Terry Ann “Teri” Garr (born December 11, 1944) is an American actress and comedienne.
Garr was born in Lakewood, Ohio. Her father, Eddie Garr (né Gonnoud), was a vaudeville performer, comedian and actor whose career peaked when he briefly took over the lead role in the Broadway drama Tobacco Road. Her mother, Phyllis Lind (née Emma Schmotzer), was a dancer, Rockette, wardrobe mistress, and model. Garr is a graduate of Magnificat High School, an all-girls Roman Catholic high school in Rocky River, Ohio.
Early in her career she was sometimes credited as Terri Garr, Terry Garr, Teri Hope, or Terry Carr. Garr’s movie debut was as an extra in 1963’s A Swingin’ Affair. She started out as a background dancer in uncredited roles for youth-oriented films like Pajama Party, a beach party film, and nine Elvis Presley features. Her first speaking role was a one-line appearance as a damsel in distress in The Monkees film Head written by Jack Nicholson. In 1974 she got her first significant film role in Francis Ford Coppola’s critically acclaimed The Conversation. She made her career breakthrough in the Mel Brooks hit comedy Young Frankenstein (1974). She then went on to appear in a string of highly successful films, often playing a housewife, in both comedies and dramas. Her most popular films include Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), Oh, God! (1977), The Black Stallion (1979) and Mr. Mom (1983). In 1982 she was nominated for an Academy Award for her supporting role as Dustin Hoffman’s actress friend in Tootsie.
Since the late ’60s she has appeared frequently on television. She, along with friend Toni Basil, began as go-go dancers on several musical variety shows such as Shindig! and Hullabaloo. In 1967 Garr did two cameo appearances on Batman and a role on The Andy Griffith Show. In 1968 she was in two episodes of It Takes a Thief and a part in the Star Trek episode “Assignment: Earth”. This was a backdoor pilot for a proposed series in which she would have co-starred, but which didn’t sell.
In the early ’70s she was a regular cast member on The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour dancing and acting in comedy sketches. She also had a recurring role as a ditzy policewoman on McCloud, and appeared on M*A*S*H, The Bob Newhart Show, and Barnaby Jones, among others. She hosted Saturday Night Live in 1980, 1983, and 1985 and was a frequent visitor on The Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson. As a recurring guest on Late Night with David Letterman, she was renowned for her unscripted banter with personal friend David Letterman, who once goaded her into showering in his office while the camera rolled. She landed a role as recurring character Phoebe Buffay Sr. in Friends, playing the estranged birth mother of Phoebe Buffay (Lisa Kudrow), to whom she bears a striking resembalence.
For over four decades, she has appeared in a variety of television commercials, including a 1970 Safeguard ad with then-unknowns Penny Marshall and Tom Selleck. Often complaining on talk shows about being typecast in housewife roles, she nonetheless used her image to promote many household products (coffee, Band-Aid, Glade air-fresheners, etc.) in countless commercials over the years. In the 1990s she did a series of TV and print ads for Fruit of the Loom underwear and New York radio station WTLW 106.7 Lite FM.
Garr said that in 1990 a woman called her at around 4:30 A.M. telling Garr that she slept with Garr’s boyfriend. An enraged Garr drove to her ex-boyfriend’s house and smashed the windows. The ex-boyfriend called the police, who left after Garr talked to them. Police never filed charges against Garr.
In October 2002, Garr made it public that she has multiple sclerosis.After years of uncertainty and secrecy surrounding her diagnosis, Garr explained her reasons for deciding to go public: “I’m telling my story for the first time, so I can help people. I can help people know they aren’t alone, and tell them there are reasons to be optimistic because today treatment options are available”. It is unclear exactly how long she has had the condition; in 2002, she told Larry King that she’d had it for 19 years, but in 2005, while promoting her book, she said she’s had it for 25 years. That sets the date of onset to sometime between 1980 and 1983. In more recent interviews, she has clarified that she first started noticing symptoms while in New York filming Tootsie, but she didn’t know what caused her symptoms. For the next few years, as acting jobs brought her to various locations around the world, she continued to see different doctors in different cities, until she finally found a doctor that correctly diagnosed her as having MS. Today, she uses an Amigo POV/scooter when necessary.
Since Garr announced that she has MS, she has become a leading advocate in raising awareness for the condition and the latest treatments for it. She is a National Ambassador for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society and National Chair for the Society’s Women Against MS program (WAMS).WAMS is a nationwide education and fundraising program that helps to increase the public’s awareness of MS and the National MS Society while acknowledging and encouraging the advancement of women philanthropists. In November 2005, Garr was honored as the society’s Ambassador of the Year. This honor had been given only four times since the society was founded.
She is the mother of an adopted daughter and resides in Los Angeles. On December 21, 2006, she suffered a brain aneurysm in her Los Angeles area home; her 13-year-old daughter called for help when she couldn’t get her to wake up. Following surgery, her publicist Heidi Schaeffer said she expected Garr to make a full recovery. She appeared on Late Show with David Letterman on June 19, 2008, clearly suffering the physical effects of her MS and aneurysm, but still as sharp and funny as ever. She was on the show to promote Expired, a movie in which she plays twins.
Garr sold her Los Angeles-area house in June 2008.
Tags: Teri Garr
