Terry Ann "Teri" Garr is an American film , theatre and television actress and dancer best known for her roles in Young Frankenstein, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Tootsie, Mr. Mom. After Hours, One From the Heart and Friends. Garr was born in Lakewood, Ohio in 1947. Her father, Eddie Garr , was a vaudeville performer, comedian and actor whose career peaked when he briefly took over the lead role in the Broadway drama Tobacco Road. Her mother, Phyllis Lind , was a dancer, a Rockette, wardrobe mistress, and model. Her father was of Irish descent and her maternal grandparents were... Austrian immigrants. Early in her career, she was credited, variously, as Terri Garr, Terry Garr, Teri Hope, or Terry Carr. Garr's movie debut was as an extra in 1963's A Swingin' Affair. At the end of her senior year, Garr auditioned for the cast of the Los Angeles Road Company production of West Side Story, where she met one of the most important people in her early career, David Winters, who became her friend, her dance teacher, and her mentor and cast her in many of his early movies and projects.
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