Teri Garr

(1944 -2024)

It was very sad indeed to hear of the passing on Tuesday of Teri Garr, who had been battling the debilitating effects of multiple sclerosis for the past twenty-five years. Because of her illness, Garr’s death wasn’t quite the shock it might have been. But it was still hard to grasp. She was a talented, self-deprecating, very appealing woman who seemed to casually inhabit the roles she played, as if she had somehow stumbled onto a movie set and started trading dialogue with “actual” actors.

It was difficult to dislike Teri Garr. And make no mistake—she was very good at what she did.

It’s easy enough to recognize Garr was a first-rate comic actress, even in movies that weren’t worthy of her skills, and there were far too many of them. And she had more emotional range than you might immediately recall. She may have been repeatedly cast in the “Teri Garr role,” but that’s what happens to actors who manage to nail it every single time they walk in front of a camera.

You try inventing a type of movie character that only you can properly play.

It makes no difference if you couldn’t imagine Garr tackling Sophie’s Choice. Her gift was that she could effectively move between high-strung, neurotic monologues and befuddled reaction shots with seamless precision. She seemed to forever be spinning out of control in her movies, but her feet were planted firmly enough to make her an everywoman who brought a sense of reality to increasingly ridiculous situations.

Her continually harried housewife, Ronnie Neary, in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, is arguably the most accurate portrayal of day-to-day suburban hysteria I’ve ever seen in a movie. Close Encounters is remembered, of course, for its benign aliens and invitingly illuminated spaceships, so it’s easy enough to forget just how good Garr is in it and how much ground she covers in what could have been a thankless role.

Ronnie’s household is littered with the refuse of junk consumerism—every shelf and corner looks like a tangled logic puzzle made up of toys, athletic equipment, and forgotten knickknacks. The kids are constantly arguing and slapping each other, the TV is blaring, and the phone is ringing. Garr bounces back and forth through Ronnie’s challenges like a referee who has to occasionally turn away from the game she’s controlling and have troubling conversations with a husband who says he’s been visited by a UFO and appears to be losing his mind.

Garr plays Ronnie’s concern for Roy (Richard Dreyfuss) with an utterly convincing mix of tenderness and frustration. You can see in her eyes at certain moments that she’d really like to slap the guy, but her rising pain at the inexplicable collapse of her family eventually grows palpable.

She’s been spinning hundreds of plates trying to make it work—all day long and for years on end—and this is what she gets.

Look at this still. Do you remember Teri Garr being that intense in Close Encounters of the Third Kind? I’ll bet you don’t.

Her forté was obviously comedy, but she was an actress with real range, and she was able to deftly blend sensitive moments into otherwise comic performances when need be.

She knew full well what she was doing. She wasn’t just standing there being Teri Garr.

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It annoys me when critics say Garr played “ditzy blondes”—it’s a simplistic misreading of what she did, as if she was the next best thing to a secretary in a Rock Hudson comedy.

Even her Oscar-nominated performance in Tootsie, where she seems continually on the cusp of a complete nervous breakdown trying to understand Dustin Hoffman’s self-absorbed (asshole?) character, she readily grasps her own dilemma.

We have all known women who read self-help books and eat too much chocolate as they try to survive their traumas. They may be struggling, but that doesn’t mean they’re dumb.

Male characters who drink too much beer and argue about sports when they can’t control their lives are not described as “ditzy.”

Garr played sensible women who are overwhelmed by the sundry indignities of modern life. Yes, they’re scatterbrained, but only because they’re not given enough time to process the endless torrent of information that’s coming at them. They’re overwhelmed.

I suppose the reason so many people think Garr constantly played a blonde ditz is because she was so very good at it the one time she actually played one!

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That, of course, would be in Young Frankenstein, easily the best movie Mel Brooks ever made and possibly the single greatest dumb-dumb comedy of the 1970s.

As Inga, Dr. Frederick Frankenstein’s persistently buxom and ingratiating “assistant,” Garr is funny and really sexy, and she once again plays off the absurdities surrounding her with genuine skill. Every character in the movie is nuts, but Inga so badly wants to believe. No matter how hysterical Gene Wilder’s Frederick may get, Inga is there to support him in his quest to play God.

Once again, Garr’s reaction shots are priceless. Most of the time, it’s not what she’s doing to drive a scene, but how hilariously she responds to the insanity of the other characters. She may be dumb, but she’s just so sweet about it.

Garr and Wilder work well as a duo, and Garr’s intentionally half-assed “Transylvanian” accent is one of the movie’s consistent highlights. Her lack of a supporting actress Oscar nomination for Young Frankenstein illuminates yet again that the Academy doesn’t understand the skill required to pull off an inventive comic role.

I’m glad Garr got to sit as an Oscar nominee for Tootsie, but she could have been honored for this one, too.

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I can’t wrap up a remembrance of Teri Garr without mentioning her many classic appearances on Late Night with David Letterman when Letterman was at his indisputable peak at NBC back in the 1980s.

There was more than a little bit of flirtation between the two. In fact, it was so pronounced, I always assumed they had at one time or another been... how can I say it? Ships passing in the night? They communicated via sly looks and pointed put-downs that seemed considerably more knowing than the usual connection between a late-night TV host and his current guest.

You can find full, two-hour compilations of Garr’s Late Night guest shots on YouTube, but I selected one here that I remember very well. She’s just received her Oscar nomination for Tootsie, so she’s there to show a clip and promote the movie. But, as was always the case when she appeared on the show, the chemistry between these two people is obvious.

Take a few minutes to watch this. You won’t be sorry.

Like I said, it was difficult to dislike Teri Garr. She’ll be missed.