Teri Garr, 'Young Frankenstein' and 'Friends' actress, dies aged 79

Teri Garr, 'Young Frankenstein' and 'Friends' actress, dies aged 79

Teri Garr, the American comedy performer who rose from background dancer in Elvis Presley movies to co-star of such favourites as Young Frankenstein, Tootsie and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, has died. She was 79.

Garr died of multiple sclerosis “surrounded by family and friends,” said publicist Heidi Schaeffer. Garr battled other health problems in recent years and underwent an operation in January 2007 to repair an aneurysm.

Admirers took to social media in her honour, with writer-director Paul Feig calling her “truly one of my comedy heroes. I couldn’t have loved her more” and screenwriter Cinco Paul saying: “Never the star, but always shining. She made everything she was in better.”

The actress had more than 140 credits to her name across nearly five decades.

She was 16 when she joined the road company of West Side Story in Los Angeles, and as early as 1963 she began appearing in bit parts in films.

From there, Garr found steady work dancing in movies, and she appeared in the chorus of nine Elvis Presley films, including Viva Las Vegas.

She also appeared on numerous television shows, including Star Trek, The Sonny and Cher Show, M*A*S*H, and Batman.

Her big film break came as Gene Hackman’s girlfriend in 1974’s Francis Ford Coppola thriller The Conversation. That led to an interview with Mel Brooks, who cast her for the role of Inga, Gene Wilder’s German lab assistant, in 1974’s Young Frankenstein.

The film established her as a talented comedy performer, with New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael proclaiming her “the funniest neurotic dizzy dame on the screen.”

Her big smile and off-center appeal helped land her roles in Oh, God! opposite George Burns and John Denver, Mr. Mom (as Michael Keaton’s wife) and Tootsie in which she played the girlfriend who loses Dustin Hoffman to Jessica Lange and learns that he has dressed up as a woman to revive his career.

She was nominated for Best Supporting Actress at the 1982 Oscars for her performance in Tootsie – and lost to Lange.

Although best known for comedy, Garr showed in such films as Close Encounters of the Third Kind, After Hours, The Black Stallion and The Escape Artist that she could handle drama equally well.

As well as roles in shows like Frasier and Sabrina The Teenage Witch, Garr appeared in three episodes of Friends, in which she played Phoebe Abbott, the mother of Lisa Kudrow’s Phoebe Buffay.

She officially retired from acting in 2011 and became a key advocate for MS awareness.

Garr is survived by her daughter, Molly O’Neil, and a grandson, Tyryn.