Teri Garr's career in film and television, which spanned nearly 50 years and includes
more than 140 screen credits, is an impressive one, but in 2011, she retired from showbiz.
Much of Teri Garr's early pop-culture visibility was garnered from frequent appearances
on variety shows. In the mid-1960s, she showed off her dance moves on the musical variety show
Shindig!, before transitioning into small speaking roles on shows like That Girl
and The Andy Griffith Show. She also appeared as a dancer in several Elvis Presley movies,
here appearing in the white top on the left of the screen.
Being cast as a regular on The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour in the early 1970s was a big win
for Garr, and according to IMDb, she popped up in around 50 episodes of the show. Garr appeared on
The Hollywood Squares twice in 1975 and 25 times on the Hollywood Squares reboot in 2001 and 2002.
Hollywood starlets have two main requirements: beauty and sex appeal. Teri Garr brought that
and more to the quirky, ditsy roles that made her a star. While the actor's early
work consisted mainly of non-speaking bit parts, she reached two major career milestones in 1968.
The first was a role in an episode of Star Trek: The Original Series, Assignment: Earth, which Garr
describes in her 2005 autobiography, Speedbumps: Flooring It Through Hollywood, as her "big break."
Her other breakout role that year was her first speaking part in a film, Head, a role Biography
reports she received thanks to her acting-class colleague, Jack Nicholson, who wrote the film.
In 1974, Garr was cast in the role that would change her life: Bavarian lab assistant Inga
in the Mel Brooks masterpiece Young Frankenstein. Oft-hailed as one of the best comedies ever made,
Young Frankenstein cemented Garr as a fixture in pop culture. She soon nabbed roles in
a bunch of films, including Steven Spielberg blockbuster Close Encounters of the Third Kind,
The Escape Artist, and The Black Stallion. At age 38, she landed a part in Tootsie,
which earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress.
Unfortunately, as HuffPost reports,
"Few leading roles are written for women over 40 [...] [W]omen
in their 40s and up are someone's mom or somebody's wife in the background."
Teri Garr undoubtedly has that elusive "it" factor that provides staying power in Hollywood,
and a buoyant personality that propelled her as much as looks or talent. She followed
Tootsie with the box office smash Mr. Mom, and she reunited with her Close Encounters co-star Richard
Dreyfuss for Let It Ride. Her post-40 career path indeed followed the typical Hollywood pattern,
but the actor was fortunate, and talented enough to seamlessly transition from
being typecast as the quirky airhead into playing sweet-but-clueless maternal roles.
Garr was regularly cast in film and television into her 40s and 50s, but the roles continued
to diminish in profile as she aged. She landed small parts in Dumb and Dumber and Ready to Wear
in 1994. In the late 1990s, the actor was cast as a guest star on several TV shows,
most notably playing the recurring role of Phoebe Buffay's biological mother on Friends.
"Okay. I'm your mother."
Garr had the goods to transition all the way into fun grandmotherly roles,
but her health began to fail, and she was hit with a bombshell in 1999.
Teri Garr started experiencing strange symptoms in the early 1980s,
ABC News reports, starting with a, quote, "nervous tick in her foot" and tingling
sensation in her arm. However, it took her nearly two decades to get a firm diagnosis.
Garr told Brain and Life,
"Every movie I did, I'd go see a different doctor [...] and everyone
had a different opinion about what it might be."
Finally, in 1999, she received a definitive diagnosis of multiple sclerosis (MS),
which the National Multiple Sclerosis Society describes as, quote, "an abnormal response
of the body's immune system directed against the central nervous system."
Garr feared the diagnosis could end her career, so she tried to hide her symptoms.
When rumors about her health began circulating, though, Garr took control
of the narrative and publicly revealed her diagnosis on CNN's Larry King Live in 2002.
She stated in Brain and Life,
"I think some people want you to be upset. Not only am I not upset, but I'm okay."
She later added,
"Maybe it has to do with my show-business background. You're always being told that
you're not right for something, not tall enough,
not pretty enough, whatever. I would say, 'But I'm smart, I'm talented, I'm this,
I'm that!' I've always been able to do that, and I do it now with MS."
Teri Garr's Larry King Live interview was just one of many notable talk show appearances she made.
Garr was frequently booked on the late-night talk show circuit to publicize her films,
and she developed a rapport with several hosts, thanks to her fun personality and quick wit. Garr
hosted Saturday Night Live in 1980, 1983, and 1985, and according to her IMDb page,
she appeared on a whopping 42 episodes of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.
But Garr's most famous late-night relationship was with David Letterman.
Salon lists Garr near the top of the list of Letterman's "guest crushes."
"Ladies and Gentleman, please welcome the love of my life, Teri Garr."
Teri Garr was in a week-long, medically-induced coma in 2006 while recovering from a brain
aneurysm. Surgery fixed the aneurysm, but she needed therapy to regain motor skills and speech.
Even in the thick of recovery, her rep told People,
"Her humor seems to be intact."
In true Garr fashion, she didn't let a little thing like temporary immobility stop her from
working in Hollywood. Following rehabilitation from the aneurysm, she continued acting,
even reuniting with her Friends daughter, Lisa Kudrow , in the 2007 film Kabluey.
During an appearance on his show,
Garr told David Letterman that she had to learn to walk and talk and think again.
TMZ reported that Garr suffered a, quote, "medical emergency" that might have been
a stroke in December 2019, but her reps shot that down when talking to People,
clarifying Garr had actually been admitted to the hospital for dehydration.
Teri told Reader's Digest that her mother was her role model growing up,
and that she helped Garr remain optimistic throughout her health struggles. Garr said
her mom would wear a pin that read EGBOK when she was working long hours to support
their family. The acronym was short for “Everything's Going To Be Okay.”
In turn, Garr is now a role model to her own daughter,
Molly O'Neil. Garr and her first husband, John O'Neil, adopted Molly in November
1993. Molly has been by her mother's side during many of her public appearances,
and she was the one who found Garr unresponsive at home following her 2006 brain aneurysm.
Garr told Closer Weekly in 2015,
"[Molly] is a great example of what inspires me and what I live for.
She is always there when I need her."
One of Teri Garr’s toughest adjustments was in reducing her stress levels as
she became less active, but she realizes this is a necessary evil.
She told CNN,
"I call [MS] the scum-sucking pig of a disease that treats everyone
differently. Some people don't get any symptoms, but I wasn't one of them."
The actor unfortunately developed some debilitating symptoms that
have dramatically altered her life. Garr suffers from immense fatigue,
lack of coordination, and motor skill difficulty.
In a 2009 interview with Everyday Health, she revealed,
"I had weakness on the right side—arm, leg, and foot. Having to manage fatigue is something I
and many people with MS have to deal with, and heat is no friend to my MS either."
While Garr can sometimes use a cane to get around, she often uses a wheelchair.
She told Everyday Health that riding a recumbent bicycle and swimming help keep her strong and
mobile, and a determined Garr insists MS patients, quote, "work around our symptoms and move forward
with our lives." Alas, Garr ultimately retired from acting in 2011. She continues to work,
earning money as a paid ambassador for MS organizations and treatments.
Garr might have left Hollywood, but she is still very much Hollywood-adjacent
with her elevated profile, which she uses to help raise awareness of MS.
Once Teri Garr revealed her MS diagnosis, she took on a series of public roles advocating for
treatment and awareness of the disease. As noted by The Washington Post, she acted as,
quote, "chair of the National MS Society's Women Against MS program
and a spokeswoman for Rebif, a disease-modifying drug for treating MS." And according to ABC News,
she became, quote, "a paid ambassador for MS Lifelines, a patient service program
dedicated to assist[ing] persons living with MS and their caregivers."
She told CNN's Larry King,
"I think everybody is scared and frightened when they hear something like [an MS diagnosis]."
As for her words of wisdom to newly-diagnosed patients?
She once said in a press release obtained by Windy City Times,
"The status of MS research has never been more exciting and there are many therapies available
that slow the progression of the disease. [...] Become a volunteer, be an advocate,
join one of the many Walk MS or Bike MS events in your area. [...] It's a good way to connect
with people and you'll feel better about not only helping yourself but helping others."
Garr told ABC News,
"If you have MS, the important thing to know is that life will go on."
Check out one of our newest videos right here!
Plus, even more Nicki Swift videos about celebrities are coming soon.
Subscribe to our YouTube channel and hit the bell so you don't miss a single one.