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Teri Garr, Oscar nominee and Friends star, dies aged 79
Teri Garr played Lisa Kudrow's onscreen mum in Friends.
Teri Garr, star of Friends, Young Frankenstein and Tootsie, has died at the age of 79. The actress died of multiple sclerosis and was "surrounded by family and friends", her publicist confirmed.
The star, who played Phoebe's (Lisa Kudrow) mum in Friends, died on Tuesday in LA, over 20 years after being diagnosed with MS. Speaking about her diagnosis in 2002, she told Larry King, "I would run, jog in the park, and I just started tripping. It was just like my toe — I would start to trip, and then that would go away. Then I would get some tingling in my arm."
"It’s very hard to get a diagnosis and it’s very hard to find out — difficult to find out if you have this, because the things come and go and the things are subtle."
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In 2006, the star suffered a brain aneurysm that almost killed her, telling CNN in 2008, "I went to sleep to take a nap and my daughter couldn’t wake me up. So, thank god she called 9-1-1 and they rushed me to the hospital."
"They drilled a hole in my head and wrapped a coil around my brain so it wouldn’t bleed anymore," she told the Los Angeles Times.
She was in a coma for a week, then underwent rehab for two months, saying, "I had to learn to walk again, talk again, think again."
Lisa Kudrow pays tribute to her Friends mum Teri Garr
Lisa Kudrow paid tribute to her onscreen mum shortly after the news broke.
The 61-year-old issued a statement to People that read, "Teri Garr was a comedic acting genius who was and is a huge influence on me and I know I’m not alone in that."
"I feel so lucky and grateful I got to work with Teri Garr."
Teri first made her debut on Friends as Phoebe Abbott, the estranged birth mother of Lisa's Phoebe Buffay and Ursula Buffay. Her first appearance was in 'The One at the Beach', where Phoebe went to connect with a woman who knew her parents, only to discover that she has found her actual mother.
Teri Garr's career
Teri was the daughter of a Broadway performer and a Rockette, and grew up dancing and auditioning after she graduated high school. She appeared as an extra in films such as Elvis Presley's Viva Las Vegas.
Her big break came in 1974 when she starred as Inga in the Mel Brooks comedy hit Young Frankenstein alongside Gene Wilder.
She later appeared in Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind. She then appeared as the struggling girlfriend of Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie. For this role she would go on to be nominated for Best Supporting Actress at the 1983 Academy Awards.
Teri would go on to appear on shows like Felicity, ER and Live with Bonnie. Her final credit was in 2011's How to Marry a Billionaire.
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She was also a major advocate for people living with MS, and once said in an interview with Brain & Life, "I think some people want you to be upset. Not only am I not upset, but I’m okay. I don’t see any profit in being down, I don’t see that it gets you anywhere."
"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."
"I've always been a feisty person," she added.
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