Teri Garr's Life in Photos

The actress was one of the brightest lights in comedy in the '70s and '80s, with roles in 'Tootsie' and 'Mr. Mom,' and more recently raised awareness for multiple sclerosis

Teri Garr was one of the leading comedic talents of the 1970s and 1980s, with roles in huge hit movies including Young Frankenstein, Tootsie and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Having gotten her start on variety shows, she was a multitalented dancer and performer as well as a favorite talk show guest of some of the biggest hosts, and she worked with some of the most famous directors of all time including Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese.

She became known to a whole new generation with roles on TV shows including Friends, ER and Sabrina the Teenage Witch, but in 2002, after revealing a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis, Garr began to step away from the spotlight, finishing her final role in 2011.

Garr, who died October 29, 2024 at age 79, left an incredible comedic legacy. Look back at some of her best roles — including that of mom to daughter Molly — and learn more about her life.

Teri Garr's Early Career

Teri Garr was born in Ohio in 1944 but was raised in Hollywood by an actor father, who died when she was 11, a mother who was "a Rockette at Radio City [and] a real tough cookie," as she told The Washington Post. She broke into Hollywood as a dancer, in Elvis Presley movies and in the touring production of West Side Story, and appeared in shows including Shindig! and The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour. ("Once I played Cher's dog on TV," she told the Post, but "Even now, when I get tired of playing the roles I do, I think of the million other women who want to be me and I go right back to work and say, 'Thank you very much.' ")

Above, she is pictured with Frankie Avalon in 1965 filming a CBS pilot.

Teri Garr's Early Days in Hollywood

Teri Garr (pictured with Amy Irving and Carrie Fisher at Lorna Luft's birthday party) found success fairly early in her career and ran in A-list circles, being cast by major directors including Martin Scorses and Francis Ford Coppola.

Jessica Lange in 'Star Trek'

Teri Garr's first big speaking role came in a 1968 episode of Star Trek that was meant to spin off into another series called Assignment: Earth, but which didn't pan out. "I played Roberta Lincoln, a dippy secretary in a pink and orange costume with a very short skirt. Had the spin-off succeeded, I would have continued on as an earthling agent, working to preserve humanity. In a very short skirt," she wrote in Speedbumps.

Teri Garr in 'Young Frankenstein'

"That really put me on the map, being in that movie," Garr told the AV Club of Mel Brooks' 1974 classic, in which she played lab assistant Inga. "I had no idea it was going to be such a big hit, and it's still hot. People still look at it all the time. I had no idea."

Teri Garr in 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind'

Teri Garr worked primarily in television for more than a decade before her film career really heated up, with roles in Oh God! and Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind (pictured) in 1977. She played Ronnie Neary, the unhappy wife of Richard Dreyfuss' Roy.

Teri Garr in 'Tootsie'

Playing Sandy, the neurotic actress girlfriend of Dustin Hoffman's Michael Dorsey, was "one of the best roles of my career," she wrote in her book Speedbumps: Flooring it Through Hollywood. She and Hoffman "began a friendship that would last many decades," she said, and what's more, she was nominated for an Oscar for the role.

Teri Garr at the Oscars

The actress is interviewed at the Academy Awards in 1983, when she was nominated for her role in Tootsie but lost to costar Jessica Lange.

Teri Garr on 'Late Night with David Letterman'

Teri Garr was a frequent guest on Johnny Carson and David Letterman, who openly admired her interview skills, though perhaps most infamously had her take a shower in his office while on the air.

As she recalled in her memoir, "I knew he wouldn’t shut up about the shower until I relented. 'Okay, fine.' I got in the shower, closed the door, stripped down to my underpants, and turned on the water. Dave had won. He’d beaten me down, and across America, every guy who’d ever tried to talk a girl into doing something she didn’t want to do, must have felt a small sense of victory. I thought of it as locker-room humor."

But, she added, "I owe David Letterman a lot since he helped put me on the map." (And he apologized in his own way, airing "Teri Garr Week," a week of reruns featuring only shows on which she had appeared.)

Teri Garr in 'Mr. Mom'

Teri Garr "was in love with Michael Keaton. He was very funny," she recalled of making the film, to the AV Club. But she did admit some resentment about the fact that the roles she often was cast for were those of put-upon moms.

When the AV Club asked why she thought she often played "long-suffering" types, she speculated: "Because they only write those parts for women. If there's ever a woman who's smart, funny, or witty, people are afraid of that, so they don't write that. They only write parts for women where they let everything be steamrolled over them, where they let people wipe their feet all over them. Those are the kind of parts I play, and the kind of parts that there are for me in this world. In this life."

Teri Garr's Relationships

Teri Garr was in several long-term relationships throughout her career (including to executive Roger Birnbaum and physician David Kipper) before marrying building contractor John O'Neil (pictured) in 1993. She told PEOPLE in 1991 that he was a ''sweet teddy bear with a heart.''

Teri Garr's Family

Teri Garr and John O'Neil welcomed their daughter Molly through adoption in 1993; they would go on to divorce three years later.

Garr, who had been experiencing health issues related to her multiple sclerosis for years, wrote in her memoir that her career and social life had been impacted, but her family life was happy.

"My friendships and business relations may have been imperfect, but what was most important was that John, Molly and I were a family. My life with them was worth everything. I knew if I had a bad day, I would go home and there would be this sweet little thing waiting there, just for me."

Teri Garr on 'Friends'

Teri Garr had a memorable three-episode stint as Phoebe Buffay's flaky, absent mom, also named Phoebe, on Friends.

Teri Garr's MS Activism

In her memoir, Teri Garr recalled years of symptoms without a clear diagnosis — but by the late '80s, she said, rumors of her condition began costing her career.

"The gossip had an immediate and devastating effect on my career. Whatever this MS was, the industry wanted no part of it. At first I was outraged. Whatever was going on in my body had been going on for years. It never got in the way of my work," she wrote.

When she finally received her diagnosis, she felt relief that she could finally treat the disease, but she had to dial back her acting roles because of the impact of stress and fatigue on MS.

She went public with her diagnosis in 2002 with an interview on Larry King Live! and became an ambassador to raise awareness for the condition.

Teri Garr's Daughter Molly

"Molly has been the greatest joy of my life," Teri Garr wrote in her memoir, which was published when her daughter was 11 (the two are pictured here in 2012). "She keeps me going. Sometimes we have a funny, flip-flopped relationship. She'll say, 'Mom, get out of bed.' On my worst days I'll say, 'I can't,' to which my 11-year-old replies, 'You can.' And she's right."

Teri Garr's Memoir

Teri Garr released a 2008 memoir that looked at her career, MS diagnosis and life as a mom, called Speedbumps: Flooring it Through Hollywood. She was refreshingly candid in the book as well as in interviews she gave to promote it up, opening up about sexism on sets and which directors gave her the hardest time.

One anecdote she related: "Steven Spielberg always said, 'To play the dumb blonde, you have to be really smart. Except in your case.' One of his g----n jokes. Bastard!"

Teri Garr's 'Young Frankenstein' Reunion

In 2014, Teri Garr reunited with director Mel Brooks and actress Cloris Leachman at an Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences celebration of Young Frankenstein's 40th anniversary.

Teri Garr's Retirement

Teri Garr experienced further medical complications throughout her life, including an aneurysm in 2006 (she recovered and returned to acting, before retiring in 2011) and a hospitalization in 2019 for what her rep told ET was dehydration.

Though she was not in the public eye as much as her MS progressed, she did give occasional interviews to raise awareness about the disease. She recalled a pin her mom wore that said "EGBOK" — everything is going to be okay — and told Studio 10 she wore one "metaphorically" these days.

She also told Brain & Life that she tried to focus on the positive and save her "top-notch time, my best energy" for Molly.

"When you have a disease that's altering you physically, who are you? Suddenly it's there, right in your face, and you have to figure out who you really are and what's important in your life," she told Brain and Life.

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