What was Teri Garr's Net Worth?
Teri Garr was an American actress, comedian, and dancer who had a net worth of $6 million at the time of her death in October 2024. Teri Garr earned an Academy Award nomination for her performance as Sandy Lester in the 1982 film "Tootsie."
Teri had more than 150 acting credits to her name, including the films "Young Frankenstein" (1974), "Oh, God!" (1977), "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" (1977), "The Black Stallion" (1979), "Mr. Mom" (1983), "Dumb and Dumber" (1994), and "Prêt-à-Porter" (1994) and the television series "McCloud" (1970–1975), "The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour" (1971–1974), "Good & Evil" (1991), "Good Advice" (1994), "Women of the House" (1995), and "Friends" (1997–1998). Garr voiced Mary McGinnis on the animated Kids' WB series "Batman Beyond" (1999–2000) as well as the films "Batman Beyond: The Movie" (1999) and "Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker" (2000), and she has also lent her voice to the film "Aloha, Scooby-Doo!" (2005), the TV shows "The Legend of Prince Valiant" (1993), "Duckman: Private Dick/Family Man" (1994), "King of the Hill" (2000), and "What's New, Scooby-Doo?" (2003), and the video game "Black Dahlia" (1998). She published the autobiography "Speedbumps: Flooring It Through Hollywood" in 2005. Teri was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in the late '90s, and in 2011, she retired from acting.
Early Life
Teri Garr was born Teri Ann Garr on December 11, 1944, in Lakewood, Ohio. Teri's mother, Phyllis, was a model and dancer as well as a wardrobe mistress for the Rockettes, and her father, Eddie, was an actor, comedian, and vaudeville performer who starred in the Broadway play "Tobacco Road." Garr and her older brothers, Phil and Ed, grew up in Cleveland and New Jersey before the family moved to Los Angeles. Sadly, Eddie died of a heart attack when Teri was 11 years old, and she said of her father's death, "[It] left us bereft, without any kind of income. And I saw my mother be this incredibly strong, creative woman who put three kids through college—one of my brothers is a surgeon. 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." Garr trained for several hours per day in ballet during her youth until her "feet would be bleeding." She attended North Hollywood High School, then she spent two years at San Fernando Valley State College before moving to New York to pursue an acting career. There, Teri studied at the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute and the Actors Studio.
(Photo by Bob Riha, Jr./Getty Images)
Career
As a high school senior, Garr auditioned for a traveling production of "West Side Story," and while performing in the musical, she met actor/dancer/choreographer David Winters, who later hired her for several projects, including a few Elvis Presley movies. Teri made her film debut in 1963's "A Swingin' Affair," then she had uncredited roles as a dancer in "Kissin' Cousins" (1964), "Viva Las Vegas" (1964), "What a Way to Go!" (1964), "Red Line 7000" (1965), and "Clambake" (1967). In the '60s, Garr also appeared in the films "Girl Happy" (1965), "For Pete's Sake!" (1966), "The Hardy Boys: The Mystery of the Chinese Junk" (1967), "Maryjane" (1968), "Head" (1968), and "Changes" (1969) and the television shows "Mr. Novak" (1964), "Shindig!" (1964–1965), "Dr. Kildare" (1965), "Hullabaloo" (1965), "Batman" (1966), "That Girl" (1967–1968), "The Andy Griffith Show" (1968), "Star Trek" (1968), "Mayberry R.F.D." (1968), "Room 222" (1969), and "It Takes a Thief" (1969). She was a regular cast member on "The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour" (1971–1974), "The Sonny and Cher Show" (1976–1977), "The Ken Berry 'Wow' Show" (1972), and she had recurring roles on "McCloud" (1970–1975), "The Bob Newhart Show" (1973–1974), "The Girl with Something Extra" (1973–1974), and "Cher" (1975).
Garr played Inga in "Young Frankenstein" (1974), Bobbie Landers in "Oh, God!" (1977), Ronnie Neary in "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" (1977), and Mrs. Ramsey in "The Black Stallion" (1979) and "The Black Stallion Returns" (1983), and she hosted "Saturday Night Live" three times between 1980 and 1985. In 1982, she co-starred with Dustin Hoffman in "Tootsie," which earned 10 Academy Award nominations, including one for Teri. In 1998, the film was preserved in the Library of Congress's National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." In the '80s, Garr also starred in the films "Witches' Brew" (1980), "One from the Heart" (1982), "The Escape Artist" (1982), "The Sting II" (1983), "Mr. Mom" (1983), "Firstborn" (1984), "Miracles" (1986), "Full Moon in Blue Water" (1988), "Out Cold" (1989), and "Let It Ride" (1989) and appeared in the television series "Faerie Tale Theatre" (1982) and "Sesame Street" (1987) and the TV movies "Prime Suspect" (1982) "The Winter of Our Discontent" (1983), "Pack of Lies" (1987), and "Teri Garr in Flapjack Floozie" (1988). Teri guest-starred on "Tales from the Crypt" (1991), "Dream On" (1992), "Murphy Brown" (1993), "The Larry Sanders Show" (1993), "Men Behaving Badly" (1996), "Sabrina, the Teenage Witch" (1997), and "ER" (1999), and she played Phoebe Abbott, Phoebe Buffay's birth mother, in three episodes of "Friends" (1997–1998).
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Garr appeared in the films "Waiting for the Light" (1990), "The Player" (1992), "Mom and Dad Save the World" (1992), "Michael" (1996), "A Simple Wish" (1997), "Casper Meets Wendy" (1998), and "Dick" (1999), and in 1994, she co-starred with Jim Carrey, Jeff Daniels, and Lauren Holly in "Dumb and Dumber" and with Sophia Loren, Kim Basinger, Lauren Bacall, and Julia Roberts in "Prêt-à-Porter." Teri played Denise Sandler on ABC's "Good & Evil" (1991), the Duchess on The Disney Channel's "Adventures in Wonderland" (1993), Paige Turner on the CBS sitcom "Good Advice" (1994), and Sissy Emerson on the "Designing Women" spin-off "Women of the House" (1995), and in 2000, she appeared in several off-Broadway performances of Eve Ensler's "The Vagina Monologues." She then had uncredited roles in "Ghost World" (2001) and "Unaccompanied Minors" (2006), and she guest-starred on "Felicity" (2001), "Strong Medicine" (2001), "MADtv" (2002), "Life with Bonnie" (2003), and "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" (2006). Garr appeared in the films "The Sky Is Falling" (2000), "A Taste of Jupiter" (2005), "Expired" (2007), and "Kabluey" (2007) and the TV movie "A Colder Kind of Death" (2001), and as of this writing, her most recent acting role was in the 2011 pilot "How to Marry a Billionaire."
Personal Life
Teri dated film executive Roger Birnbaum for seven years in the '80s, then she had a seven-year relationship with physician David Kipper, who she met through Carrie Fisher. Garr married John O'Neil, a building contractor, on November 11, 1993, and their adopted daughter, Molly, was born that day. Teri and John divorced in 1996. In 1990, a woman who had been stalking Garr was ordered to stop contacting Teri and to stay at least 100 yards away from her for the next three years. In 2002, Garr revealed that she had been suffering from multiple sclerosis symptoms for 19 years and that she had not been officially diagnosed with the disease until 1999. The National Multiple Sclerosis Society named her a National Ambassador, and she has served as a National Chair for the organization's Women Against MS program. In a 2005 interview with "Brain&Life," Teri stated, "Slowing down is so not in my nature, but I have to. Stress and anxiety and all those high-tension things are not good for MS. If I get into something where I'm emotionally upset, it's not good. Or even when I go to a department store, and there's a lot of noise and choices and stuff to look at, it can be too much." In late 2006, Garr spent a week in a coma after having a ruptured brain aneurysm, and she underwent therapy to help her regain her speech and motor skills. Teri is a supporter of The Trevor Project, a non-profit organization dedicated to "end[ing] suicide among lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer & questioning young people."
Awards and Nominations
In 1983, Garr received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for "Tootsie." The film also earned her Best Supporting Actress nominations from the BAFTA Awards and the National Society of Film Critics Awards. In 1994, Teri shared a National Board of Review Award for Best Acting by an Ensemble with her "Prêt-à-Porter" castmates. In 1978, Garr received a Saturn Award nomination (from the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films) for Best Supporting Actress for "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," and she earned a CableACE Award nomination for Actress in a Dramatic Presentation for "The Tale of the Frog Prince" episode of "Faerie Tale Theatre" in 1983.
Real Estate
In 1992, Garr paid $1.455 million for a 1,658-square-foot home in the Brentwood area of Los Angeles. According to property records, she sold the two-bedroom, three-bathroom home for $3.944 million in June 2008. The home was built in the mid-1920s, and the .41-acre property includes a guest house, a pool, and a spa.
