LOS ANGELES (CelebrityAccess) — Teri Garr, a comedic actor of stage and screen, known for standout roles in films such as “Young Frankenstein” and “Tootsie,” has passed. She was 79.
Garr’s publicist told the Associated Press that Garr died on Tuesday of multiple sclerosis, one of several serious health issues she has faced in recent years.
Born to a theatrical family that included her father, the noted Vaudeville actor Eddie Garr and Phyllis Lind, one of Radio City Music Hall’s original Rockettes, Garr began training in dance when she was just 6 and was dancing with the San Francisco and Los Angeles ballet companies by the time she was 14.
At the age of 16, she landed a role in the touring Broadway production “West Side Story” and began to appear in small roles im films such as “Roustabout” and “Clambake” starring Elvis Presley.
Her first major film role came in 1974 when she was cast as Gene Hackman’s girlfriend in Francis Ford Coppola’s 1794 thriller The Conversation and followed it up that same year when she was cast as Inga, the lab assistant in Mel Brook’s horror-comedy “Young Frankenstein.”
Other film roles for Garr included Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), Tootsie (1982), The Black Stallion Returns (1983), and Prêt-à-Porter (1994), among others.
In 1999, she was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis but did not reveal her condition until several years later when she became a spokesperson for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.
In 2006, Garr published an autobiography, Speedbumps: Flooring It Through Hollywood, in which she explored her career and detailed and health struggles in the wake of her diagnosis of multiple sclerosis.
Garr is survived by her daughter, Molly O’Neil, and a grandson, Tyryn.
