“Young Frankenstein” and “Tootsie” star was 79

Teri Garr, the comedian and singer who brought her vivacious personality to “Young Frankenstein” and was nominated for an Oscar for “Tootsie,” died Tuesday in Los Angeles after a long battle with multiple sclerosis. She was 79.

An influential cast member of comedians like Tina Fey, Garr was a familiar face in dozens of TV shows and films of the 1970s, '80s and '90s. The actress announced in 2002 that she had been diagnosed with MS and suffered an aneurysm in 2006.

After beginning her career as a dancer, Garr first gained attention as Inga, the sassy assistant who played Dr. Gene Wilder greeted Frederick Frankenstein with the memorable words “Would you like to have a roll in ze hay?”

In “Friends” she played Phoebe Abbot in three episodes in 1997 and 1998.

In Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Garr was the wife of Richard Dreyfuss' character. She received an Oscar nomination for supporting actress for her role opposite Dustin Hoffman as his actress friend in Sydney Pollack's “Tootsie” and played the working mother of Michael Keaton's stay-at-home father in “Mr. Mama.”

She was born in Ohio, moved to Los Angeles, graduated from North Hollywood High School and attended Cal State Northridge before moving to New York to study acting. She started out as a go-go dancer and can be seen behind the scenes in the filmed rock concert “The TAMI Show” and six Elvis Presley feature films, most of which were choreographed by her mentor David Winters. In the 1960s, she had small roles in sitcoms such as “That Girl,” “Batman” and “The Andy Griffith Show.”

Garr's first speaking role was in the Monkees' unusual feature film “Head”, written by Jack Nicholson, whom she met in an acting class. She played a chic secretary in the “Assignment Earth” episode of Star Trek, the first of a series of such roles.

She became a regular singer and dancer on “The Sonny and Cher Show” before landing a role in Francis Ford Coppola's “The Conversation.”

Coppola cast her again in “One From the Heart.” Her other roles included the wife of John Denver's character in Oh, God, the mother of the young protagonist in The Black Stallion, and roles in Dumb and Dumber and Mom and Dad Save the World.

Garr worked with many of the most important directors of her time: in addition to Brooks, Spielberg, Pollack and Coppola, she worked with Martin Scorsese for After Hours and Robert Altman for The Player and Pret-a-Porter. Her numerous television roles included appearances on “M*A*S*H,” “The Odd Couple” and “The Bob Newhart Show.”

Garr explained to AV Club in a very candid and feminist interview in 2008 why she appeared in films like “Mr. Mama”: “If there's ever a woman who's smart, funny or witty, people are afraid of that, so they don't write that.” They only write parts for women in which they let everything roll over them, in which let people wipe their feet. These are the roles I play and the roles that exist for me in this world. In this life.”

Despite her obvious attraction to great directors, she found many of her encounters in the industry unbearably sexist, such as when the producers of The Sonny and Cher Show said that if she wanted to get paid as much as the men quit, she could . “The whole world is sexist, starting with this show. That was an example of that: not getting what everyone else got for the same work. That’s why I learned early on that women are oppressed,” she told AV Club.

She hosted “Saturday Night Live” three times and appeared frequently on “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson” and “Late Night With David Letterman.”

Her career slowed in the late 1990s, although she continued to take small roles in films such as “Dick” and “Unaccompanied Minors” and as the voice of Mary McGinnis in two Batman animated films, “Batman Beyond: The Movie” and “Batman Beyond: The Movie” played. Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker.”

In 2006, she published an autobiography titled “Speedbumps: Flooring It Through Hollywood.”

She is survived by her daughter Molly O'Neil and her grandson Tyryn.