Teri Garr

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.

Garr started out as a background dancer in uncredited roles for youth-oriented films and TV shows choreographed by Winters, like Pajama Party, a beach party film, the T.A.M.I. Show, Shindig! Hullabaloo, Movin' with Nancy (a Nancy Sinatra / Frank Sinatra Special), and nine Elvis Presley features (many of which were also choreographed by Winters, including Presley's most profitable film, Viva Las Vegas).

Garr gave the following answer to a question in a magazine interview about how she landed the job in a Presley film: "One of the dancers in the road show of West Side Story, (David Winters) started to choreograph movies and, whatever job he got, I was one of the girls he'd hire. So he was chosen to do Viva Las Vegas. That was my first movie." Read Less

After years of uncertainty and secrecy surrounding her diagnosis, Garr explained her reasons for deciding to go public: "I'm telling my story for the first time so I can help people. I can help people know they aren't alone and tell them there are reasons to be optimistic because, today, treatment options are available." In recent interviews, she has commented that she first started noticing symptoms while in New York filming Tootsie. For the next few years, as acting jobs brought her to various locations around the world, she continued to see different doctors in different cities, until she finally found a doctor who correctly diagnosed her as having MS.

Since Garr announced that she has MS, she has become a leading advocate in raising awareness for the condition and the latest treatments for it. She is a National Ambassador for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society and National Chair for the Society's Women Against MS program (WAMS). Read Less