SHOCK: Teri Garr, Comic Actress with Unusual Roles, Dies at Unusual Age of 79

An Oscar nominee for her role in “Tootsie,” she was also a favorite guest of David Letterman and Johnny Carson and a three-time host of “Saturday Night Live.

The actress Teri Garr in 1987. If her best-known roles had a common thread, it was the erratic behavior of the men in her characters’ lives.Credit…Mark Terrill/Associated Press
Teri Garr, the alternately shy and sassy blond actress whose little-girl voice, deadpan comic timing, expressive eyes and cinematic bravery in the face of seemingly crazy male characters made her a star of 1970s and ’80s movies and earned her an Oscar nomination for her role in “Tootsie,” died on Tuesday at her home in Los Angeles. She was 79.

Her publicist, Heidi Schaeffer, said the cause was complications of multiple sclerosis.

Ms. Garr received that diagnosis in 1999, after 16 years of symptoms and medical research; she made her condition public in 2002. In late 2006, she had a ruptured brain aneurysm and was in a coma for a week, but she was eventually able to regain the ability to walk and talk.

Onscreen, Ms. Garr’s outstanding features were her eyes, which could seem simultaneously pained, baffled, sympathetic, vulnerable, intrigued and determined, whether she was registering a grand new discovery or holding back tears. If her best-known roles had a common thread, it was the erratic behavior of the men in her characters’ lives.