Teri Garr, the star of Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein who earned an Oscar nomination for her role in Tootsie, has died at the age of 79. Best known for her film roles, Garr was a preternaturally gifted comedic genius and a fixture on late-night TV, where she often dropped by The Tonight Show With Johnny Carson and Late Night With David Letterman. Garr passed away on October 29 following a prolonged battle with multiple sclerosis, as confirmed by Variety.
In addition to acting, Garr was a trained dancer and talented singer whose early credits included go-go dancing as a background extra. After taking a step back from acting in the late ’90s, Garr later revealed in a 2002 interview with Larry King that she had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, a chronic autoimmune disorder that affects the central nervous system.
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Though her appearances were less frequent, Garr continued acting with memorable roles in Dick and Ghost World. She also had a recurring role on Friends as Phoebe Abbott, the birth mother of Lisa Kudrow’s Phoebe.
Teri Garr Was a Comedy Legend With an Incredible Acting Career
Born in Lakewood, Ohio in 1944, Garr followed her parents into show business with a series of background roles in various movies and TV shows, including the ’60s Batman series starring Adam West. She landed her first speaking part, in The Monkees’ psychedelic 1968 film Head, written by Jack Nicholson, whom Garr met in an acting class. Garr broke into the mainstream with roles in a pair of classic 1974 movies: the Francis Ford Coppola thriller The Conversation, opposite Gene Hackman; and Mel Brooks’ iconic horror comedy Young Frankenstein, in which she played Inga, the beautiful, buxom assistant to Gene Wilder’s mad doctor. Inga was a quintessential Garr performance that both capitalized on her superficial qualities while subverting the expectations often associated with them, i.e., the dumb blonde.
Garr went on to star in the Steven Spielberg sci-fi drama Close Encounters of the Third Kind, in which she played Ronnie, the wife of Richard Dreyfuss’ protagonist, Roy. A trained dancer and singer, Garr appeared in over 40 episodes of The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour and was a regular guest on the duo’s followup, The Sonny and Cher Show.
In 1982, she starred opposite Dustin Hoffman in Sydney Pollack’s Tootsie, for which she earned a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination. Garr also appeared in ’80s classics Mr. Mom, opposite Michael Keaton, and the Martin Scorsese comedy After Hours with Griffin Dunne. While her output slowed in the ’90s, Garr had a supporting role Dumb and Dumber and starred in a handful of kid-friendly projects, including the sci-fi comedy Mom and Dad Save the World, and episodes of Shelley Duvall’s Faerie Tale Theatre and Disney’s Adventures in Wonderland.
Garr released her autobiography, Speedbumps: Flooring it Through Hollywood, in 2006, detailing her remarkable career and her experience with MS. That same year, Garr suffered a ruptured brain aneurysm that left her in a coma for a week. After intense rehabilitative therapy, Garr went on to star in a few more films, including her final project, the 2011 TV movie How To Marry a Billionaire. Garr is survived by her daughter, Molly O’Neil, and her grandson, Tyryn.