Oscar Nominated Actress Teri Garr Has Died At Age 79
Oscar nominated actress Teri Garr has passed away at 79 years old. Garr faced a decades-long battle with multiple sclerosis.
Actress Teri Garr has died from a long battle with multiple sclerosis. The actress was 79 years old.
Garr was known for cult comedy favorites, including "Young Frankenstein" and "After Hours." At the 1983 Academy Awards, she was nominated for an Oscar for her role in Sydney Pollack's "Tootsie." The film, starring Dustin Hoffman and Bill Murray, was nominated for ten awards that year.
Teri Garr Has Died After A Long Battle With Multiple Sclerosis
According to her publicist, the "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" actress passed away earlier today surrounded by her family and friends.
The actress had been diagnosed with MS decades ago and had undergone surgery for a brain aneurysm in 2007.
The 'Tootsie' Actress Danced Into Showbusiness
The Conversation, Young Frankenstein, Oh God!, Close Encounters, Tootsie, After Hours-- so many great performances in so many great movies. Never the star, but always shining. She made everything she was in better. RIP, Teri Garr. pic.twitter.com/7impjAp73D
— Cinco Paul (@cincopedia) October 29, 2024
Garr began her career as a dancer for Elvis Presley films. Her dancing roots were planted early as her mother was an original high kicking Rockette at Radio City Music Hall, per The AP. Garr would soon begin taking dance lessons of her own before she was even a teenager and would be dancing with ballet companies in California when she was barely in her teens. Her father, Eddie Garr, was also in entertainment as a vaudeville comedian.
The "One from the Heart" actress' dancing roots soon led her to the Hollywood roles that would later make her famous. By age 16, she was on the road company of West Side Story in Los Angeles and would begin her career as an actress not very long afterward.
Teri Garr Captivated Critics In 'Young Frankenstein'
The young actress would become a critical darling in the 1970s after spending years as a dancer on musical TV shows, including the "Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour."
Garr starred in "The Conversation" with Gene Hackman and directed by Francis Ford Coppola. Her work in the film caught Mel Brooks' attention, and the filmmaker casted Garr alongside Gene Wilder in "Young Frankenstein" in 1974. Her ability to speak in a German accent made her a frontrunner for the role.
From the mid-seventies on, Garr starred in Hollywood hits like "Oh, God!" "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," Tootsie" and "Mr. Mom" She also delighted children of the nineties in "Mother Goose Rock and Rhyme."
The 'Dumb And Dumber' Actress Began Experiencing MS Symptoms In The Eighties
Garr struggled with multiple sclerosis for decades.
What began as feeling "a little beeping or ticking" in her right leg, eventually spread to her right arm. The actress' initial symptoms of MS began in 1983, but it was not until 1999 when Garr would receive an official diagnosis.
"I was afraid I wouldn't get work," Garr said in an interview from 2003, regarding why she kept her illness out of the public eye for three years. "People hear MS and think, 'Oh my god, that person has two days to live."
In an interview with Brain and Life from 2005, the "Ghost World" actress would feel MS pain initially when she would be out for a run.
"I was living in New York and I'd go jogging in Central Park, and I'd start tripping," she said. "I'd notice that the more I ran and got my body heated up, the weaker I'd get. But then it'd go away, and it went away for about ten years. And then it started up again, and I started getting stabbing pains in my arm when I ran. But I figured hey, I'm in Central Park, maybe I am being stabbed."
Teri Garr's MS Story Was Relatable To Many Living With The Disorder
Garr's various doctors that she would consult with as she was filming various movies would bring up MS in conversation but "then someone would think it was something else," she explained to the publication. The "Head" actress also revealed she had consulted an orthopedist who suggested she should undergo an immediate operation for a pinched nerve, which the actress refused.
Her late diagnosis is "a saga that is familiar to many other people with the disease," Garr said. She went on to say, "Every time I tell my story, people in the audience are nodding their heads and saying 'Uh-huh, yes, that happened to me.''
The "Unaccompanied Minors" actress sat down with Larry King on "Larry King Live" to reveal her MS diagnosis in 2002. Garr continued to work after her diagnosis, with her last credited role being in "How to Marry a Billionaire" in 2011.
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