Teri Garr Dead: ‘Young Frankenstein’ Actress Battled Multiple Sclerosis During Her Career

Teri Garr, best known for her roles in Tootsie and Young Frankenstein, has died. She was 79 years old.

Her manager, Marc Gurvitz, confirmed the news of her death to CNN on Tuesday, October 29.

She was “surrounded by family and friends” at the time of her death, her publicist, Heidi Schaeffer, told People.

Garr starred in films like Oh, God!, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Mr. Mom throughout her career. She earned an Academy Award nomination for her role in Tootsie in 1982.

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In 2002, she revealed that she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.

“It started in 1983. I was living in New York and I’d go jogging in Central Park, and I’d start tripping,” she said, per Brain & Life. “I’d notice that the more I ran and got my body heated up, the weaker I’d get. But then it’d go away, and it went away for about ten years. And then it started up again, and I started getting stabbing pains in my arm when I ran. But I figured hey, I’m in Central Park, maybe I am being stabbed.”

She said that her health issues led her to visit multiple doctors.

“Every movie I did, I’d go see a different doctor in the location where we were shooting, and every one had a different opinion about what it might be,” the Academy Award nominee explained. “Every so often someone would mention MS, but then someone else would think it was something else.”

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Garr was officially diagnosed with MS in 1999. She opened up about battling the chronic autoimmune disease in her 2006 book, Speedbumps: Flooring It Through Hollywood.

“MS is a sneaky disease,” she wrote “Like some of my boyfriends, it has a tendency to show up at the most awkward times and then disappear entirely. It would take over 20 years for doctors to figure out what was wrong. Sometimes they mentioned MS, but all the tests came back clear. Then the symptoms would fade away and I’d forget about it, sort of.”

“Whatever this MS was, the industry wanted no part of it,” Garr continued. “At first I was outraged. Whatever was going on in my body had been going on for years. It never got in the way of my work. Then I started thinking the job offers disappeared because I stunk as an actress. It was a tough trio: mysterious symptoms, my insecurities about my acting ability, and the reality of being an ‘aging’ actress.”

Garr marked her final acting appearance in 2011’s How to Marry a Billionaire.

She is survived by her daughter, Molly O’Neil, and one grandson. She welcomed Molly during her marriage to John O’Neil, whom she was wed from 1993 to 1996.

Michael Keaton shared a tribute online after his Mr. Mom costar’s death was announced.

“This is a day I feared and knew was coming,” he wrote on Instagram. “Forget about how great she was as an actress and comedienne. She was a wonderful woman. Not just great to work with but great to be around. AND go back and watch her comedic work-Man, was she great!! RIP girl.”