Teri Garr: ‘Tootsie’ actress dies at 79

American actress Teri Garr, who starred in hit comedies such as “Tootsie” and “Mr. Mom,” is dead. She died in Los Angeles after a long battle with the nervous disease multiple sclerosis (MS), her spokeswoman Heidi Schaeffer announced . Garr was 79 years old. Colleagues such as Michael Keaton and Steve Martin paid tribute to the actress.

Comedian Steve Martin wrote on the X platform (formerly Twitter) that he loved her “so much” about a photo of the actress from earlier years. Michael Keaton paid tribute to his former co-star on Instagram. “Forget how great an actress and comedian she was,” the Hollywood star wrote. Above all, she was a wonderful woman who was great to work with and who you wanted to have around. Keaton and Garr made the 1983 married comedy “Mr. Mom,” in which the housewife makes a career after her husband loses his job and becomes a househusband.

US director Paul Feig praised Garr as a “legend” and one of his “comedy heroines”. She was “so funny, so beautiful, so kind,” he wrote on X.

Garr began her show business career in the 1960s as a dancer. She appeared alongside Elvis Presley in the film musical “Great Nights in Las Vegas”. As an actress in the 1970s, she took on supporting roles in films such as “The Dialogue”, “Frankenstein Junior” and “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”.

She appeared alongside Dustin Hoffman in the hit comedy “Tootsie” (1982). In the comedy of disguise directed by Sydney Pollack, both play unemployed actors in New York. When Sandy (Garr) has bad luck again while auditioning for a soap opera, Michael (Hoffman) senses his chance and, disguised as a woman, gets the coveted TV role. “Tootsie” picked up ten Oscar nominations, including for Garr, but the supporting role Oscar ultimately went to her colleague Jessica Lange. In the 90s, Garr appeared in films such as “The Player”, “Dumb and Dumber” and “Michael”. She was also often in front of television cameras.

Because of her illness with MS, she increasingly withdrew from acting. In 2002, she publicly announced the diagnosis on Larry King’s talk show. For years, Garr campaigned for those affected and for education about the neurological disease.