Teri Garr has passed away
Actress Teri Garr has passed away at the age of 79 after a long battle with multiple sclerosis. She was diagnosed in 1999 and publicly revealed it in 2002.
Garr was the daughter of a vaudeville actor and a Rockette. Her father died when she was 11 years old, leaving her mother to raise Teri and her two brothers. Money was tight so any activities the children wanted to pursue had to be free or have scholarships available. Teri studied dance and auditioned for the national tour of West Side Story while she was still in high school. At the audition, she met choreographer David Winter who later cast her as a dancer in many of the tv shows and films he worked on, including six Elvis movies. After high school, she attended Cal State Northridge before moving to New York to pursue acting.
In the early 1970s, she was a regular singer and dancer on The Sonny and Cher Show, which was where she first discovered the blatant sexism in the entertainment industry. The producers told her that if she wanted to be paid as much as the men, she could quit. “The whole world is sexist, starting with that show. That was an example of it: not getting paid what everybody else got paid for doing the same thing."
Her first speaking role in a film was the Monkees' Head, which was written by Jack Nicholson, who she met in an acting class (he gave everyone in the the class small parts in the film). Her first major tv role was in an episode of Star Trek that was intended to be a backdoor pilot for a new series.
Her breakthrough role was as Inga in Mel Brooks’ 1974 movie Young Frankenstein (which was adapted into a Tony-nominated Broadway musical in 2007). She later earned an Oscar nomination for her role in Tootsie (which was adapted into a Tony award winning Broadway musical in 2018). She also starred in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Oh, God!, The Black Stallion, and Mr. Mom. She hosted SNL three times and was a frequent guest on Johnny Carson and David Letterman. Gen X and millennials may know her best as Phoebe Buffay's mother on Friends.
She is survived by her daughter, Molly O’Neil, and her grandson Tyryn.
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