Teri Garr, the actor known for roles in Tootsie, Young Frankenstein and Friends, has died at the age of 79.
Garr died of multiple sclerosis, “surrounded by family and friends”, as confirmed to Associated Press by her publicist. She had been diagnosed in 2002 and also had an operation in 2007 after a ruptured brain aneurysm.
She began her career as a background artist, appearing as a go-go dancer in films and variety shows in the 1960s. “I was always resenting the fact that I was an “extra”, because in those days, working on those musicals, you personally had to study for 10 years to be a dancer,” she said in a 2008 interview. “And when you finally got a part as a dancer in a movie, you were put in the extras union.”
She landed her first speaking role in the Monkees movie Head in 1968. She was in the same acting class as the film’s co-writer Jack Nicholson.
After becoming a regular on The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour in the early 70s, she broke through on the big screen with roles in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation, Carl Reiner’s Oh, God! and Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein before playing Richard Dreyfuss’s wife in Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind in 1977.
In the 1980s, she gained an Oscar nomination for her role opposite Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie and also appeared in One From the Heart, The Sting II, Martin Scorsese’s After Hours and alongside Michael Keaton in Mr Mom.
In the 1990s, she starred in Prêt-à-Porter for Robert Altman and appeared in Dumb and Dumber, Michael and Dick, playing the mother of Michelle Williams’ character. She also had a recurring role on Friends as the estranged birth mother of Lisa Kudrow’s Phoebe.
“Women are not taken seriously,” Garr said in a 2008 interview, speaking about the lack of roles available to her. She added: “If there’s ever a woman who’s smart, funny or witty, people are afraid of that, so they don’t write that.”
Tina Fey once told Entertainment Weekly: “There was a time when Teri Garr was in everything. She was adorable, but also very real. Her body was real, her teeth were real, and you thought that she could be your friend.”
In 2002, Garr confirmed that she had MS. “I’m telling my story for the first time so I can help people,” she said. “I can help people know they aren’t alone and tell them there are reasons to be optimistic because, today, treatment options are available.”
She went onto serve as a national ambassador for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.
Garr also published her autobiography, Speedbumps: Flooring It Through Hollywood, in 2006, which detailed her career and also her health problems.
Bridesmaids and The Heat director Paul Feig, who directed Garr in the 2006 comedy Unaccompanied Minors, paid tribute on social media: “Oh man, this is devastating. Teri was a legend. So funny, so beautiful, so kind. I had the honor of working with her in 2006 and she was everything I dreamed she would be. Truly one of my comedy heroes. I couldn’t have loved her more. This is such a loss.”