Teri Garr, Tootsie and Young Frankenstein Star, Dies at 79

Teri Garr acted widely in film and television, with over 140 credits. She was most famous for her comedic work in movies like 1974’s Young Frankenstein and 1982’s Tootsie, for which she was nominated for an Academy Award. In 2002, Garr revealed that she had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.

Garr died Tuesday of the disease “surrounded by family and friends,” publicist Heidi Schaeffer told PEOPLE.

Garr was born in Ohio in 1944. Both her parents worked in show business: Her father was a vaudeville performer, while her mother was a Rockette who eventually worked in costume production. The family, which also included her two older brothers, moved to New Jersey before settling in Los Angeles. Garr’s father died when she was 11.

“She put two kids through school,” Garr told the Los Angeles Times of her mom in 2008. “I have one brother who is a surgeon, there’s me, and my other brother builds boats. She was in wardrobe. She was a costumer at the studio. She would always say, ‘We’re still alive. . . .’”

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Garr started training as a dancer, with an emphasis on ballet. She dropped out of college to move to New York to focus on acting, where she studied at the Actors Studio and the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute.

Her earliest projects allowed her to use her dancing skills. She appeared in six movies starring Elvis Presley, including 1964’s Viva Las Vegas. She also appeared on TV variety shows as a dancer.

“I got sick and fed up of dancing in the chorus,” she told Roger Ebert in 1980. “I trained for 10 years. I finally asked myself, ‘Why am I not in the front? I didn’t study all those years to be in the back and get no money.’”

She continued, “But I was shy and sweet. So I started going to the shrink and I learned how to talk to people. Directors would tell me, ‘We want you to play a character a little less complex than you are.’ Yeah, sure. What they mean is, ‘You’re playing a dummy.'”

Three years later, she starred in Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind, which let her flex her dramatic skills. Then in 1982, she starred alongside Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie. Film critic Pauline Kael called Garr “the funniest neurotic dizzy dame on the screen.” She received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress for the film, but lost to her Tootsie costar Jessica Lange.

Garr’s other major film roles at the time included 1981’s One From the Heart, 1983’s Mr. Mom, 1985’s After Hours and 1992’s Mom and Dad Save the World. But in a comedy world that was dominated by men, Garr had to push for more depth in her roles; she wasn’t always successful.

“I tried to make the character a little more real,” she told The Washington Post in 1983 about her part in Mr. Mom. “And they stopped me dead in my tracks. You don’t have to have too much of a brain in this business to realize that the only way you’ll ever get to do anything that you really want to do is to become a director.”

Garr married John O’Neil in 1993. Together they adopted daughter Molly. The couple split in 1996.

She is survived by her daughter Molly O’Neil, 30, and grandson Tyryn, 6.

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