DAVID BIANCULLI, HOST:
This is FRESH AIR. I'm David Bianculli. Teri Garr, whose movie roles included very memorable parts in "Tootsie," "Close Encounters Of The Third Kind" and "Young Frankenstein," died Tuesday of complications from multiple sclerosis. She was 79 years old. Today, we'll replay an interview from our archive, where she spoke with Terry Gross, and we'll start with an appreciation.
Teri Garr was a dancer and actress who quickly found roles that embraced her more bubbly and comic side. She also found her way into various points of pop culture. She danced in nine Elvis Presley movies, played a small part in a movie starring the Monkees, and played a time-traveling secretary from the '60s in an episode of "Star Trek." She was a member of the comedy troupe on Sonny & Cher's TV variety series and starred opposite Robin Williams in "The Tale of the Frog Prince," the very first edition of Shelley Duvall's "Faerie Tale Theatre." She also made her mark on late-night TV, hosting "Saturday Night Live" three times and appearing often on David Letterman's talk show to charm him and the viewers with her funny and playful personality. Here she is from an appearance in 1985.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "LATE NIGHT WITH DAVID LETTERMAN")
DAVID LETTERMAN: You were just in Japan, weren't you?
TERI GARR: Yes, I was. Recently.
LETTERMAN: What were you doing there? Vacationing, weren't you?
GARR: No, I was out at the film festival.
LETTERMAN: Film festival what? What film festival?
GARR: The Japanese film festival, the International Film Festival of Tokyo.
LETTERMAN: Oh, like - I see. And you were there because your - one of the films you're in was playing?
GARR: No.
LETTERMAN: Just...
GARR: I don't know if you know this, but I work in films from time to time.
(LAUGHTER)
LETTERMAN: No. I - well, I know, but I mean...
GARR: Dave?
LETTERMAN: Yeah?
GARR: Your hair looks good.
LETTERMAN: No, I know. It's...
GARR: (Laughter).
BIANCULLI: Teri Garr wasn't joking about working in films. She was nominated for a supporting actress Oscar for her work opposite Dustin Hoffman in "Tootsie" and also starred opposite Richard Dreyfuss in "Close Encounters Of The Third Kind," Michael Keaton in "Mr. Mom" and John Denver in "Oh, God!" She had a part in Martin Scorsese's film "After Hours" opposite Griffin Dunne, and she shared scenes with Gene Hackman in Francis Coppola's 1974 film "The Conversation." And most memorably of all, perhaps, she played opposite Gene Wilder in the brilliant Mel Brooks comedy "Young Frankenstein." She played Inga, his sexy and silly lab assistant. In this scene, Gene Wilder is reading notes about the creation of the original Frankenstein.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN")
GENE WILDER: (As Dr. Frankenstein, reading) As the minuteness of the parts formed a great hindrance to my speed, I resolved, therefore, to make the creature of a gigantic stature. Of course. That would simplify everything.
GARR: (As Inga) In other words, his veins, his feet, his hands, his organs would all have to be increased in size.
WILDER: (As Dr. Frankenstein) Exactly.
GARR: (As Inga) He would have an enormous schwanzstucker.
WILDER: (As Dr. Frankenstein) That goes without saying.
GARR: (As Inga) Oof.
BIANCULLI: Later in her career, Teri Garr appeared in such films as "The Player" and "Dumb and Dumber," and guest starred on the TV series "Friends" as the birth mother of Lisa Kudrow's twin sisters. In 2005, she wrote a memoir called "Speedbumps," which discussed her career and living with MS. That's when Terry Gross spoke with her. They began with a clip from Teri Garr's Oscar-nominated turn in the 1982 film "Tootsie."
Here's a scene from the film. Dustin Hoffman plays an out-of-work actor so desperate for a part that he masquerades as a woman in order to land a female role on a soap opera. He falls in love with an actress on the set who doesn't realize he's a man. In the meantime, he's lost interest in his girlfriend, played by Teri Garr. In this scene, Garr asks why he hasn't been returning her phone calls, and she insists that he tell her the truth.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "TOOTSIE")
DUSTIN HOFFMAN: (As Michael Dorsey) I'm going to tell you the truth. Sandy, I'm in love with another woman.
GARR: (As Sandy Lester, yelling) What are you saying to me?
HOFFMAN: (As Michael Dorsey) Sandy, please. Don't, don't, don't.
GARR: (As Sandy Lester) Ooh, you liar. You liar.
HOFFMAN: (As Michael Dorsey) Sandy, we never said we loved each other.
GARR: (As Sandy Lester) Why do you do this to me?
HOFFMAN: (As Michael Dorsey) We went to bed one time.
GARR: (As Sandy Lester) I don't care. I don't base things on if I say I love you to people.
HOFFMAN: (As Michael Dorsey) Sandy, I'm crazy about you. You're one of the dearest friends I ever had, but let's not pretend that we're something else. We're going to lose everything we have.
GARR: (As Sandy Lester) I never said I love you. I don't care about I love you. I read "The Second Sex." I read "The Cinderella Complex." I'm responsible for my own orgasm. I don't care. I just don't like to be lied to.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)
TERRY GROSS: That's Teri Garr and Dustin Hoffman in a scene from "Tootsie." Teri Garr, welcome to FRESH AIR.
GARR: Thank you, Terry. Nice to be here.
GROSS: Now, you actually wrote some of your lines for this scene. You say in your book that the character was supposed to just get really angry and flip out when she finds out from Dustin Hoffman that he's in love with another woman, but that didn't ring true to you. Why didn't ring true, and how did you change what the character said?
GARR: Well, I think it didn't ring true because what the character was, was supposed to be this independent woman. Of course, she was in the middle of trying to be connected to a man and truly connected to her career. So she was a little bit on the fence there. But I think initially, if someone said, I'm not in love with you. I'm in love with someone else, she goes, so what? That's got nothing to do with me.
And I suggested to Sydney Pollack that I write something about it. I had done a lot of research about the feminist movement at that time. So I was reading all the books at the time that were - Betty Friedan and Shere Hite had a book and all these - and I was reading all these books and some of them actually made me laugh so much. But I said, well, if you let me do one take where I just can spew out all this stuff that I've been reading, I think it'll work.
GROSS: And so you wrote all the stuff about...
GARR: I did. And I did see that one line that said, I'm responsible for my own orgasm. And I remember when I read that - that was in Shere Hite's book - I went, what does that mean? I didn't even know what it meant, but I thought, well, I'm throwing it in anyway 'cause it's funny.
GROSS: It's funny, and it's very of its time.
GARR: Yes, of its time is right.
GROSS: You started off as a dancer. And among your accomplishments, you danced in nine Elvis Presley movies.
GARR: I'm not sure that's an accomplishment. You know, some of these things are credits, some of them are debits.
GROSS: (Laughter).
GARR: And that was filler.
GROSS: OK. Movies that you danced in include - correct me if I'm wrong here - "Viva Las Vegas" - all Elvis films - "Viva Las Vegas," "Roustabout," "Kissin' Cousins," "Speedway," "Clambake."
GARR: Yeah, among others. Yeah, at that time, he was doing about at least four movies a year, bad ones in Hollywood. But I had worked in "West Side Story," you know, with the original cast, Jerry Robbins. So I was a really good, legit dancer. And one of the guys in the show became a choreographer for "Viva Las Vegas." He said, you guys want to come down to this audition? So we went, well, sure, let's do that.
So then once - in those days, once you got into the union or the central casting, they just called you again and again and again. So I started, you know, going to all the auditions. I mean, I danced in Elvis Presley movies, but I also danced in Shirley MacLaine movies - "What A Way To Go!" and "John Goldfarb, Please Come Home." A big movie. And a lot of other little movies that they just called me for. So that's how that started. I put - it'd be, like, one step ahead of being a cocktail waitress...
GROSS: (Laughter).
GARR: ...That you could be dancing...
GROSS: Why? It sounds like so much fun to dance in an Elvis film.
GARR: Actually, it was great fun to dance in Elvis movies.
GROSS: What's the silliest number you were in in one of the Elvis films?
GARR: Oh, man, they were all pretty bad. I guess, in that "Clambake" thing, there was something about digging for clams, and, oh, man, they were all bad. But, you know, it was so funny 'cause I grew up with my mother telling me stories about being a Rockette. She goes, we had to do everything. We had to learn to play the violin one week and the drums the next week. And so she was always telling me how they were so versatile. So that when we did these silly "Clambake" and whatever they were with Elvis, I thought, well, I'm in the same boat with my mom.
GROSS: Your mom was one of the original Rockettes.
GARR: Yes, she was, the original Rockettes. They were called the Roxyettes or something when she first went in there. I know the history of the Rockettes, believe me.
GROSS: So, did you get to hang out with Elvis?
GARR: Well, a little bit. I mean, you know, and I'm sure there's been so much written about Elvis. But he was out there, like, you know, a fish out of water when he's in Hollywood making movies. And I also think he had kind of a morbid fascination with his Colonel Parker, and whatever he told him to do - you go to Hollywood, you make these movies. So there he was. And he brought all his boys with him, and they'd hang out on the set. And they'd say, you girls want to come to a party at Elvis' tonight? I went, well, yeah, OK. So we go to Elvis', but he should have actually said do you want to come and watch Elvis watch TV or something...
GROSS: (Laughter).
GARR: ...Because that's more like what it was. But I was fascinated by the whole thing. I was fascinated by him. He was such a talented, you know, charismatic guy. And I looked at him and I thought, you know, he should be in front of an audience, not on the sound stage. It's just kind of wasting it. But anyway, I got to be kind of friends with him. You know, he was very funny. And I don't think - people don't talk about that. He had a great sense of humor, very funny and laughed all the time.
GROSS: Well, something else you touched on - you were one of the dancers on "Shindig!"
GARR: Yes.
GROSS: Which was, you know, one of the rock 'n' roll shows. The bands would be there, and there were dancers. You were in a cage, right?
GARR: No, we were on - they were called pods.
GROSS: You were on, like, a pedestal, yeah. And what were the dances that you had to do? This was probably, what, '67?
GARR: '67 or '68. Well, they were called things like the watusi and the swim and something like that. We also did mostly - that same guy who choreographed "Viva Las Vegas," choreographed "Shindig!" for a while. So we did some real dancing on that, some numbers we called them. I don't know.
GROSS: My impression from the book is that you didn't particularly enjoy that.
GARR: Well, you know, the minute I got into "West Side Story" and I had one line - even though I danced and I really wanted to be a ballerina in ABT and everything, I had this one line. And I got a reaction from this one line. I thought, I don't know if - I want to be an actor. I want to be an actress. You know, I want to be in the front. I don't want to be in the back. So that's, I think, when I got this thing about being on "Shindig!" or "Shivaree" - was another one I was on. Well, I really can't be on these permanently. I'm going on. I mean, I had it in my head then that I was going to move on and out of the chorus line. So please don't tie me down to a series. I'm sorry, I can't do this.
GROSS: One of the ways you made the transition from dancing to acting is you got an agent who got you a lot of TV commercials. And that was your portfolio in a way, I guess, for casting agents?
GARR: Yes, I was very lucky to be able to do all these TV commercials at some point. And I think that was a big learning experience, too, because in a way, you know, selling some product as acting. So I was studying acting. I was trying to do plays. I was taking dancing jobs. But I was also doing all these commercials and going on all these commercial auditions. And there must've been - you know, you could go on six or seven auditions a day. So that's a great learning experience. I don't think people can do that these days. But, yeah, I did a lot of that, and then I started making a pretty good living just doing commercials. And I said, I could phase out these dancing jobs. But I never did, not totally. I mean, it took me about ten years.
GROSS: OK, products you did TV commercials for include Crest, Safeguard soap, Greyhound bus lines, Camay soap, Bold detergent, Sure deodorant, General Foods breakfast squares. So many commercials, you have to look almost orgasmic as you taste the breakfast cereal or as you inhale the perfumed soap. Did you have to have that really kind of fake, like, wow, it's amazing expression on your face for the commercials?
GARR: Yes, always. I remember once I did a commercial for Metrecal. Do you remember what Metrecal was?
GROSS: Oh, yes, it was the diet fluid.
GARR: The diet fluid that you ate for lunch. So I was doing this commercial, and I was supposed to be in the teacher's lounge with - Penny Marshall was one of the other teachers. And I drank so much Metrecal that I was getting ready to puke. And I heard them say, all right, get the bucket. And Penny and I both looked at each other. What do they mean get the bucket? So I would drink some of the Metrecal, they would pan the camera off of me, then I would spit the Metrecal into this bucket.
GROSS: (Laughter).
GARR: Then they would pan back to me, and I'd go, mmm, delicious. Well, I want to tell you, it was very difficult to do without laughing, because you'd hear this noise - (imitating spitting) - and then fabulous, it's so delicious. Anyway, I had a good time doing many commercials. They're funny.
GROSS: (Laughter) That's great.
GARR: They kind of do them by the seat of their pants. But then in commercials, everything has to be done legally, correctly. And, boy, I learned a lot about advertising.
GROSS: Well, let me ask you about another movie you were in, and that is "Young Frankenstein" or Frankenstein.
GARR: Frankenstein, yeah.
GROSS: Yes. Directed by Mel Brooks. How did you get to work with him?
GARR: Well, there was rumors going around town that there was a big movie being cast. And there was lots of girls going up for this audition, and I got my agent to get me in on it - you know, 500 girls. When I went there, Mel Brooks said, we're casting for the part of the fiance - the financier, he called it. But I want Madeline Kahn to do it. I just want you to know. But she doesn't want to do it because she doesn't want to do a comedy, but I'm auditioning all these girls.
So I went in, and I got called back and called back. And I was very excited that I even got called back. Finally, one day, I got called back. And he said, Madeline has decided to do this part. But if you can come back tomorrow, I'll give you a chance to audition for the part of Inga, the lab assistant. But you have to have a German accent. Can you come? And it's like, I have 24 hours to get a German accent together, and I did, because I copied Cher's wigmaker who had a German accent.
GROSS: You were working on "The Sonny & Cher Show" at the time?
GARR: Yes, I was working on "The Sonny & Cher Show" at the time, and there was Renate with the wigs.
GROSS: Did you learn things about comic timing working with Mel Brooks on "Young Frankenstein"?
GARR: Well, I don't think you can learn comic timing. I think I must have innately grown up with - you know, my mother and father from vaudeville and stuff, and lots of jokes around the house. But I had been working on "The Sonny & Cher Show" as a dancer and also in these horrible comedy sketches, and I sort of had learned comic timing then. Also, I was an incredible fan of Mel Brooks' "The 2000-Year-Old Man." I had listened to those records hundreds of times as a kid and memorized them and did them over and over again. So I sort of knew his rhythm. But he is one of God's gifts to this planet. Mel Brooks is just the funniest man in the world. He is really funny.
GROSS: What did he call you, a shiksa goddess?
GARR: Shiksa goddess, my long-waisted shiksa goddess. No, and then he called Peter Boyle and I - come here, treif. We were both treif.
GROSS: (Laughter).
GARR: I don't know what it means, exactly. And then at one point...
GROSS: Not kosher.
GARR: I said, well, Mel, you're so wonderful. I wish I was Jewish. You're Jewish. You are Jewish by injection.
GROSS: (Laughter).
GARR: I don't know what he meant, but OK.
GROSS: Here's a scene from "Young Frankenstein." Dr. Frankenstein has just been fooling around with his seductive lab assistant, played by Teri Garr. In this scene, his assistant, Igor, played by Marty Feldman, has escorted the doctor's fiance to the castle. The fiance is played by Madeline Kahn.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN")
WILDER: (As Dr. Frankenstein) I'd like you to meet my assistants Inga and Igor.
MADELINE KAHN: (As Elizabeth) How do you do? How do you do?
WILDER: (As Dr. Frankenstein) This is my financier, Elizabeth.
GARR: (As Inga) Oh, I'm so happy to meet you at last.
WILDER: (As Dr. Frankenstein) Finance.
KAHN: (As Elizabeth) Excuse me, darling. What is it exactly that you do do?
GARR: (As Inga) Well, I assist Dr. Frankenstein in the laboratory. We have intellectual discussions, don't we? As a matter of fact, we were just having one as you were driving...
WILDER: (As Dr. Frankenstein) Well, I...
GARR: (As Inga) What?
WILDER: (As Dr. Frankenstein, blabbering)
KAHN: (As Elizabeth) What?
WILDER: (As Dr. Frankenstein) Igor, would you give me a hand with the bags?
MARTY FELDMAN: (As Igor) Certainly. You take the blond, and I'll take the one in the turban (growling).
KAHN: (As Elizabeth, screaming) Off.
BIANCULLI: "Young Frankenstein." Teri Garr spoke with Terry Gross in 2005. More after a break. This is FRESH AIR.
This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to Terry Gross and her 2005 interview with Teri Garr, who died Tuesday at age 79.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)
GROSS: Now, the first real movie role you got - like, major movie role - was in "The Conversation"...
GARR: Right.
GROSS: ...With - you know, directed by Coppola, starring Gene Hackman. Like, does it get better than that...
GARR: It doesn't.
GROSS: ...For starting a movie career?
GARR: I was absolutely in shock. I told you I was doing commercials at the time. So one of the commercial casting directors was casting his film. And she said, do you want to go up for this part? And I said, of course, I'd go up for everything. So I went and met with Coppola, and I thought that would be the end of it. I said (ph), wow, you guys, I met Francis Coppola. Then a couple of days later, they said, they want you to audition. I said, oh, this is fabulous. So I went and read. Then they said, they want you to fly to San Francisco to do a screen test. And I thought, this must be some part. This may be, like, the lead in a Francis Coppola movie. So anyway, I went. I flew to San Francisco, did this audition and then flew back. He had me sing "When The Red, Red Robin Comes Bob, Bob, Bobbin' Along." You know, I have to say Francis Coppola was one of the big influences of my life because I think back on things that he had me do from the get-go and what they - how they were part of the creative process, and he really taught me what that was about in a way.
So anyway, I went to San Francisco and auditioned, and then I came back. And, well, that's that. I've done a screen test for Francis Coppola. I'm putting this on my resume. I never thought I would get the part. So then I got the part. And they said, you have to be here tomorrow for the cast reading up in San Francisco, which I couldn't do 'cause I was working on "Sonny & Cher Show." That's how much I had planned on getting this job. But I lied to them on "The Sonny & Cher Show" and said I was sick; I couldn't be there, and flew up to San Francisco and read the entire script and realized that there was only - it was only one scene in the whole movie. But still, I wasn't going to turn it down. I was very excited to have been in it. And I think it was really great to have that be the first kind of recognizable part in a film was in "The Conversation." Even though the next movie that come out that I was in was "Young Frankenstein," where it was all funny and all that, and it was a bigger hit movie, it still kind of created a balance there that this girl can act and act and be funny.
GROSS: And it's an interesting scene. You're in bed, and Hackman, who's, you know, your boyfriend, walks in the door. And you want to get to know him more. He's this very closed, unknowable guy. And you keep asking him these questions, and he gets more and more closed the more questions you ask. So it's a pretty interesting scene.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE CONVERSATION")
GARR: (As Amy Fredericks) You do have secrets, Harry. I know you do.
GENE HACKMAN: (As Harry R. Caul) No.
GARR: (As Amy Fredericks) You do. Sometimes you come over here, and you don't tell me. Once I saw you up by the staircase, hiding and watching for a whole hour. You think you're going to catch me at something, you know? I know when you come over. I can always tell. You have a certain way of opening up the door. You know, first the key goes in real quiet, and then the door comes open real fast, just like you think you're going to catch me at something. Sometimes I even think you're listening to me when I'm talking on the telephone.
HACKMAN: (As Harry R. Caul) What are you talking about?
GARR: (As Amy Fredericks) I don't know. I just feel it.
GROSS: Why did Coppola ask you to sing "Red, Red Robin" in your audition?
GARR: Well, I don't know. I mean, I think it had something to do with he wanted to see that character - if she could be, like, ingenuous and naive and just jump in and do something cute and sweet. I mean, looking back on it now, I see that. That's - it was his fantasy. He always wanted to have a girl that was just in a room that would just be there for him, that didn't know anything about him but that was happy and positive and not bitching about being locked in a room.
GROSS: This was Hackman's fantasy in the movie?
GARR: No. Well, it was Francis'....
GROSS: You think it's Coppola's fantasy?
GARR: Oh, yeah.
GROSS: Yeah.
GARR: Definitely.
GROSS: (Laughter).
GARR: Well, that whole movie was his fantasy. It was more about his Catholic, confessional thing of listening to what people were saying and - very interesting, revealing movie about the man who wrote it, who was Francis Coppola. But, yeah, that was what that was about.
BIANCULLI: Teri Garr speaking to Terry Gross in 2005. Teri Garr died Tuesday at age 79. After a break, we'll continue their conversation, and Justin Chang reviews "Blitz," a new Steve McQueen movie about World War II. I'm David Bianculli, and this is FRESH AIR.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
BIANCULLI: This is FRESH AIR. I'm David Bianculli, professor of television studies at Rowan University. Let's get back to Terry Gross and her 2005 interview with actress Teri Garr, who died Tuesday at age 79. She's probably best known for her roles in "Young Frankenstein," "Mr. Mom" and "Close Encounters Of The Third Kind." She also was in Martin Scorsese's "After Hours" and Francis Ford Coppola's "The Conversation."
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)
GROSS: So you worked with Coppola not only on "The Conversation," but on "One From The Heart." And you suspect that it was during the filming of "One From The Heart" that - when you had an accident, that it kind of started your MS.
GARR: Well, I do suspect that, but I could be wrong. But I think - it's one of the reasons I wrote about it in the book, is because I want other people that have MS to think maybe this - something like this happened to them. But there's a theory out there that MS is a virus that's in you, but - like, everyone gets chicken pox or some kind of virus, it stays and lays dormant. But some kind of trauma or some kind of - something will exacerbate it.
So I do remember dropping a broken champagne bottle, which is thick glass, on the top of my foot, and it broke - it severed the tendon in my foot. And I felt like it went boi-oi-oing in my head or something like that. And when I look back on that, I think, I wonder if that was the thing that started the MS and activated it. You know, I could be dead wrong, but I did write that in my book 'cause I thought that maybe was when I first started experiencing little - you know, things that weren't right. And I couldn't control my body as well as I could. I mean, here I was a dancer - and a good one. And I just couldn't make myself do it. What's going on? Am I lazy and am I getting tired? And I think that's when it started to happen.
GROSS: And the champagne bottle that you dropped, that was in a scene from "One From The Heart."
GARR: Right. It was - I was supposed to be carrying groceries in, and then I dropped it, and it broke on my foot. Right.
GROSS: This was early in the film.
GARR: Yeah.
GROSS: Yeah. So what were your early symptoms? When did you start to feel like this is something you needed to pay attention to and take seriously?
GARR: Well, I don't - there - the symptoms - I always have this ego that I'm fine, and I'm a perfect physical specimen, that anything that did happen to me, I sort of ignored it, Oh, this is normal. Everybody gets this. But I know that one of the first things that happened to me was, years ago, I'd feel like this buzzing in my foot, buzzing, like your cellphone or something. And then I thought, well, it couldn't be a cellphone 'cause we didn't have cellphones back then. I mean, we had cellphones, but they were the size of canoes. So it wasn't that. But I didn't know what it was.
And then it would go away. And then I had - where I would run. I was a big jogger, and I would run in Central Park, and I would trip on something. I'd think, what? What rock? What did I trip - I almost just went - flying leap. And then that would go away, so there would this be tingling and maybe a stabbing pain in my arm, which was another thing. When you heat up your body by exercising and running, the - it seemed to exacerbate these pains, and it would make me be weaker. And then when I felt this, you know, stabbing pain in my arm in Central Park, I thought, well, maybe it is a knife because I'm in Central Park. But it wasn't.
GROSS: (Laughter).
GARR: So those - but then - I would get those symptoms, and then they would go away so that by the time I got myself to a doctor and said, now, check this out, it would be gone 'cause MS is relapsing and remitting. So the doctors would go, honey, honey, you know, there's nothing wrong with you. You're fine. You're - you might be a little crazy, a little hypochondriac. And I'm just sitting there like, well, maybe they're right. I guess I'm a - but I never had been a hypochondriac. In fact, I would like to stay away from doctors as much as I can and not - I would go for the last minute. So by the time I'd get my butt to the doctor and he'd say, nothing wrong with you, I'd go, oh, you know, I've wasted so much time. I could be in class right now or something, reading. So not good.
GROSS: How do you think being a dancer and being very attuned to your body and being taught to just kind of go on because you always have aches and pains as a dancer - how do you think that affected your ability to cope with the symptoms of MS?
GARR: Oh, I think it was absolutely a wonderful thing to have been a dancer, to have that discipline and to - just to be able to roll with the punches and all the jobs that I did. And like I said, my mother teaching me that when they were Rockettes, they had to learn the accordion in one day and all that. It was something that I thought - it's why I call the book "Speedbumps." It was just something that made me slow down go, MS diagnosis. OK, let's keep going.
How my life had progressed, I think, was a great lesson in how to deal with an illness or a diagnosis. Because when you start out in Hollywood or in New York or wherever in show business, it's 99% get out of here, rejection, and you have to develop the hide of a rhinoceros. But you still have to have the - you know, spirit of a butterfly inside in order to do your art. So that really came in handy 'cause I went, well, I can handle this. I'll handle this MS. I don't know what it is. I'll deal with it. I'll find out a way to do it, and I'm going to go on with my life.' And that's what I did.
GROSS: On the other hand, I could see how being a dancer might have made you more bitter about having MS because your body was such a well-crafted tool.
GARR: Well, that's a nice thing to say. But I have never been bitter, and I've never had a - I don't really have any negative - I had little things along the way. For example, I went to a doctor who said, now, you're walking weakly on your right side. I could put a brace on your leg. And so he said, try the brace. I tried the brace. I walked. This is fabulous. I'm walking around the office. This is wonderful. And then I looked, and I said, I have to wear this all the time? And he says, yeah. I said, wait, you don't understand. I'm Teri Garr. I'm known for my fabulous legs. Now I've got to wear a brace on my leg. And he just said, well, it's a small price to pay.
And it was - instantly, I went, it sure is. I mean, I would be able to put it in perspective that I have to wear long pants or long skirts forever now, but I can walk around better. So it was one of those things where I was able to say, what's better, showing off my stupid legs or walking better? So I walk better.
GROSS: Do you still wear the brace?
GARR: Oh, yeah. Got it on right now.
GROSS: How would you describe your walking now?
GARR: Oh, it's not good. I mean, it's got - I've gotten weaker. It comes and goes, but it's - you know, more than the how am I walking is, it's my fatigue level. You know, I get really tired. For me to walk around the block is like someone climbing Mt. Everest, and I think people with - who don't have MS don't understand that. So that - it takes a lot of energy. But I walk a little slower. But, you know, I walk across airports, and I do a lot of traveling, and I - people start walking fast and going ahead of me. I go, (impersonating old lady) I'm getting there, slow but sure.
And I try to keep a sense of humor about it and a good attitude. I mean, not to say I make fun of myself, but I try to make it easier on other people, 'cause I always think it's harder on them than it is on me. I'm fine with it. I'm happy to be alive. But they must think, oh, you poor thing; you're suffering. And I'm not.
GROSS: Now, your recent roles have included "Ghost World." You were the mother of one of the two girls in the movie. And you were the mother of Phoebe in "Friends."
GARR: That's right.
GROSS: And so - two mother roles. Are you still acting now?
GARR: Oh, yes. I just am on "Law & Order." I play a defense attorney named Minerva Grahame-Bishop Good name, huh? And I - that was a great job. I'm a defense lawyer on that show. I've done one. I'm going to do another one, and perhaps more.
GROSS: And does the MS get in the way of your performing?
GARR: No. How could it get in the way? I get in my way. I'm a little - I feel like I'm a little bit rusty. But, no, it hasn't. You know, on the "Law & Order" show, there's a cinematographer who's quite brilliant, and he has MS. And so they - he had a little scooter - motorized scooter around the set. He said, you want to borrow one of mine? I said, sure. And that was great. See, that's one of the reasons I go around talking about living with MS and talking about MS, is that there are so many myths about it and that people can go on with their lives, and they can do good work. And I think the myth is, no, they're dead. They're out. They're gone. They're in a wheelchair. In fact, I was going to call my book, "Does This Wheelchair Make Me Look Fat?"
GROSS: (Laughter).
GARR: But I was afraid if I put wheelchair out there, oh, it's going to be another big, you know, check mark against me. So I'm trying to - you know, I try to keep it on the upper positive level that those of us with MS can still go on and still function. And I want the rest of the world to believe it, and I also want the people that have MS to believe it, 'cause I think they're victims of the bad publicity, too, you know, that they go, oh, I have MS. I better throw in the towel and go to my room and watch TV or something. And that's - no, no, no, you have to go on with your life.
BIANCULLI: Teri Garr speaking to Terry Gross in 2005. More after a break. This is FRESH AIR.
This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to Terry Gross and her 2005 interview with Teri Garr, who died Tuesday at age 79.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)
GROSS: Can we talk about your parents a little bit?
GARR: Please.
GROSS: Your mother, as you mentioned, was a Rockette. She was - you say she had wonderful legs. She did - what? - hosiery ads, too...
GARR: She did, yes.
GROSS: ...To show off her legs?
GARR: Yeah, she called herself Legs Lind.
GROSS: And then she also was, like, a wardrobe person for several TV shows?
GARR: Yeah. I think a lot of dancers become - go into wardrobe afterwards. I don't know why that happens, but it's true. And, yeah, she became a costumer in LA. And my father died when I was 11, and he was in vaudeville. And they met in a Broadway show, my parents. And then he came out to Hollywood to be in movies, and that didn't pan out, and he became very ill. And then he passed away, so my mother had to support three kids, you know, by her wits. So she went and got a job in the studios as a costumer. In fact, she was a costumer on "Young Frankenstein" before I even got the job, and she told - don't tell anyone I'm your mother. I thought, what is this about? It's so weird. Anyway, I learned...
GROSS: Why didn't she want anyone to know?
GARR: I do not know, to this day. Maybe...
GROSS: Was it for her sake or your sake?
GARR: I don't know. But finally, I told Mel. I said, you know that lady over there? That's my mom. He was so great, 'cause he's just a great guy, and he - (impersonating Mel Brooks) well, bring her over here.
You know, he was wonderful. I just don't know what her motive was. But she was a great, interesting woman. You know, she - her parents came from Austria. They settled in Ohio. And my grandfather said, girls go to secretary school, and that's what they do, and shut up and do that. And my oldest aunt did that, and my mother and my other, younger aunt said, no, no. We're not doing that. They hitchhiked to New York when they were, like, 14 and 16, or something like that. My mother became a Rockette. No, maybe they must have been a little bit older than that, 'cause they were out of high school. And my aunt was a brilliant artist and a concert pianist and all this stuff. So they had some aesthetic that they were not going to do what my grandfather said. So it was the - to me, it was always the early feminist, we're doing this. We're going off to New York to take care of ourselves. And, unfortunately, she married my dad.
(LAUGHTER)
GARR: And that brought the end of that. But learning from it was that you do what you want to do, and you independently go take care of yourself and don't depend on a man. I mean, that was the idea that I got when I was a kid.
GROSS: And what about your idea of show business, watching your parents? Did it seem like a good life or a bad life?
GARR: Well, it did seem like a bad life. I mean, it seemed like not a fair life or a fickle business, you know, and I think it's true. I just recently was reading the review of the - Elia Kazan's book, and he said the same. He got older, and he said, tell anybody that wants to be a director not to do it, 'cause they throw you away. And I thought, well, then, Mr. Kazan, it's for everybody. Everybody's got the same thing - that you have a peak, and then it fades away, you know? But so that goes with life, I guess. But I didn't think that show business looked that fair. But I also somehow got it in my head that I was going to beat it, and that I was going to get in there and do it, too.
And I was very influenced by my mother when she worked at the studios. And I was young then, and I would go visit her and take the bus down and hang out with her. And it was so exciting to be at a TV studio, where there was costumes and sets and people rushing around and music and orchestras. I was like, well, I want to be part of this. I just want to be part of this. And then, because my parents were in vaudeville, a lot of their friends came out to Hollywood. Everybody wanted to be in the business, and they - it didn't happen, so they opened dancing schools. So I got to have free dancing lessons in all these places where my parents, who had worked with a dance team in Philly and a dog act in Boston and all of this - and they were all out there, either maitre d's or opening Orange Julius stands or something like that - a very interesting, eclectic way that the fringe of show business kind of settled in LA, and I was in that world. But it was always out there, the show business thing, and he goes, well, it's there for you. You can try it. You can try and - I said, well, I think I will. I think I'll try. My two older brothers didn't want to do it.
GROSS: Your father was a comic. Was he, like, a joke-teller at home?
GARR: Well, I don't remember that too much. It's a very interesting thing about writing a book about your life. I seem to find a big, huge gap about, well, who was my father? And, you know, he died when I was 11. And most of the time when I was alive, until he died, I did - he was ill. So I couldn't really talk to him too much, and I had to be quiet 'cause Dad is sick, and...
GROSS: What was his sickness?
GARR: Well, he had heart trouble. And when I was born, he was in a - I don't know if this is - he was in a USO show in the South Pacific, and he fell out of a Jeep and broke his back. And ever since then, he was not well. They brought him back to Long Beach in a cast that was from the top of his chin to his knees. It was just a horrible - they didn't know a way how to treat a broken back. But something happened then, I think, that diminished his life, and he started having heart trouble, and he started having all kinds of things, and he was always ill. And he did character acting in movies. He did a movie with Marilyn Monroe, and I remember going to see that when I was a kid. And he kind of made a living, but he was always ill. So I don't think I had much of a relationship with my father, and therefore, I don't know who men are.
(LAUGHTER)
GARR: It's - I think it's something like that. I don't know.
GROSS: Do you think that affected your relationships...
GARR: Oh, yes.
GROSS: ...That you didn't know much about your father?
GARR: You know, I really do, and I never thought about it until I wrote this book. I always thought, just like everybody else, well, there's just not enough good men out there. But then I see people with relationships and able to have them, and I think, well, no, I think it's something else. I think it's your relationship to your parents that make you have relationships with other people or something like that. But it's been a confusing mess, believe me, that end of it.
GROSS: (Laughter).
GARR: But I go on. Even though I'm much older now, I still think there's hope of finding someone interesting.
GROSS: So you're not part of a couple right now?
GARR: Not part of a couple, no, except me and my daughter, which is a good couple.
GROSS: You've played mothers in a couple of recent roles, like I said, including in "Ghost World" and the TV series "Friends." Are there people you've been able to pattern those mothers on because it sounds like your mother was very different from the mothers that you've played?
GARR: That's true. You know, most of the mothers that I play in movies, starting from "Close Encounters Of The Third Kind" and everything...
GROSS: Right, suburban mothers.
GARR: Yeah. I patterned them after my sister-in-law, 'cause my brother married a high school - his high school sweetheart, and my other brother married - they've both stayed married all this time. But my one sister-in-law is very Martha Stewart, and, you know, she's - my brother's a surgeon, and so she's a doctor's wife. And she's very - knows about gardening and centerpieces and stuff like that, something, like, I completely never grew up knowing. And when I got those parts, I would think, I have no role model, 'cause the role model I have is more like the Texaco man or something. I mean, it's just like...
(LAUGHTER)
GARR: So I went and, you know, would look at what my sister-in-law did and copy her.
GROSS: Teri Garr, thank you very, very much for talking with us.
GARR: Well, Terry Gross, thank you for having me.
BIANCULLI: Teri Garr, speaking to Terry Gross in 2005. The actress died Tuesday. She was 79 years old. She was a frequent guest on late-night TV and a favorite of David Letterman's. Here she is in her last appearance on his show in 2008.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "LATE SHOW WITH DAVID LETTERMAN")
LETTERMAN: But now, wait a minute. This - now, you dated...
(LAUGHTER)
GARR: What?
LETTERMAN: There's something with you and Elvis. Wasn't there something with you and Elvis?
GARR: No, no, no.
LETTERMAN: No, come on, there was.
GARR: No.
LETTERMAN: Yes, there was.
GARR: Dave, no.
LETTERMAN: Yes, there was.
GARR: You and me, baby.
LETTERMAN: Oh.
(LAUGHTER)
GARR: Everyone asked me, what was it - what went on between you and Dave? I said, oh, totally sexual. That's all.
LETTERMAN: That's all it was.
GARR: Big time.
LETTERMAN: That's right.
GARR: A filthy lie.
LETTERMAN: But, now - I don't want to put you on the spot here again, but wasn't there a thing with you and Elvis? I mean, you knew Elvis, right? Did you know Elvis?
GARR: You want to put me on the spot, don't you?
LETTERMAN: No, I don't. Just tell me. Did you know Elvis or not?
GARR: Yes, I did.
LETTERMAN: You worked with Elvis, right?
GARR: The king.
LETTERMAN: In films. What film were you in with Elvis?
GARR: Fabulous films.
LETTERMAN: Yeah.
GARR: "Viva Las Vegas"...
LETTERMAN: Ooh.
GARR: ..."Roustabout"...
LETTERMAN: Well, there you go.
GARR: ..."Kissin' Cousins" - all the good ones.
LETTERMAN: Yeah.
GARR: The best.
LETTERMAN: And you can still see these all the time on television.
GARR: Of course you can.
LETTERMAN: And so when we see you and Elvis, we can now know that there was a...
GARR: Oh, yeah, big time.
(LAUGHTER)
GARR: No.
LETTERMAN: I bet he asked you out all the time. I bet he...
GROSS: No, no, no.
LETTERMAN: Sure, he did.
GARR: No, he didn't.
LETTERMAN: You know you're not under oath.
(LAUGHTER)
GARR: All right. All right.
LETTERMAN: (Laughter).
GARR: Elvis and I? Bang, bang.
(LAUGHTER)
BIANCULLI: Teri Garr with David Letterman. Coming up, Justin Chang reviews "Blitz," a new Steve McQueen movie about World War II. This is FRESH AIR. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
