Teri Garr, the comedic actress and singer whose bubbly personality shined in “Young Frankenstein” and was nominated for an Oscar for “Tootsie,” died Tuesday in Los Angeles after a long battle with multiple sclerosis. did. She was 79 years old.
An influential performer for comedians such as Tina Fey, Garr was a familiar face in numerous TV shows and movies in the 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s. The actress revealed that she was diagnosed with MS in 2002 and suffered an aneurysm in 2006.
Garr, who began her career as a dancer, memorably asked Gene Wilder’s Dr. Frederick Frankenstein, “Will you have a roll with me?” in Mel Brooks’ 1974 film Young Frankenstein. She attracted attention for her role as Inga, a cheeky assistant who greeted her with the following words: ? ”
On “Friends,” she played Phoebe Abbott in three episodes in 1997 and 1998.
In Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters, Gar was the wife of Richard Dreyfuss’ character. She starred opposite Dustin Hoffman’s actress friend in Sydney Pollack’s Tootsie, for which she was nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress, and played Michael Keaton’s stay-at-home working mother in Mr. Keaton. . mother. “
Born in Ohio, she moved to Los Angeles, graduated from North Hollywood High School, attended California State University, Northridge, and then moved to New York to study acting. She began her career as a go-go dancer, and has been a performer in the filmed rock concert “The Tami Show” and in six Elvis Presley features, most of which were choreographed by her mentor David Winters. You can see it swaying in the background. In the 1960s, she appeared in bit roles on sitcoms such as “That Girl,” “Batman,” and “The Andy Griffith Show.”
Garr’s first acting role was in the Monkees’ quirky feature film Head, written by Jack Nicholson, whom he met in an acting class. In the Star Trek episode “Assignment Earth,” she played a dimwitted secretary, the first of a series of such roles.
She became a regular singer and dancer on The Sonny and Cher Show before appearing in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation.
Coppola cast her again in One from the Heart. Her other roles include the wife of John Denver’s character in Oh God, the mother of the boy protagonist in The Black Stallion, and roles in Dumb and Dumber and Mom and Dad Save the World. There were such things.
In addition to Brooks, Spielberg, Pollack and Coppola, Garr worked with Martin Scorsese on “After Hours” and Robert Altman on “The Player” and “Ready to Wear.” Her many television appearances included “M*A*S*H,” “The Odd couple,” and “The Bob Newhart Show.”
In a 2008 interview with The AV Club, Garr gave a brutally frank and feminist explanation of why she was often cast as a “struggling wife” in films such as “Mr. Martin.” Mom”: “Even if there were women who were smart, funny, and witty, people wouldn’t write about it because they would be afraid of it. I only write the parts where I roll and have people wipe their feet all over. That’s the role I play and the role I exist in this world.”
It’s obvious that he’s attracted to great directors, but he’s also had a hard time meeting people in the industry, such as being told by the producer of the movie “The Sonny and Cher Show” that if he wanted to be paid as much as a man, he’d give him as much as he wanted. Many of them were said to be intolerably sexist. stop. “The whole world is sexist, starting with that show. That was an example of that, of not getting paid what other people are getting for doing the same thing. I started learning early on that there is,” she told The AV Club.
She hosted “Saturday Night Live” three times and appeared frequently on “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson” and “Late Night with David Letterman.”
Her career slowed in the late 1990s, but she continued to play small roles in films such as Dick and Unaccompanied Minor, and appeared in two Batman animated films, Batman Beyond: The Movie. and voiced Mary McGinnis in Batman Beyond the Movies. Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker. ”
She published her autobiography, Speedbumps: Flooring It Through Hollywood, in 2006.
She is survived by her daughter, Molly O’Neill, and grandson, Tyryn.