'Young Frankenstein' and 'Tootsie' star Teri Garr dies at 79

Teri Garr, the comic actress and singer who brought her bubbly personality to “Young Frankenstein” and was Oscar-nominated for “Tootsie,” died Tuesday in Los Angeles after a long battle with multiple sclerosis. He was 79.

An influential performer to comedians, including Tina Fey, Garr was a familiar face in dozens of TV shows and movies in the 1970s, '80s and '90s. The actress revealed in 2002 that she had been diagnosed with MS and suffered an aneurysm in 2006.

After starting her career as a dancer, Garr first gained attention as the saucy assistant Inger in Mel Brooks' 1974 “Young Frankenstein,” who greets Gene Wilder's Dr. Frederick Frankenstein with the memorable “Would you like to have a roll in ze hay.” . ?”

She played Phoebe Abbott in three episodes of “Friends” in 1997 and 1998.

Ger was the wife of Richard Dreyfuss' character in Steven Spielberg's “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”. She received a supporting actress Oscar nomination opposite Dustin Hoffman as her actress friend in Sidney Pollack's “Tootsie” and “Mr. Mom.”

Born in Ohio, he moved to Los Angeles, graduated from North Hollywood High School and attended Cal State Northridge before moving to New York to study acting. Starting out as a go-go dancer, she can be seen shimmering behind performers in the filmed rock concert “The TAMI Show” and six Elvis Presley features, most choreographed by her mentor David Winters. In the 1960s, he had bit parts in sitcoms including “The Girl”, “Batman” and “The Andy Griffith Show”.

Garr's first speaking role came in Monkey's offbeat feature film “Head,” written by Jack Nicholson, whom he met in acting class. In the “Assignment Earth” episode of “Star Trek,” she played an aloof secretary, the first of many such roles.

She became a regular singer and dancer on “The Sonny and Cher Show” before starring in Francis Ford Coppola's “The Conversation.”

Coppola cast her again in “One from the Heart”. Her other roles included the wife of John Denver's character in “Oh, God,” the mother of the son's protagonist in “The Black Stallion,” and roles in “Dumb and Dumber” and “Mom and Dad Save the World.”

Garr worked with many notable directors of the era: in addition to Brooks, Spielberg, Pollack and Coppola, he worked on “After Hours” with Martin Scorsese and “The Player” and “Pret-a-Porter” with Robert Altman. His many TV roles include “M*A*S*H,” “The Odd Couple” and “The Bob Newhart Show.”

In a candid and feminist interview in 2008, Garr explained to The AV Club why she was often called “Mr. Mom”: “If there's ever a woman who's smart, funny or witty, people are afraid of it, so they don't write it. They're just women. For writing parts where they let everything steamroll over them, where they let people wipe their feet. The kind of parts I play and the kind of parts that are in this world for me.”

Despite her obvious appeal to great directors, she finds many of her encounters in the business to be unbearably sexist, such as being told by the producers of “The Sonny and Cher Show” that if she wants to get paid as much as the men, she can quit “starting with the show.” The whole world is sexist. This was an example of that: not getting paid what everyone else was getting paid for doing the same thing. So I started learning very early that women get steamrolled,” she told The AV Club.

He hosted “Saturday Night Live” three times and appeared frequently on “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson” and “Late Night with David Letterman.”

His career slowed in the late 1990s, although he continued to play small roles in films including “Dick” and “Unaccompanied Minors” and the two Batman animated films “Batman Beyond: The Movie” and “Batman Beyond: The Movie”. Tey serves as the voice of Mary McGinnis. Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker.

He published an autobiography called “Speedbumps: Flooring It Through Hollywood” in 2006.

She is survived by her daughter, Molly O'Neill, and grandson Tyryn.