Teri Garr

Terry Ann Garr was born in Los Angeles, California, on 11 December 1944, the third child and only daughter of Eddie Garr (born Edward Leo Gonnoud), a vaudeville performer, comedian and actor who once took over the lead in the Broadway play Tobacco Road, and Phyllis Lind Garr (born Emma Schmotzer), a dancer, Rockette, model and wardrobe mistress. Her father was of Irish descent and her maternal grandparents were Austrian immigrants. She had two older brothers, Ed and Phil. The family lived in Franklin Lakes, New Jersey, and Lakewood, Ohio, before settling in Los Angeles, where she grew up mainly in North Hollywood.

When she was 11 her father died of a heart attack. She later said his death left the family without income and that watching her mother support three children taught her to always try harder. As a girl she trained intensively in ballet, practising three or four hours a day.

Garr graduated from North Hollywood High School and attended San Fernando Valley State College (now California State University, Northridge) for two years. She then left Los Angeles for New York City, where she studied acting at the Actors Studio and the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute.

Early in her career she was credited as Terry Garr and later changed the spelling to Teri on a numerologist's advice. In her senior year of high school she joined the Los Angeles road company of West Side Story, where she met David Winters, who became her dance teacher and mentor. Through him she worked as a background go-go dancer in Pajama Party, the T.A.M.I. Show, Shindig!, Hullabaloo and nine Elvis Presley films, beginning with Viva Las Vegas.

Her first speaking film part was in the Monkees film Head (1968). The same year she played Roberta Lincoln in the Star Trek episode "Assignment: Earth". She was a regular on The Ken Berry "WOW" Show (1972) and The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour, and guested on M*A*S*H, McCloud, The Bob Newhart Show, The Odd Couple, Maude and Barnaby Jones.

Her film breakthrough came in 1974 with Francis Ford Coppola's The Conversation and Mel Brooks's Young Frankenstein, in which she played Inga. She followed with Oh, God! and Close Encounters of the Third Kind (both 1977) and The Black Stallion (1979). Tootsie (1982) brought Oscar and BAFTA nominations. Later films included One from the Heart (1982), Mr. Mom (1983), Firstborn (1984), After Hours (1985), Let It Ride (1989), Mom and Dad Save the World (1992), Dumb and Dumber (1994), Pret-a-Porter (1994), Michael (1996), Dick (1999), Ghost World (2001), Unaccompanied Minors (2006) and Expired (2007).

On television she starred in The Winter of Our Discontent (1983), Fresno (1986) and Pack of Lies (1987), played Phoebe Abbott in Friends and voiced Mary McGinnis in Batman Beyond. In 2000 she appeared off-Broadway in The Vagina Monologues. She last acted on television in 2011.

In the early 1980s Garr was in a seven-year relationship with film executive Roger Birnbaum, and later in a seven-year relationship with physician David Kipper, whom she met through Carrie Fisher. In 1993 she married building contractor John O'Neil, and in November of that year they adopted their daughter, Molly O'Neil. The couple divorced in 1996. In 1990 a Los Angeles County judge issued a stay-away order against a woman charged with stalking her.

In March 1988 Garr was arrested for trespassing in Mercury, Nevada, during a protest against nuclear weapons testing. She took part in events for The Trevor Project, the LGBTQ youth suicide prevention charity. After her diagnosis she became an outspoken advocate for people living with multiple sclerosis, speaking about optimism and treatment.

Garr has been described as a comedic legend. Pauline Kael called her "the funniest neurotic dizzy dame on the screen" in 1982, and performers including Tina Fey and Jenna Fischer have cited her as an influence. David Letterman called her one of his show's all-time favourite guests, and Dustin Hoffman said there was no one like her. Her years of public advocacy also helped raise awareness of multiple sclerosis.

Garr was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and a British Academy Film Award (BAFTA) for Tootsie (1982). Pack of Lies (1987) received an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Drama or Comedy Special. In November 2005 the National Multiple Sclerosis Society named her its Ambassador of the Year.

Garr appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson more than 40 times and hosted Saturday Night Live in 1980, 1983 and 1985. She was a regular guest on Late Night with David Letterman, where their unscripted banter became famous; Letterman later apologised for repeatedly urging her to shower in his office on camera, calling it maybe a sexist thing to do. In 1986 she appeared on Sesame Street. In 2006 she published her memoir, Speedbumps: Flooring It Through Hollywood, and in 2009 she told the story "Wake Up Call" on The Moth Radio Hour.

Garr said she first noticed symptoms around 1982 while filming Tootsie in New York. She confirmed her multiple sclerosis diagnosis publicly in October 2002, became a National Ambassador for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society and chaired its Women Against MS programme. In December 2006 she had a ruptured brain aneurysm and spent a week in a coma, then regained her speech and movement through therapy, returning to the Letterman show in June 2008.

Teri Garr died on 29 October 2024 at her home in Los Angeles, aged 79, from complications of multiple sclerosis, surrounded by family and friends. She is interred at San Fernando Mission Cemetery in Mission Hills, California. Tributes came from David Letterman, Mel Brooks, Dustin Hoffman, Michael Keaton, Lisa Kudrow, Steve Martin, Richard Dreyfuss, Jamie Lee Curtis, Michael McKean, Paul Feig and Francis Ford Coppola.