Teri Garr’s early career

Teri Garr was born in Ohio in 1944, but raised in Hollywood by an actor father who died when she was 11, a mother who was “a Rockette at Radio City (and) a real tough cookie,” as she told it. The Washington Post. She broke through in Hollywood as a dancer, in Elvis Presley films and in the touring production of Westside storyand appeared in shows including Shindig! And The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour. (“I once played Cher’s dog on TV,” she told the paper After, but “Even now, when I get tired of playing the roles I do, I think of the million other women who want to be me and I go right back to work and say, ‘Thank you so much.’ “)

Above, she is pictured with Frankie Avalon in 1965 while filming a CBS pilot.

Teri Garr’s early days in Hollywood

Teri Garr (pictured with Amy Irving and Carrie Fisher at Lorna Luft’s birthday party) found success quite early in her career and entered A-list circles, being cast by major directors like Martin Scorses and Francis Ford Coppola.

Jessica Lange in ‘Star Trek’

Teri Garr’s first major speaking role came in a 1968 episode Star Trek that was meant to segue into another series called Command: Earth, but what didn’t work. “I played Roberta Lincoln, a dippy secretary in a pink and orange costume with a very short skirt. If the spin-off had succeeded, I would have continued as an Earth agent, working to preserve humanity. In a very short skirt,” she wrote in it Speed ​​bumps.

Teri Garr in ‘Young Frankenstein’

“That really put me on the map, because I was in that movie,” Garr told the newspaper AV club from Mel Brooks’ 1974 classic, in which she played lab assistant Inga. ‘I had no idea it would be such a big hit, and it is still is called. People still watch it all the time. I had no idea.”

Teri Garr in ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’

Teri Garr worked mainly in television for over a decade before her film career really took off, with roles in Oh God! and Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind (pictured) in 1977. She played Ronnie Neary, the unhappy wife of Richard Dreyfuss’ Roy.

Teri Garr in ‘Tootsie’

Playing Sandy, the neurotic actress girlfriend of Dustin Hoffman’s Michael Dorsey, was “one of the best roles of my career,” she wrote in her book. Speed ​​bumps: through Hollywood. She and Hoffman “began a friendship that would last many decades,” she said, plus she was nominated for an Oscar for the role.

Teri Garr on ‘Late Night with David Letterman’

Teri Garr was a frequent guest of Johnny Carson and David Letterman, who openly admired her interview skills, although perhaps most infamously she showered in his office while on air.

As she recalled in her memoir, “I knew he wouldn’t shut up about the shower until I gave in.” Okay, fine. I got into the shower, closed the door, stripped down to my underwear and turned on the water. He had defeated me, and across America, every man who had ever tried to get a girl to do something she didn’t want to do must have felt a small sense of victory. I thought of it as locker room humor.

But, she added, “I owe David Letterman a lot since he put me on the map.” (And he apologized in his own way by airing “Teri Garr Week,” a week of reruns featuring only shows she had appeared in.)

Teri Garr in ‘Mr. Mama’

Teri Garr “was in love with Michael Keaton. He was very funny,” she recalled of the film’s making. AV club. But she did admit some resentment that the roles she was often cast in were those of imposed mothers.

When the AV club When asked why she thought she often played long-suffering types, she speculated, “Because they only write those roles for women. If there’s ever a woman who’s smart or funny or witty, people are afraid of that, so they do it.” not.” They only write that for women where they let everything roll over them, where they let people sweep their feet over this world.

Teri Garr’s Relationships

Teri Garr had several long-term relationships during her career (including with director Roger Birnbaum and doctor David Kipper) before marrying contractor John O’Neil (pictured) in 1993. She told PEOPLE in 1991 that he was a “sweet teddy bear.” bear with a heart. ”

Teri Garr’s family

Teri Garr and John O’Neil welcomed their daughter Molly through adoption in 1993; they would divorce three years later.

Garr, who had had health problems related to her multiple sclerosis for years, wrote in her memoir that her career and social life were affected, but her family life was happy.

“My friendships and business relationships may not have been perfect, but the most important thing was that John, Molly and I were a family. My life with them was worth everything. I knew that if I had a bad day, I would go home and go there would go.” would be this sweet little thing waiting there, just for me.”

Teri Garr on ‘Friends’

Teri Garr had a memorable three-episode stint as Phoebe Buffay’s flaky, absent mother, also named Phoebe, on Friends.

Teri Garr’s MS activism

In her memoir, Teri Garr recalled years of symptoms without a clear diagnosis, but by the late 1980s, she said, rumors about her condition began to cost her career.

“The gossip had an immediate and devastating effect on my career. Whatever this MS was, the industry wanted no part of it. At first I was furious. Whatever was going on in my body had been going on for years the hand. It never came in. the way of my work,” she wrote.

When she finally received her diagnosis, she felt relief that she could finally treat the disease, but she had to scale back her acting roles due to the impact of stress and fatigue on MS.

She made her diagnosis public in 2002 with an interview Larry King Live! and became an ambassador to raise awareness for the condition.

Teri Garr’s daughter Molly

“Molly has been the greatest joy of my life,” Teri Garr wrote in her memoir, which was published when her daughter was 11 (the two are pictured here in 2012). “She keeps me going. Sometimes we have a funny, failed relationship. She says, ‘Mom, get out of bed.’ On my worst days I say, “I can’t do it,” to which my 11-year-old replies, “You can.” And she’s right.”

Teri Garr’s memoir

Teri Garr released a memoir in 2008 that looked at her career, MS diagnosis and life as a mother, called Speed ​​bumps: through Hollywood. She was refreshingly candid in the book, but also in the interviews she gave to promote it, speaking candidly about sexism on sets and which directors made things most difficult for her.

She told one anecdote: ‘Steven Spielberg always said, ‘To play the dumb blonde, you have to be very smart. Except in your case.’ One of his g—-n jokes.

Teri Garr’s ‘Young Frankenstein’ Reunion

In 2014, Teri Garr reunited with director Mel Brooks and actress Cloris Leachman at an Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences celebration of Young Frankenstein‘s 40th anniversary.

Teri Garr’s retirement

Teri Garr suffered additional medical complications throughout her life, including an aneurysm in 2006 (she recovered and returned to acting, before retiring in 2011) and a hospitalization in 2019 due to what her rep told ET was dehydration.

Although she was not in the public eye as much as her MS progressed, she occasionally gave interviews to raise awareness about the disease. She remembered a pin her mother wore that read “EGBOK” — everything will be okay — and told Studio 10 that she was “metaphorically” wearing one these days.

She told me too Brain & life that she tried to focus on the positive and save her “top time, my best energy” for Molly.

“When you have an illness that changes you physically, who are you? Suddenly it’s there, right in your face, and you have to figure out who you really are and what’s important in your life,” she shared. Brain and life.