Teri Garr Dies: ‘Tootsie’ Oscar Nominee & ‘Young Frankenstein’ Star Was 79

Teri Garr, the beloved comic actor who scored an Oscar nomination for Sydney Pollack’s Tootsie, starred opposite Gene Wilder in Mel Brooks’ classic horror spoof Young Frankenstein and played Richard Dreyfuss’ put-upon wife in Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind, died Tuesday in Los Angeles. She was 79.

Her publicist Heidi Schaeffer told The Associated Press that Garr died of multiple sclerosis, with which she was diagnosed in 1999, and had struggled with health issues in recent years.

Garr got her start with bit parts in a number of 1960s Elvis Presley movies, including Viva Las Vegas and Roustabout, and appeared in the 1964 Annette Funicello romp Pajama Party. She continued to land small movie roles throughout the decade and also appeared in episodes of classic TV series Star Trek — as a secretary in the popular 1968 episode “Assignment: Earth” –That Girl, Mayberry R.F.D., It Takes a Thief and Room 222.

In the early ’70s, she recurred on The Sonny and Cher Hour and guested on M*A*S*H, The Odd Couple, The Bob Newhart Show, Barnaby Jones and other popular series.

But her breakout came in 1974.

She appeared in Francis Ford Coppola’s Best Picture Oscar nominee The Conversation, playing the girlfriend of star Gene Hackman, and later that year landed likely her most famous role. Garr played Inga, a Transylvania local who becomes the assistant to Wilder’s Dr. Frederick Frankenstein — FRONK-en-steen, if you please — in the smash comedy Young Frankenstein. Serving as Brooks’ follow-up to Blazing Saddles, its stellar cast also included Cloris Leachman, Marty Feldman, Peter Boyle and Hackman in a memorable cameo.

Her sweet, somewhat naive and oddly accented character had no shortage of memorable lines. Who could forget “Vould you like to have a roll in zee hay?” “He vould have an enormous schwanzstucker” or “Put zee candle back!“?

The film won critical acclaim and was a huge commercial hit, later being resurrected as a Broadway musical.

The mid-’70s found Garr doing guest shots on other hit TV shows such as McCloud and Maude before she co-starred opposite George Burns and John Denver in Carl Reiner’s 1977 comedy feature Oh, God! Just weeks later came the release of Close Encounters, Spielberg’s alien-encounter film in which she played Ronnie Neary, who tried to hold her young family together as her husband (Dreyfuss) obsesses over a shared vision and ultimately runs off to chase it.

Close Encounters of the Third set multiple box office records and became the top-grossing Columbia Pictures movie in history at that point.

Garr continued to work in films as the 1980s dawned, co-starring on the big screen in The Black Stallion, Coppola’s One from the Heart and John Schlesinger’s comic romp Honky Tonk Freeway. Her next role would be among her most famous.

Garr played Dustin Hoffman’s sorta-girlfriend in Tootsie (1982), Pollack’s Best Picture Oscar-nominated cross-dressing comedy about an out-of-work actor (Hoffman) who lands a plum soap opera role while disguised as a woman. “Dorothy Michaels” becomes an overnight sensation, and high jinks ensue as Hoffman’s Michael Dorsey struggles to keep his secret while being courted by clueless older men.

Garr’s Sandy Lester co-stars in the fictional soap and becomes Dorsey’s lover while he secretly longs for their co-star Julie, played by Jessica Lange, who went on to win the Supporting Actress Oscar over Garr. Also starring Dabney Coleman, Charles Durning and Bill Murray, the film also was an enormous commercial hit, surpassing Close Encounters as Columbia’s top-grossing film.

She also starred with Jackie Gleason and Karl Malden in The Sting II and as Michael Keaton’s ad-exec wife in the role-reversal comedy Mr. Mom, both in 1983. Penned by nascent filmmaker John Hughes, the latter’s cast also included Martin Mull, Ann Jillian, Jeffrey Tambor and Christopher Lloyd.

Around that time, Garr began guesting on NBC’s burgeoning talk show Late Night with David Letterman. Her frequent, flirty, faux-bickering visits — more than two dozen over the show’s 11 years — were comic gold, with a nearly blushing David Letterman often barely able to contain his glee. She also appeared in David Letterman’s 2nd Annual Holiday Film Festival in 1986 and later guested on his CBS follow-up show Late Show with David Letterman about a half-dozen times from 1993-2008.

Garr continued to work in movies and television into the 2010s, famously recurring as Phoebe’s (Lisa Kudrow) mother on Friends and also guest-starring on TV’s ER, Frasier, Sabrina the Teenage Witch and others. She was a series regular on the short-lived 1995 sitcom Women of the House, playing the press secretary of Suzanne Sugarbaker (Delta Burke), who moves to D.C. to serve out the House term of her late husband. Also starring Patricia Heaton, Jonathan Banks and Julie Hagerty, the comedy’s last four episodes aired on Lifetime as a two-hour movie.

She also had a second career as a voice-over actor on TV toons including King of the Hill, The Legend of Prince Valiant, Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist, two Scooby-Doo! series and as Mary McGinnis on Batman Beyond.

Garr was born into a showbiz family on December 11, 1944, in Los Angeles, per the AP, though many reference works list her hometown as Lakewood, Ohio. Her father was Eddie Garr, who had about two dozen screen credits and worked as a nightclub comic. Her mom was Phyllis Lind Garr, who was an original Rockette at Radio City Music Hall and later had a second career as a costume designer and wardrobe staffer whose credits include The Graduate, Walking Tall, Young Frankenstein and Alfred Hitchcock’s final move, Family Plot.

Garr racked up more than 150 film and TV credits during her half-century career, along with at least 100 appearances as herself on various talkers, game shows, music shows and documentaries. One of Garr’s earliest credits was as a backing go-go dancer on the legendary T.A.M.I. Show. Filmed at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium in late 1964, it featured The Beach Boys, The Rolling Stones, James Brown, Chuck Berry, The Supremes, Marvin Gaye, Lesley Gore, Smokey Robinson, Jan and Dean and others. Toni Basil, who later had a No. 1 hit with “Mickey,” also was a dancer on the show.

Garr’s autobiography, titled Speedbumps: Flooring It Through Hollywood, was published in 2005.

She was married to John O’Neil for three years in the ’90s and adopted a daughter, Molly O’Neil.