Teri Garr's life in photos, from her best roles to her MS diagnosis

Teri Garr's early career

Teri Garr was born in Ohio in 1944 but grew up in Hollywood, where her father was an actor who died when she was 11 and her mother was “a Rockette at Radio City (and) a real tough cookie.” as she said The Washington Post. She celebrated her breakthrough in Hollywood as a dancer, in Elvis Presley films and in the touring production of ” West Side Storyand appeared in shows including Shindig! And Sonny and Cher's Comedy Hour. (“I once played Cher's dog on TV,” she told the Post, But “Even now, when I get tired of playing the roles that I create, I think of the millions of other women who want to be me, and I go right back to work and say, 'Thank you so much.' “)

She is pictured above with Frankie Avalon filming a CBS pilot in 1965.

Teri Garr's beginnings in Hollywood

Teri Garr (pictured with Amy Irving and Carrie Fisher at Lorna Luft's birthday party) found success fairly early in her career and ran in A-list circles, being cast by major directors like Martin Scorses and Francis Ford Coppola.

Jessica Lange in “Star Trek”

Teri Garr's first major speaking role was in a 1968 episode of Star Trek that was supposed to transition into another series called “Spinoff.” Task: Earth, but that didn't work. “I played Roberta Lincoln, a slutty secretary in a pink and orange suit and a very short skirt. Had the spin-off been successful, I would have continued as an Earth agent, working to preserve humanity. In a very short skirt,” she wrote Speed ​​bumps.

Teri Garr in “Young Frankenstein”

“That’s what really put me on the map to be in this movie,” Garr said AV Club from Mel Brooks' 1974 classic, in which she played lab assistant Inga. “I had no idea it would be such a big success, and it is Despite it hot. People still watch it all the time. I had no idea.”

Teri Garr in “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”

Teri Garr worked primarily in television for more than a decade before her film career really took off with roles in Oh God! and Steven Spielberg's Close encounters of the third kind (pictured) in 1977. She played Ronnie Neary, the unhappy wife of Richard Dreyfuss' Roy.

Teri Garr in “Tootsie”

Playing Sandy, the neurotic actress and girlfriend of Dustin Hoffman's Michael Dorsey, was “one of the best roles of my career,” she wrote in her book Speedbumps: On the ground through Hollywood. She and Hoffman “began a friendship that would last for many decades,” she said, and she was also nominated for an Oscar for the role.

Teri Garr on “Late Night with David Letterman”

Teri Garr was a frequent guest on “Johnny Carson” and “David Letterman” who openly admired her interview skills, although perhaps most infamously, he let her shower in his office during the show.

In her memoir, she recalls: “I knew he wouldn't shut up about the shower until I gave in. 'Okay, good.' I went into the shower, closed the door, stripped down to my underwear and turned on the water. He had defeated me and every man across America who had ever tried to convince a girl to do something she didn't want to do must have felt a small sense of victory. I thought it was locker room humor.

But she added, “I owe a lot to David Letterman for helping me get known.” (And he apologized in his own way and aired “Teri Garr Week,” a week of reruns in which only shows in which she had appeared were shown.)

Teri Garr in “Mr. Mama'

Teri Garr “was in love with Michael Keaton. He was very funny,” she recalled of making the film AV Club. However, she admitted that she was annoyed that the roles she was often cast in were those of pretentious mothers.

If the AV Club When asked why she thinks she often plays “long-suffering” guys, she speculated: “Because they only write these roles for women. If there's ever a woman who's smart, funny, or witty, people are afraid of it, so they don't do it.” I'm not writing that. They only write roles for women in which they endure everything, in which people wipe their feet. These are the roles that I play and the roles that exist for me in this world. In this life.

Teri Garr's relationships

Teri Garr had several long-term relationships throughout her career (including with business executive Roger Birnbaum and doctor David Kipper) before marrying property developer John O'Neil (pictured) in 1993. She told PEOPLE in 1991 that he was a “sweet teddy bear with a heart.”

Teri Garr's family

Teri Garr and John O'Neil welcomed their daughter Molly through adoption in 1993; Three years later they divorced.

Garr, who had suffered for years from health problems related to her multiple sclerosis, wrote in her memoir that her career and social life were affected but her family life was happy.

“My friendships and business relationships may have been incomplete, but most importantly, John, Molly and I were family. My life with them was worth everything. I knew if I had a bad day I would go home and there would be this sweet little thing just waiting for me.

Teri Garr on “Friends”

Teri Garr had a memorable role in three episodes as Phoebe Buffay's vacillating, absent mother, also named Phoebe Friends.

Teri Garr's MS activism

In her memoir, Teri Garr recalls years of symptoms without a clear diagnosis — but in the late '80s, she said, rumors about her condition began to cost her career.

“The gossip had an immediate and devastating impact on my career. Whatever this MS was, the industry wanted nothing to do with it. At first I was outraged. Whatever was going on in my body had been going on for years. “It never got to the nature of my work,” she wrote.

When she finally received her diagnosis, she was relieved that she could finally treat the disease, but had to scale back from acting roles due to the effects of stress and fatigue on MS.

In 2002, she made her diagnosis public in an interview Larry King Live! and became an ambassador to raise awareness of the disease.

Teri Garr's daughter Molly

“Molly was the greatest joy of my life,” Teri Garr wrote in her memoir, published when her daughter was 11 (the two are pictured here in 2012). “She keeps me on my toes. Sometimes we have a fun, up-and-down relationship. She says, 'Mom, get out of bed.' On my worst days, I say, “I can’t,” to which my 11-year-old replies, “You can.” And she’s right.

Teri Garr's memoir

Teri Garr published her memoir in 2008, which covered her career, MS diagnosis and life as a mother Speedbumps: On the ground through Hollywood. She was refreshingly candid both in the book and in the interviews she gave to promote it, discussing sexism on set and which directors gave her the hardest time.

She told an anecdote: “Steven Spielberg always said, 'To play the dumb blonde, you have to be really smart. Except in your case.' One of his damn jokes!

Teri Garr's Young Frankenstein reunion

In 2014, Teri Garr met with director Mel Brooks and actress Cloris Leachman at a ceremony at the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences Young Frankenstein40th anniversary.

Teri Garr's retirement

Teri Garr experienced other medical complications throughout her life, including an aneurysm in 2006 (she recovered and returned to acting before retiring in 2011) and a hospitalization in 2019 due to dehydration, her rep told ET.

Although she was not in the public eye as much as MS progressed, she occasionally gave interviews to raise awareness of the disease. She remembered a pin that her mother wore that said “EGBOK” – everything will be okay – and told Studio 10 that she “metaphorically” wore one these days.

She told it too Brain & Life that she tried to focus on the positive and save her “prime time, my best energy” for Molly.

“If you have an illness that changes you physically, who are you? Suddenly it's there, right in front of you, and you have to figure out who you really are and what's important in your life,” she said Brain and life.