It can seem like a silly thing to say, but sometimes a person is so good at their job that it seems so effortless, that you don’t even realize how good they are at it.
I think that was the case with Teri Garr.
Garr died Tuesday at age 79, following a battle with multiple sclerosis. It’s not that Hollywood didn’t recognize that she was great—her comedic genius, especially, was undeniable. She played one of the great comedy parts in Young Frankenstein, and was nominated for an Oscar for her work in Tootsie. She was also a memorable guest star on Friends, playing the estranged mother of Lisa Kudrow’s Phoebe. (To the point of not realizing how good: How was she not nominated for an Guest Actress Emmy for that???)
But when greatness is that effortless, we sometimes don’t give it its due.
Garr danced with Elvis, starred in Mel Brooks’ best movie, and closely encountered those of the third kind. She’s a legend. The one performance I remember of hers is the one that she was rightfully nominated for in Tootsie. The Academy notoriously doesn’t nominate comedy performances, but when they do, they get it right.
This scene, embedded below, is her big one. She catches Dustin Hoffman in a lie about pretending to be a woman, but doesn’t quite work her way to the truth, which frustrates her even more.
It is the cinematic ideal of “blowing a gasket.” It’s a build up to the explosion. I love when she taps her nails on the table. It’s like a warning that she’s about to lose it. The writing of the tirade she goes on is so good, and Garr is the perfect level of exasperation delivering it.
The AV Club has a series called “Random Roles,” and Garr’s might be my favorite. Read the whole thing, but here is her quote about Tootsie.
“I just saw that again recently. I hadn’t seen it in twentysomething years. And it’s the same thing! Pretty, nice girls being taken advantage of by slimy men. They put a man in a dress, and he’s supposed to know what it feels like to be a woman. But of course he doesn’t. I think what Dustin [Hoffman] says is, “I realize now how important it is for a woman to be pretty. And I wasn’t pretty.” God! That’s all you realized? Jesus Christ. Oh well. Don’t quote me. Actually, quote me.”
She also has the most candid quote I’ve ever read that directly addresses a thorny issue when it comes to the Oscars—category fraud—which actors never talk about, lest they be on the benefitting end.
Garr was nominated alongside her Tootsie co-star Jessica Lange, who won the award, at that year’s Oscars. Was there any bitterness? “Well, okay… I thought both of us shouldn’t have been nominated as ‘supporting,’ because she was the lead woman in that movie. So that wasn’t fair. But it wasn’t her fault that it wasn’t fair.”
Her most acclaimed performance, and such an awareness. Legendary.
