Friends actor pays tribute after co-star’s death
Lisa Kudrow and Teri Garr in an episode of the TV sitcom Friends. Photo: Getty
Friends star Lisa Kudrow has paid tribute to her on-screen mother, Teri Garr, after the Oscar-nominated actor’s death.
Garr was best known for films such as Young Frankenstein, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Tootsie – but also recognisable to a younger audience for her role as Kudrow’s character Phoebe Buffay’s mother in the hit TV sitcom.
Garr, who was 79, appeared in several episodes of TV’s Friends in the late 1990s.
“Teri Garr was a comedic acting genius who was and is a huge influence on me and I know I’m not alone in that. I feel so lucky and grateful I got to work with Teri Garr,” Kudrow said on Tuesday (US time).
Garr had struggled with health issues in recent years, including multiple sclerosis – revealing her diagnosis in 2002 after two decades of symptoms.
In 2007, she had surgery for a brain aneurysm.
Her death was confirmed on Tuesday (US time) by her publicist, Heidi Schaeffer. She said Garr died of complications from MS while “surrounded by family and friends”.
Teri Ann Garr was born on December 11, 1944 in the Cleveland suburb of Lakewood, Ohio, to show business parents: Her father, Eddie, was a vaudeville performer and actor who appeared on Broadway and her mother, Phyllis, had been a Rockette.
After attending college in Los Angeles, Garr moved to New York City to pursue a career first in ballet and then in acting, studying at the famed Actors Studio in Manhattan.
Some of her earliest credits included work as a background dancer in Elvis Presley’s Viva Las Vegas.
“Put the candle back!”
YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN (1974)
RIP the wonderful TERI GARR
— Michael Warburton (@TheMonologist) October 29, 2024
After roles on TV shows such as Star Trek and Batman, Garr was cast by Mel Brooks as a German lab assistant in the 1974 film Young Frankenstein.
“She was so talented and so funny,” Brooks said in a tribute to Garr on X.
“Her humour and lively spirit made the Young Frankenstein set a pleasure to work on. Her ‘German’ accent had us all in stitches! She will be greatly missed.”
Michael Keaton, who starred with Garr in Mr. Mom, also paid tribute.
“Forget about how great she was as an actress and comedienne. She was a wonderful woman,” Keaton said on Instagram, adding “go back and watch her comedic work – man, was she great!!”
“Loved her so much,” comedian Steve Martin wrote above a photo of Garr.
Garr was nominated for a best supporting actress Academy Award for her role in Sydney Pollack’s Tootsie. She played a neurotic acting student whose heart is broken by Dustin Hoffman’s character.
“I was always hustling for the next job,” Garr wrote in her 2005 autobiography, Speedbumps: Flooring It Through Hollywood.
She also had many comedic roles, including on shows such as McCloud, M*A*S*H, The Bob Newhart Show, The Odd Couple, Maude and Barnaby Jones. She hosted Saturday Night Live in 1980, 1983 and 1985.
Garr said her sense of humour had helped her persevere through health challenges.
“It’s absolutely critical,” she told Reuters. “A sense of humour and attitude is the most important thing in everything.”
She is survived by her daughter Molly O’Neil, 30, and six-year-old grandson Tyryn.
-with AAP
