Teri Garr, the quirky comedy actor who rose from background dancer in Elvis Presley movies to co-star of such favorites as Young Frankenstein and Tootsie, has died. She was 79.
Garr died Tuesday 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 actor, who was sometimes credited as Terri, Terry or Terry Ann during her long career, seemed destined for show business from her childhood.
Her father was Eddie Garr, a well-known vaudeville comedian; her mother was Phyllis Lind, one of the original high-kicking Rockettes at New York’s Radio City Music Hall. Their daughter began dance lessons at 6 and by 14 was dancing with the San Francisco and Los Angeles ballet companies.
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.She recalled in a 1988 interview how she won the West Side Story role. After being dropped from her first audition, she returned a day later in different clothes and was accepted.
From there, the blonde, statuesque Garr found steady work dancing in movies, and she appeared in the chorus of nine Presley films, including Viva Las Vegas, Roustabout and Clambake.
She also appeared on numerous television shows, including Star Trek, Dr. Kildare and Batman, and was a featured dancer on the rock ‘n’ roll music show Shindig, the rock concert performance T.A.M.I. and a cast member of The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour.
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 said he would hire her for the role of Gene Wilder’s German lab assistant in 1974’s Young Frankenstein — if she could speak with a German accent.