Beloved comic actor and Oscar nominee Teri Garr died Tuesday in Los Angeles. She was 79. According to her publicist Heidi Schaeffer, Garr died of multiple sclerosis which she was diagnosed with in 1999.
She had struggled with health issues in recent years. After bit parts in several Elvis Presley movies in the 1960s and TV appearances in “Star Trek,” “The Odd Couple,” “MASH” and more, she broke out in 1974 with Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Conversation” and Mel Brooks’ “Young Frankenstein”. Fifty years on, both are considered landmark films of their respective genres and masterpieces.
Garr didn’t stop there though, with co-starring roles in films like “Oh, God!,” “The Black Stallion,” “The Escape Artist,” and “Honky Tonk Freeway”. She had key roles in Coppola’s lavish musical “One from the Heart” and Spielberg’s sci-fi masterpiece “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”. In 1982 came her Oscar-nominated work in Sydney Pollack’s “Tootsie” along with memorable turns in Scorsese’s “After Hours” and the comedy “Mr.
Mom”. Garr kept working fairly consistently all the way up the mid-2000s with roles in Robert Altman’s “The Player” and “Pret-a-Porter,” comedy “Dumb and Dumber,” “Michael,” “Dick,” and “Ghost World”. She was also a regular panelist on “Hollywood Squares” for a season, had a recurring voice role on “Batman Beyond,” and notable guest starring roles on shows like “Friend.