Born December 11, 1947 in Lakewood, Ohio, Terry Ann “Teri” Garr is an American film and television actress best known for her 1980s film roles, most notably as the neurotic girlfriend in Tootsie (earning an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress). In 2002, she publicly announced she was battling multiple sclerosis. She is a leading advocate for the condition.
Teri Garr is the daughter Eddie Garr (born Edward Leo Gonnoud), who was a vaudeville performer, comedian and actor whose career peaked when he briefly took over the lead role in the Broadway drama Tobacco Road, and Phyllis Lind, a dancer, Rockette, wardrobe mistress, and model. Her father was of Irish descent and her maternal grandparents were Austrian immigrants. At the age of 16, she made her professional debut with the San Francisco Ballet. Garr attended North Hollywood High School followed by California State University at Northridge, where she excelled at stage acting and dancing. While still a teenager, Garr relocated to New York City and enrolled at the famed Actors’ Studio.
Early in her career, she was credited, variously, as Terri Garr, Terry Garr, Teri Hope, or Terry Carr. Garr’s movie debut was as an extra in 1963′s A Swingin’ Affair. At the end of her senior year, Garr auditioned for the cast of the Los Angeles Road Company production of West Side Story, where she met one of the most important people in her early career David Winters, who became her friend, her dance teacher and her mentor and who cast her in many of his early movies and projects. In the early1960s, Garr worked steadily as a dancer in a series of Elvis Presley films, most notably Fun in Acapulco (1963), Kissin?? Cousins, and Viva Las Vegas (both 1964).
Her first speaking role in a motion picture was a one-line appearance as a damsel in distress in the 1968 Monkees film Head written by Jack Nicholson. In 1974, she got her first significant motion-picture role in Francis Ford Coppola’s critically acclaimed film The Conversation. Her career breakthrough came in Mel Brooks comedy Young Frankenstein (1974) as Inga. She went on to appear in a string of highly successful films, often playing a housewife. Her most popular films include Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), Oh, God! (1977), The Black Stallion (1979), One From The Heart (1982), Mr. Mom (1983) and After Hours (1985). In 1982, she was nominated for an Academy Award for her supporting role as Dustin Hoffman’s actress friend in Tootsie.
Throughout the early 1970s, Garr showcased her flair for comedy with regular performances on the television variety shows The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour, The Ken Berry “Wow” Show, and The Burns and Schreiber Comedy Hour. Her first substantial film role came in 1974 when director Francis Ford Coppola cast her opposite Gene Hackman in the critically acclaimed psychological thriller The Conversation. In her role as the voluptuous Inga, Garr joined a brilliant comedic ensemble that included Gene Wilder, Marty Feldman, and Madeline Kahn in Mel Brook’s hilarious farce Young Frankenstein (1974), which is widely considered to be one of the funniest films of all time.
In the early 1990s, Garr starred in the failed TV sitcoms Good and Evil (1991), Good Advice (1993), and Women of the House (1995). In the ensuing years many of her dramatic performances proved to be disappointing, however, she continued to excel in comedic roles, most notably in the low-brow Jim Carrey vehicle Dumb and Dumber (1994) and the political satire Dick (1999). Recently, Garr had a brief stint playing Lisa Kudrow’s mother on the wildly popular NBC sitcom Friends. She also filmed the romantic comedy Life Without Dick (2001), which costars Harry Connick Jr. and Sarah Jessica Parker.
In 1993, Garr married John O’Neil; they had one child before divorcing in 1996.
Teri Garr Photo Gallery
