for years, continued to appear in occasional television and film roles, including in 2006’s “Unaccompanied Minors,” but her acting career has been delayed. seriously said that it was age discrimination rather than illness.
“Actually, I thought, ‘What’s the difference between being disabled in Hollywood and being a woman over 50?'”
Garr is survived by her daughter, Molly O’Neill, and her beloved grandson, Tyryn.
Times staff writer Alexandra Del Rosario contributed to this report.
