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David Letterman calls the late Teri Garr a ‘favorite’ show guest after her death
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David Letterman calls the late Teri Garr a ‘favorite’ show guest after her death

After decades of hosting guests on his talk show, David Letterman admits that Teri Garr stands out from the rest.

Hours after news of Garr’s death at the age of 79, the legendary talk show host, 77, celebrated the late actress by sharing one of his favorite moments with her on his eponymous talk show on Instagram.

“In memory of one of our all-time favorite guests, Teri Garr #RIP,” he captioned a throwback video of his interview with Garr prior to the 1983 Academy Awards. The actress was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Toetsie.

“Congratulations on your success, it is well deserved and I hope you enjoy it,” Letterman told Garr in the video.

When he asked if she had words prepared for her big moment, the actress admitted that she “hadn’t thought about it until now, you saying it.”

“I guess you’re right, I must have something to say,” she mused. “It’s embarrassing, but I’ve been thinking about something. If I won and I think I have a one in five chance of getting there, I would have to say something, so I started thinking about all the people I would say thank you and things like that, you feel foolish thinking about this.

Teri Garr and David Letterman in 1979.

Paul Drinkwater/NBCU Photobank/NBCUniversal via Getty


“It’s something you expect might not happen and then what am I going to do with all that information if I don’t win?” Garr joked. “I would store it all in my head.”

Instead of expressing gratitude for those who helped her find her way, Garr laughed and admitted that she had thought about “some people I wouldn’t thank.”

“I know you’re not supposed to do that, you’re supposed to be friendly and all that,” she added. “I’m human.”

On Tuesday, Oct. 29, the late actress’ publicist, Heidi Schaeffer, told PEOPLE that Garr died of multiple sclerosis “surrounded by family and friends.”

Teri Garr.

Joseph Del Valle/NBC via Getty


In 2002, Garr publicly announced that she had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in the late 1990s. She first started noticing symptoms during filming One from the heart And Toetsie.

She published a memoir, Speed ​​bumps: through Hollywoodin 2006, where she opened up about her illness. “MS is a sneaky disease,” she wrote in an excerpt published by PEOPLE. “Like some of my boyfriends, it has a tendency to pop up at the most awkward times and then disappear completely. It would take more than twenty years for doctors to figure out what was wrong. Sometimes MS was reported, but all tests came back clear. Then the symptoms would go away and I would kind of forget about it.”

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Garr became a national ambassador for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society and national chair of the Society’s Women Against MS program. She limited the number of projects she appeared in and retired from acting in 2011.

“Slowing down is not in my nature, but I have to,” she said Brain and life magazine in 2005. “Stress and anxiety and all those stressful things are not good for MS.”