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"I'm always like this with a new movie role. I always get super-defensive and make noises like a rooster, Maybe that's because I spent so much time as a chorus girl."

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Known for her sharp tongue, witty humor and grace, Teri Garr is a comedy icon with a career spanning almost fifty years. Today she is known as much for her classic comedy roles in films like Young Frankenstein (1974) and Mr. Mom (1983) as for her brave fight against multiple sclerosis. No matter what generation you were born into, chances are you recognize Garr from somewhere, whether it was her string of films with Elvis Presley or her frequent appearances on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show (1962-92). She's been a mainstay of the American comedy scene, and it just wouldn't be the same without her.

From Extra to Elvis

"You have to find out what's right for you, so it's trial and error. You are going to be all right if you accept realistic goals for yourself."

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Born to Rockette and model Phyllis Lind Garr and vaudeville performer and comedian Eddie Garr on December 11, 1944 in the suburb of Lakewood, Ohio in Cleveland. Garr took an interest in dancing right away, taking buses around town to find the best dance schools and training as much as possible. She would eventually travel from Ohio to California to New York, where she studied at both the Actors Studio and the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute.

Although she came from a showbiz family, she nevertheless had to earn all of her own breaks in life. "Any kind of lessons we wanted, we had to have scholarships or sweep the floors. It had to be free. And so we always had to try harder."

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Like many actresses, Teri Garr got her start as an extra, doing background work in films like A Swingin' Affair (1963) while continuing to pursue stage work, including a Los Angeles production of West Side Story. It was at an audition for this play that she would meet her mentor, choreographer David Winters, who proved to be critical to Garr's budding career. Whenever Winter was hired as a choreographer, he would call on Garr to work as a background dancer or featured performer in the booming genre of go-go and surf films, including Pajama Party (1964), and dance shows like Shindig! (1964-66) and Hullabaloo (1965-66). A close friend of choreographer and "Hey Mickey" (1981) singer Toni Basil, the two would often appear on these shows together.

During this time she would feature in a number of Elvis Presley films choreographed by Winters, including Presley's biggest hit, Viva Las Vegas (1964). She would also become a semi-regular in his entourage, although she reports that the rocker's legendary partying lifestyle wasn't quite what it was hyped up to be. "Elvis used to have parties at his house - and I've told this story a million times - but they weren't really parties, because there was no chips or dip. Just Elvis and his boys watching TV, and him making funny comments, and everybody laughing at them. Is that a party? Not really. But that's Hollywood."

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Throughout most of the 1960s, Garr would primarily work as a dancer, with only a handful of acting roles where she was actually given lines to speak, including small parts on Batman (1966-68) and The Andy Griffith Show (1960-68). It would turn out to be none other than Jack Nicholson who got Garr her first real part in a movie.

Head and Comedy Superstardom

In the late 1960s, Terri Garr happened to be taking an acting class with Jack Nicholson around the time the actor had been hired to write the cult classic Monkees film, Head (1968). The film features a number of tangentially related vignettes including a kissing contest, an encounter with a swami and a dreamlike chase across a bridge ending with the Monkees trapped in an aquarium mounted to the back of a truck. Teri Garr would feature in the western themed sequence as "Testy True," a damsel in distress who is rescued after being bitten by a snake.

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Nicholson made sure to write a small part for everyone in the acting class, and the movie gave Garr the chance to feature alongside Dennis Hopper, Frank Zappa, Nicholson, and her friend Toni Basil, who choreographs and features in a stunning dance number in the film.

After Head, Garr started getting more acting roles starting with a part on Star Trek (1968) in the episode "Assignment: Earth." Garr's character was no bit part this time, rather, she played a central figure in the episode as Roberta Lincoln, a secretary employed by a pair of time traveling agents for whom the crew of the USS Enterprise are searching. The episode was actually intended as a "backdoor pilot" with Rodenberry hoping that he could launch a spin-off which would have featured Garr in a leading role.

The spin-off series never came to fruition, but Garr's turn on Trek had helped to launch her on the road to becoming an iconic funnywoman, and she would go on to feature as a regular in The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour (1971-74), before landing perhaps the defining role of her career as Dr. Frankenstein's bubbly young assistant, Inga, in Mel Brooks' classic horror spoof Young Frankenstein (1974).

While Garr had become a familiar face to TV audiences across the country, it was Young Frankenstein that would make her a household name. Being featured in such an iconic role was not without its setbacks, of course, and she would often be typecast as ditzy blondes. "Directors would tell me, 'We want you to play a character a little less complex than you are.' Yeah, sure. What they mean is, 'You're playing a dummy.'"

She was given a handful of more complex parts in films like Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) and Mr. Mom (1983) over the next two decades, although fans and interviewers weren't shy about letting her know that they liked her best when she was being silly. "If I somehow get a serious role, they all wanna know the same thing: When are you going back to comedy?"

In the later stages of Teri's career she was able to truly prove herself as a versatile actor in both comedy and drama, featuring in Robrt Altman's The Player (1992) and the landmark indie film Ghost World (2001), eventually retiring on her own terms in 2011. Garr would have the final word on her own career in 2006 when she published her autobiography, Speedbumps: Flooring it Through Hollywood. "If you get somebody laughing - and then stick in a point about something important - they'll remember it."