OAN Staff James Meyers
3:27 PM – Tuesday, October 29, 2024
Teri Garr, known for her starring roles in Young Frankenstein and Tootsie, died on Tuesday in Los Angeles, California. She was 79 years-old.
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Garr’s publicist confirmed the tragic news to The Associated Press, saying she died of complications due to multiple sclerosis.
The actress began her career in the entertainment industry as a background dancer in multiple Elvis Presley movies, going on to earn an Academy Award nomination for her role as Sandy Lester in the 1982 Dustin Hoffman comedy, Tootsie.
She appeared in nine Presley movies, including Viva Las Vegas, Roustabout and Clambake.
Garr’s first speaking role came in the Monkees’ offbeat feature film Head, written by Jack Nicholson, whom she had met in an acting class. On the Assignment Earth episode of Star Trek, she played a silly secretary, the first in a string of many such roles.
Her big break came as actor Gene Hackman’s girlfriend in the 1974 Francis Ford Coppola thriller, The Conversation.
Mel Brooks said he would hire her as Gene Wilder’s lab assistant in Young Frankenstein, only if she spoke with a German accent.
“Cher had this German woman, Renata, making wigs, so I got the accent from her,” Garr once remembered.
That part launched her career into comedy, and opened up doors for roles in Mr. Mom with Michael Keaton, Out Cold with John Lithgow, and Mom and Dad Save the World. Michael Keaton mourned the loss of Garr in a tribute shared on Instagram Tuesday.
“This is a day I feared and knew was coming,” he wrote. “Forget about how great she was as an actress and comedienne. She was a wonderful woman. Not just greet to work with but great to be around.”
Keaton added, “And go back and watch her comedic work – Man, was she great!! RIP girl!!”
With more than over 150 acting appearances to her name, she earned acclaim on television too, working as Roberta Lincoln in Star Trek, Sgt. Phyllis Norton in the TV series McCloud, Good & Evil, and Women of the House.
In 2002, Garr revealed her multiple sclerosis diagnosis and survived an emergency brain aneurysm surgery four years later. Soon after, she became a spokeswoman for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, and would often give speeches at gatherings in the United States and Canada.
Furthermore, she shared details of her diagnosis in her 2005 autobiography, Speedbumps: Flooring It Through Hollywood.
“My body had a trick or two up its sleeve,” Garr wrote. “A stumble here, a tingling finger there. I was trained as a dancer and knew better than to indulge the random aches and pains that visited now and then. Being a successful Hollywood actress may be challenging, but little did I know that the very body that had always been my calling card would betray me.”
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