Teri Garr

Teri Garr is easily one of the most recognisable and hardest working character actresses around.

Her blonde effervescence and slightly dizzy persona has held her in good stead over the past four decades where she has easily made the transition from playing giggly young girls to put upon moms, to eccentric friends and neighbors. Garr has worked with some of the top directors of the day including Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppola, Sydney Pollack, and Mel Brooks, and amassed an enviable list of credits despite an ongoing battle with multiple sclerosis, which was first diagnosed in the early 1980s.

She began getting extra work at the age of fourteen, following in the footsteps of her mother, one of the original Radio City Music Hall Rockettes. Twisting away in the likes of Fun in Acapulco (1963), Kissing Cousins, Roustabout, and Viva Las Vegas (all 1964) eventually led to regular spots on a number of television variety shows, sitcoms, and other series work, including a popular episode of "Star Trek." proved to be Garr's banner year for Garr, with Francis Coppola casting her as Gene Hackman's girlfriend in The Conversation.

But it her suitably ridiculous performance as the Bavarian beauty Inga in Young Frankenstein (1974) that bought recognition that continues to this day.

Her appearances in films like Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), Oh God (1977), The Black Stallion (1978), eventually led to another career highlight, her Oscar®-nominated performance as Sandy the wannabe soap star in Tootsie (1982). The following year she costarred with Michael Keaton in the boxoffice favorite Mr. Mom and went on to divide her time between films like Firstborn, (1984) After Hours (1985) and Let it Ride (1989) and television work, including the hilarious farce miniseries "Fresno" and dozens of made for TV movies.

Over the last decade Garr has made appearances in a large number of films including The Sky is Falling (2000), Dick (1999), A Simple Wish (1997), Michael (1996) and Dumb and Dumber (1994). She has also lent her voice to the animated series "Batman Beyond," appeared as Phoebe Buffay's mother on "Friends," and co-starred in the short-lived "Designing Women" sequel series "Women of the House."