Remembering 'Tootsie' Actor Teri Garr
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Terry Garr, whose movie roles included very memorable parts in Tootsie, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and Young Frankenstein, died Tuesday of complications from multiple sclerosis. She was 79 years old. Today, we'll replay an interview from our archive where she spoke with Terry Gross. And we'll start with an appreciation. Terry Garr was a dancer and actress who quickly found roles that embraced her more bubbly and comic side.

She also found her way into various points of pop culture. She danced in nine Elvis Presley movies, played a small part in a movie starring the Monkees, and played a time-traveling secretary from the 60s in an episode of Star Trek. She was a member of the comedy troupe on Sonny and Cher's TV variety series and starred opposite Robin Williams in The Tale of the Frog Prince, the very first edition of Shelley Duvall's Fairytale Theatre.

She also made her mark on late-night TV, hosting Saturday Night Live three times and appearing often on David Letterman's talk show to charm him and the viewers with her funny and playful personality. Here she is from an appearance in 1985.

You were just in Japan, weren't you? Yes, I was. What were you doing there? Vacationing, weren't you? No, I was at the film festival. Film festival what? What film festival? The Japanese film festival. The international film festival of Tokyo. I see. And you were there because one of the films you're in was playing? No. I don't know if you know this, but I work in films from time to time.

No, I know, but I mean... Dave? Yeah? Your hair looks good. No, I know. Terry Garr wasn't joking about working in films. She was nominated for a supporting actress Oscar for her work opposite Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie and also starred opposite Richard Dreyfuss in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Michael Keaton in Mr. Mom, and John Denver in Oh God.

She had a part in Martin Scorsese's film After Hours opposite Griffin Dunn. And she shared scenes with Gene Hackman in Francis Coppola's 1974 film The Conversation. And most memorably of all, perhaps, she played opposite Gene Wilder in the brilliant Mel Brooks comedy Young Frankenstein. She played Inga, his sexy and silly lab assistant.

In this scene, Gene Wilder is reading notes about the creation of the original Frankenstein. As the minuteness of the parts formed a great hindrance to my speed, I resolved, therefore, to make the creature of a gigantic stature. Of course. That would simplify everything. In other words, his veins, his feet, his hands, his organs would all have to be increased in size. Exactly. He would have an enormous schwannstucke. That goes without saying. Oof.

Later in her career, Terry Garr appeared in such films as The Player and Dumb and Dumber and guest starred on the TV series Friends as the birth mother of Lisa Kudrow's twin sisters. In 2005, she wrote a memoir called Speed Bumps, which discussed her career and living with MS. That's when Terry Gross spoke with her. They began with a clip from Terry Garr's Oscar-nominated turn in the 1982 film Tootsie. Here's a scene from the film.

Dustin Hoffman plays an out-of-work actor so desperate for a part that he masquerades as a woman in order to land a female role on a soap opera. He falls in love with an actress on the set who doesn't realize he's a man. In the meantime, he's lost interest in his girlfriend, played by Terry Garr. In this scene, Garr asks why he hasn't been returning her phone calls, and she insists that he tell her the truth. I'm going to tell you the truth, Sandy. I'm in love with another woman.

Sandy, please. Sandy, we never said anything about each other. I don't care. I don't care. Sandy, I'm crazy about you. You're one of the dearest friends I ever had. But let's not pretend that we're something else. We're going to lose everything we have. I never said I love you. I don't care about I love you. I read the second sex. I just don't like to be lied to. That's Terry Garr and Dustin Hoffman in a scene from Tootsie. Terry Garr, welcome to Fresh Air. Thank you, Terry. Nice to be here. Now, you actually wrote some of your lines for this scene.

You say in your book that the character was supposed to just get really angry and flip out when she finds out from Dustin Hoffman that he's in love with another woman, but that didn't ring true to you. Why didn't it ring true and how did you change what the character said?

Well, I think it didn't ring true because what the character was was supposed to be this independent woman. Of course, she was in the middle of trying to be connected to a man and truly connected to her career. So she was a little bit on the fence there. But I think initially, if someone said, I'm not in love with you, I'm in love with someone else, you go, so what? That's got nothing to do with me. And I suggested to her.

Sydney Pollack that I write something about it. I had done a lot of research about the feminist movement at that time. So I was reading all the books at the time that were Betty Friedan and Sherry Height had a book and all these and I was reading all these books and some of them actually made me laugh so much but I said well if you let me do one take where I just can spew out all this stuff that I've been reading I think it'll work.

And so you wrote all the stuff about it. I did, and I did see that one line that said, I'm responsible for my own orgasm. And I remember when I read that, that was in Sherry Hyde's book. I went, what does that mean? I didn't even know what it meant, but I thought, well, I'm throwing it anyway because it's funny. It's funny and it's very of its time. Yes, of its time is right. You started off as a dancer. And among your accomplishments, you danced in nine Elvis Presley movies.

I'm not sure that's an accomplishment. You know, some of these things are credits, some of them are debits, and that was filler. Okay, movies that you danced in include, correct me if I'm wrong here, Viva Las Vegas, all Elvis films. Viva Las Vegas, Roustabout, Kissin' Cousins, Speedway, Clambake. Yeah, among others. Yeah, at that time he was doing about at least four movies a year, bad ones, in Hollywood. But I had worked in West Side Story, you know, with the original cast of Jerry Robbins, so I was a really good, legit dancer.

And one of the guys in the show became a choreographer for Viva Las Vegas. He said, you guys want to come down to this audition? So we went, well, sure, let's do that. So then once, in those days, once you got into the union or the central casting, they just called you again and again and again. So I...

I started going to all the auditions. I mean, I danced in Elvis Presley movies, but I also danced in Shirley MacLaine movies, What a Way to Go, and John Goldfarb, Please Come Home, a big movie. And a lot of other little movies that they just called me for. So that's how that started. I...

I put it, it'd be like one step ahead of being a cocktail waitress. Why? It sounds like so much fun to dance in an Elvis film. Actually, it was great fun to dance in Elvis movies. What's the silliest number you were in in one of the Elvis films? Oh, man, they were all pretty bad. I guess in that clam bake thing, there was something about digging for clams and...

Oh, man. They were all bad. But, you know, it was so funny because I grew up with my mother telling me stories about being a rockette. She says, we had to do everything. We had to learn to play the violin one week and the drums the next week. And so she was always telling me how they were so versatile. So when we did these silly clambake and whatever they were with Elvis, I thought, well, I'm in the same boat with my mom. Your mom was one of the original rockettes. Yes, she was. The original rockettes. They were called the Roxiettes or something when she first went in there.

I know the history of the Rockettes. Believe me. So did you get to hang out with Elvis? Well, a little bit. I mean, you know, I'm sure there's been so much written about Elvis, but he was out there like, you know, a fish out of water. And he's in Hollywood making movies. And I also think he had a kind of a morbid fascination with his Colonel Parker and whatever he told him to do. You go to Hollywood, you make these movies. So there he was.

And he brought all his boys with him and they'd hang out on the set. And he said, you girls want to come to a party at Elvis's tonight? I went, well, yeah, okay. So we go to Elvis's, but he should have actually said, do you want to come and watch Elvis watch TV or something? Because that's more like what it was. But I was fascinated by the whole thing. I was fascinated by him. He was...

Such a talented, charismatic guy. And I looked at him. I thought, he should be in front of an audience, not on the sound stage. He's just kind of wasting it. But anyway, I got to be kind of friends with him. He was very funny. And I don't think people will talk about that. He really had a great sense of humor. Very funny. I laughed all the time. Well, something else you touched on. You were one of the dancers on Shindig. Yes. Which was one of the rock and roll shows. The bands would be there. And there were dancers. You were in a cage, right? Yes.

No, they were called pods. You were on like a pedestal. Yeah. And what were the dances that you had to do? This was probably, what, 67? 67 or 68. Well, they were called things like the Watusi and the Swim and something like that. We also did mostly, that same guy who choreographed Viva Las Vegas choreographed Shindig for a while. So we did some real dancing on that. Some numbers, we called them. I don't know.

But my impression from the book is that you didn't particularly enjoy that. Well, you know, the minute I got into West Side Story and I had one line, even though I danced and I really wanted to be a ballerina and an ABT and everything, I had this one line. I got a reaction from this one line. I thought, I want to be an actor. I want to be an actress. You know, I want to be in the front. I don't want to be in the back.

So that's – I think when I got this thing about being on Shindig or Chivalry was another one I was on. Well, I really can't be on these permanently. I'm busy. I'm going on. I mean I had it in my head then that I was going to move on and out of the chorus line. So please don't tie me down to a series. I'm sorry. I can't do this. I'm –

One of the ways you made the transition from dancing to acting is you got an agent who got you a lot of TV commercials. And that was your portfolio in a way for, I guess, for casting agents? Yes. I was very lucky to be able to do all these TV commercials at some point and...

I think that was a big learning experience too because in a way, you know, selling some product is acting. So I was studying acting. I was trying to do plays. I was taking dancing jobs. But I was also doing all these commercials and going on all these commercial auditions. And there must have been, you know, you could go on six or seven auditions a day. So that's a great learning experience. I don't think people can do that these days. But, yeah, I did a lot of that. And then I started making a pretty good living just doing commercials. I said I could phase out these dancing jobs.

But I never did. Not totally. I mean, it took me about 10 years. Okay. Products you did TV commercials for include Crest, Safeguard Soap, Greyhound Bus Lines, Kame Soap, Bowl Detergent, Sure Deodorant, General Foods, Breakfast Squares. I don't know.

So many commercials, you have to look almost orgasmic as you taste the breakfast cereal or as you inhale the perfumed soap. Did you have to have that really kind of fake, like, wow, it's amazing expression on your face for the commercials? Yes, always. I remember once I did a commercial for Metrical. Do you remember what Metrical was? Oh, yes, it was a diet fluid. The diet fluid that you ate for lunch. So I was doing this commercial. I was supposed to be in the teacher's lounge with Penny Marshall was one of the –

other teachers, and I drank so much Metrocal that I was getting ready to puke. And I heard them say, all right, get the bucket. And Penny and I both looked at each other, what do they mean, get the bucket? So I would drink some of the Metrocal, they would pan the camera off of me, then I would spit the Metrocal into this bucket. Then they would pan back to me and I'd go, mmm, delicious. Well, I want to tell you, it was very difficult without laughing because you'd hear this noise, and then...

It's so delicious. Anyway, I had a good time doing many commercials. They're funny. They kind of do them by the seat of their pants. But then in commercials, everything has to be done legally correctly. And I learned a lot about advertising. Well, let me ask you about another movie you were in. And that is Young Frankenstein or Frankenstein. Frankenstein, yeah. Directed by Mel Brooks. How did you get to work with him?

Well, there was rumors going around town that there was a big movie being cast and there was lots of girls going up for this audition and I got my agent to get me in on it.

You know, 500 girls. When I went there, Mel Brooks said, we're casting for the part of the fiancé, the financier, he called it. But I want Madeline Kahn to do it. I just want you to know. But she doesn't want to do it because she doesn't want to do a comedy. But I'm auditioning all these girls. So I went in and I got a call back and call back. And I was very excited that I even got a call back. Finally, one day I got a call back and he said,

Madeline has decided to do this part. But if you can come back tomorrow, I'll give you a chance to audition for the part of Inga, the lab assistant. But you have to have a German accent. And it's like 24 hours to get a German accent together. And I did because I copied Cher's wig maker who had a German accent. You were working on the Sonny and Cher show at the time. Yes, I was working on the Sonny and Cher show at the time. And it was Renata Wigwigs.

Did you learn things about comic timing working with Mel Brooks on Young Frankenstein? Well, I don't think you can learn comic timing. I think I must have innately grown up with, you know, my mother and father from Vaudeville and stuff and lots of jokes around the house. But I had been working on Sonny and Cher Show as a dancer and also in these horrible comedy sketches. And

And I sort of had learned comic timing then. Also, I was an incredible fan of Mel Brooks, the 2,000-year-old man. I had listened to those records hundreds of times as a kid and memorized them and did them over and over again. So I sort of knew his rhythm. But he is one of God's gifts to this planet. Mel Brooks is just the funniest man in the world. He is really funny. What did he call you, a shiksa goddess? Shiksa goddess. My long-waisted shiksa goddess. And then he called Peter Boyle and I shiksa.

Come here, Treif. I don't know what it means exactly. And then at one point... Not kosher. I said, well, Mel, you're so wonderful. I wish I was Jewish. You're Jewish. You are Jewish by injection. I don't know what he meant, but okay.

Here's a scene from Young Frankenstein. Dr. Frankenstein has just been fooling around with his seductive lab assistant, played by Terry Garr. In this scene, his assistant, Igor, played by Marty Feldman, has escorted the doctor's fiancée to the castle. The fiancée is played by Madeline Kahn. I'd like you to meet my assistants, Inga and Igor. How do you do? How do you do? This is my financier, Elizabeth. Oh, I'm so happy to meet you at last. Financier. Excuse me, darling. I'm sorry.

What is it exactly that you do do? Well, I assist Dr. Frankenstein in the laboratory. We have intellectual discussions, aren't we? As a matter of fact, we were just having fun as you were driving. But I... What? Igor, would you give me a hand with the bags? Certainly. You take the blonde and I'll take the one in the tavern. Oh. Oh!

Young Frankenstein. Terry Garr spoke with Terry Gross in 2005. Now the first real movie role you got, like major movie role, was in The Conversation. Right. Directed by Coppola, starring Gene Hackman. Does it get better than that?

If we're starting a movie career. I was absolutely in shock. I told you I was doing commercials at the time. So one of the commercial casting directors was casting his film. And she said, do you want to go up for this part? And I said, of course, I'd go up for everything. So I went and met with Coppola. And I thought that would be the end of it. I said, wow, you guys, I met Francis Coppola. Then a couple days later, they said, they want you to audition. I said, oh, they want me to audition?

This is fabulous. So I went and read. Then they said, they want you to fly to San Francisco to do a screen test. And I thought, this must be some part. This may be like the lead in a Francis Coppola movie. So anyway, I went, I flew to San Francisco, did this audition, and then flew back. He had me sing, when the red, red robin comes bob, bob, bobbing along. You know, I have to say, Francis Coppola was one of the big influences of my life, because I think back on things that

He had me do from the get-go how they were part of the creative process, and he really taught me what that was about in a way. So anyway, I went to San Francisco and auditioned, and then I came back and, well, that's that. I've done a screen test for Francis Coppola. I'm putting this on my resume. I never thought I would get the part. So then I got the part, and they said, you have to be here tomorrow for the cast reading up in San Francisco.

which I couldn't do because I was working on Sonny and Cher, so that's how much I had planned on getting this job. But I lied to them on the Sonny and Cher show and said I was sick, I couldn't be there. And flew up to San Francisco and read the entire script and realized that

There was only one scene in the entire movie. But still, I wasn't going to turn it down. I was very excited to have been in it. I think it was really great to have that be the first kind of recognizable part in a film, was in the conversation, even though the next movie to come out that I was in was Young Frankenstein, where it was all funny and all that, and it was a bigger hit movie. It still kind of created a balance there that this girl can act and act.

That'd be funny. And it's an interesting scene. You're in bed, and Hackman, who's your boyfriend, walks in the door. And you want to get to know him more. He's this very closed, unknowable guy, and you keep asking him these questions, and he gets more and more closed the more questions you ask. So it's a pretty interesting scene. Do you have a secret setting? I know you do. Sometimes you come over here and you don't tell me.

Once I saw you up by the staircase hiding and watching for a whole hour. You think you're gonna catch me at something? You know, I know when you come over, I can always tell you have a certain way of opening up the door. You know, first the key goes in real quiet, and then the door comes open real fast. It's like you think you're gonna catch me at something.

Why did Coppola ask you to sing Red Red Robin in your audition?

Well, I don't know. I mean, I think it had something to do with he wanted to see that character, if she could be like ingenuous and naive and just jump in and do something cute and sweet. I mean, looking back on it now, I see that. It was his fantasy. He always wanted to have a girl that was just in a room that would just be there for him, that didn't know anything about him, but that was happy and positive and not

bitching about being locked in a room. This was Hackman's fantasy in the movie? No, well, it was Francis. You think it's Coppola's fantasy? Oh, yeah, definitely. Well, the whole movie was his fantasy. It was more about his Catholic confessional thing of listening to what people were saying and very interesting, revealing movie about the man who wrote it, who was Francis Coppola. But, yeah, that was what that was about. Terry Garr, speaking to Terry Gross in 2005. Terry Garr died Tuesday at age 79.

After a break, we'll continue their conversation. And Justin Chang reviews Blitz, a new Steve McQueen movie about World War II. I'm David Bianculli, and this is Fresh Air. ♪

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Truth, independence, fairness, transparency, respect, excellence. This is NPR. This is Fresh Air. I'm David Bianculli, professor of television studies at Rowan University. Let's get back to Terry Gross and her 2005 interview with actress Terry Garr, who died Tuesday at age 79. She's probably best known for her roles in Young Frankenstein, Mr. Mom, and Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

She also was in Martin Scorsese's After Hours and Francis Ford Coppola's The Conversation. So you work with Coppola not only on The Conversation but on One from the Heart. And you suspect that it was during the filming of One from the Heart that when you had an accident that it kind of started your MS. Yes.

Well, I do suspect that, but I could be wrong. But I think it's one of the reasons I wrote about it in the book is because I want other people that have MS to think maybe there's something like this happened to them. But there's a theory out there that MS is a virus that's in you, but like everyone gets chicken pox or some kind of virus, it stays and lays dormant. But some kind of trauma or something will exacerbate it. So I do remember dropping...

a broken champagne bottle, which is thick glass, on the top of my foot, and it broke. It severed the tendon in my foot, and I felt like it went boing-oing-oing in my head or something like that. And when I look back on that, I think, I wonder if that was the thing that started the MS. It activated it. You know, I could be dead wrong, but I did write that in my book because I thought that maybe was when I first started experiencing MS.

Little, you know, things that weren't right. And I couldn't control my body as well as I could. I mean, here I was a dancer and a good one. And I just couldn't make myself do it. I thought, what's going on? Am I lazy and am I getting tired? And I think that's when it started to happen. And the champagne bottle that you dropped, that was in a scene from One From the Heart. Right. I was supposed to be carrying groceries in and then I dropped it and it broke on my foot. Right. This is early in the film. Yeah. Yeah.

So what were your early symptoms? When did you start to feel like this is something you needed to pay attention to and take seriously? Well, I don't... The symptoms... I always have this ego that I'm fine and I'm a perfect physical specimen, that anything that did happen to me, I sort of ignored it. Well, this is normal. Everybody gets this. But I know that one of the first things that happened to me was...

years ago, I'd feel like this buzzing in my foot, buzzing, like your cell phone or something. And then I thought, well, it couldn't be a cell phone because we didn't have cell phones back then. I mean, we had cell phones, but they were the size of canoes. So it wasn't that, but I didn't know what it was. And then it would go away. And then I had where I would run. I was a big jogger and I would run in Central Park and I would trip on something. I thought, what

What rock? What did I trip? I almost just went flying leap. And then that would go away. So there would be this tingling and maybe a stabbing pain in my arm, which is another thing. When you heat up your body by exercising and running, it seemed to exacerbate these pains and it would make me be weaker. And then when I felt this stabbing pain in my arm in Central Park, I thought, well, maybe it is a knife because I'm in Central Park.

but it wasn't. But they would get those symptoms and then they would go away. So by the time I got myself to a doctor and said, now, check this out, it would be gone because MS is relapsing and remitting. So the doctors go, honey, honey, there's nothing wrong with you. You're fine. You might feel crazy, a little hypochondria. And I'm just sitting there like, well, maybe they're right. I

I guess I'm a hypochondriac, but I never had been a hypochondriac. In fact, I would like to stay away from doctors as much as I can and not – I would go at the last minute. So by the time I'd get my butt to the doctor and he'd say, nothing wrong with you, I'd go, oh, I've wasted so much time. I could be in class right now or something reading. So –

Not good. How do you think being a dancer and being very attuned to your body and being taught to just kind of go on because you always have aches and pains as a dancer, how do you think that affected your ability to cope with the symptoms of MS?

Oh, I think it was absolutely a wonderful thing to have been a dancer, to have that discipline and just to be able to roll with the punches and all the jobs that I did. And like I said, my mother teaching me that when they were a Rockettes, they had to learn the accordion in one day and all that. It was something that I thought, it's why I call the book Speed Bumps. It was just something that made me slow down and go, MS diagnosis, okay, let's keep going. How my life had progressed.

I think was a great lesson in how to deal with an illness or a diagnosis. Because when you start out in Hollywood or New York or wherever, show business, it's 99% get out of here, rejection. And you have to develop the height of a rhinoceros. But you still have to have the spirit of a butterfly inside in order to do your art. So...

That really came in handy because I went, well, I can handle this. I'll handle this MS. I don't know what it is. I'll deal with it. I'll find out a way to do it. I'm going to go on with my life. That's what I did. On the other hand, I could see how being a dancer might have made you more bitter about having MS because your body was such a well-crafted tool. Yes.

Well, that's a nice thing to say, but I've never been bitter and I don't really have any negative things. I had little things along the way. For example, I went to a doctor who said, now you're walking weakly on your right side. I could put a brace on your leg. And so he said, try the brace. I tried the brace. I walked up. This is fabulous. I'm walking around the office. This is wonderful. And then I looked. I said, I have to wear this all the time? He goes, yeah.

I said, wait, you don't understand. I'm Terry Garr. I'm known for my fabulous legs. Now I've got to wear a brace on my leg. And he just said, well, it's a small price to pay. And it was instantly, I went, it sure is. I mean, I would be able to put it in perspective that I have to wear long pants or long skirts forever now, but I can walk around better. So it was one of those things where I was able to say, what's better, showing off my stupid legs or walking better? So I walk better.

Do you still wear the brace? Oh, yeah. I cut it off right now. How would you describe your walking now? Oh, it's not good. I mean, I've gotten weaker. It comes and goes. But it's, you know, more than how my walking is, it's my fatigue level. You know, I get really tired. For me to walk around the block is like someone climbing Mount Everest. And I think people who don't have MS don't understand that. So that...

It takes a lot of energy. But I walk a little slower. But, you know, I walk across airports and I do a lot of traveling and people start walking fast and going ahead of me. I go, I'm getting there. I'm slow but sure. And I try to keep a sense of humor about it and a good attitude. I mean, not to say I make fun of myself, but I try to make it easier on other people because I always think it's harder on them than it is on me. I'm fine with it. I'm happy to be alive. But they must think, oh, you poor thing, you're suffering. And I'm not. Right.

Now, your recent roles have included Ghost World. You were the mother of one of the two girls in the movie. And you were the mother of Phoebe in Friends. That's right. And so two mother roles. Are you still acting now? Oh, yes. I just am on Law & Order. I play a defense attorney named...

Minerva Graham Bishop. Good name, huh? And that's a great job. I'm a defense lawyer on that show. I've done one. I'm going to do another one and perhaps more. And does the MS get in the way of your performing? No. How could it get in the way? I get in my way. I feel like I'm a little bit rusty. But no, it hasn't. You know, on the Law & Order show, there's a cinematographer who's quite brilliant.

And he has MS. And so they, he had a little scooter, motorized scooter around the set. He said, you want to borrow one of mine? I said, sure.

And that was great. See, that's one of the reasons I go around talking about living with MS and talking about MS is that there's so many myths about it and that people can go on with their lives and they can do good work. And I think the myth is, no, they're dead. They're out. They're gone. They're in a wheelchair. In fact, I was going to call my book, Does This Wheelchair Make Me Look Fat? But...

I was afraid if I put wheelchair out there, it's going to be another big, you know, checkmark against me. So I'm trying to, you know, I try to keep it on the upper positive level that those of us with MS can still go on and still function. And I want the rest of the world to believe it. And I also want the people that have MS to believe it. Because I think they're victims of the bad publicity too. You know, that they go, oh, I have MS. I better throw in the towel and go to my room and watch TV or something. And that's no, no, no. You have to go on with your life.

Terry Garr, speaking to Terry Gross in 2005. More after a break. This is Fresh Air.

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This is Fresh Air. Let's get back to Terry Gross and her 2005 interview with Terry Garr, who died Tuesday at age 79. Can we talk about your parents a little bit? Please. Your mother, as you mentioned, was a rockette. You say she had wonderful legs. She did what, hosiery ads too, to show off her legs? Yeah, she called herself Legs Lind.

And then she also was like a wardrobe person for several TV shows? Yeah. I think a lot of dancers go into wardrobe afterwards. I don't know why that happens, but it's true. And she became a costumer in L.A. And my father died when I was 11. And he was in vaudeville. And they met in a Broadway show, my parents.

And then he came out to Hollywood to be in movies, and that didn't pan out, and he became very ill. And he passed away. So my mother had to support three kids, you know, by her wits. So she went and got a job in the studios as a costumer. In fact, she was a costumer on Young Frankenstein before I even got the job. And she told, don't tell anyone I'm your mother. I said, what is this about? It's so weird. Anyway, I learned— Why didn't she want anyone to know? I do not know to this day.

Was it for her sake or your sake? I don't know. But finally, I told Mel, I said, you know that lady over there? That's my mom. He was so great because he's just a great guy. And he, well, bring her over here. You know, he was wonderful. I just don't know what her motive was. But she was a great, interesting woman. You know, she...

Her parents came from Austria. They settled in Ohio. And my grandfather said, girls, go to secretary school, and that's what they do, and shut up and do that. And my oldest aunt did that, and my mother and my other younger aunt said, no, no.

We're not doing that. They hitchhiked to New York when they were like 14 and 16 or something like that. My mother became a rockette. No, maybe they must have been a little bit older than that because they were out of high school. And my aunt was a brilliant artist and a concert pianist and all this stuff. So they had some aesthetic that they were not going to do what my grandfather said. So it was the, to me, it was always the early feminist. We're doing this. We're going off to New York to take care of ourselves and

Unfortunately, she married my dad. And that put the end to that. But learning from it was that you do what you want to do and you independently go. You take care of yourself and don't depend on a man. I mean, that was the idea that I got when I was a kid. And what about your idea of show business, watching your parents? Did it seem like a good life or a bad life? Well, it did seem like a bad life. I mean, it seemed like a...

not a fair life or a fickle business, you know? And I, I think it's true. I, uh, just recently was reading the review of the Elia Kazan's book and he said the same thing. He got older. He said, tell anybody that wants to be a director not to do it because they, they throw you away. Well, then Mr. Kazan, it's for everybody. Everybody's got the same thing that you have a, a peak and then it fades away, you know? But so that, that goes with life, I guess. But, um,

I didn't think that show business looked that fair, but I also somehow got it in my head that I was going to beat it and that I was going to get in there and do it too. And I was very influenced by my mother when she worked at the studios and I was young then and I would go visit her and take the bus down and hang out with her. And it was so exciting to be at a TV studio where there was costumes and sets and people rushing around and music and orchestras. I want to be part of this. I just want to be part of this. And then

Because my parents were in vaudeville, a lot of their friends came out to Hollywood. Everybody wanted to be in the business, and it didn't happen. So they opened dancing schools. So I got to have free dancing lessons in all these places where my parents, who had worked with a dance team in Philly and a dog act in Boston, they were all out there, either Mater D's or opening Orange Julius stands or something like that. A very interesting, eclectic way that the fringe of show business started.

kind of settled in LA. And I was in that world. But it was always out there, the show business thing. And he goes, well, it's there for you. You can try it. You can try and I said, well, I think I will. I think I'll try. My two older brothers didn't want to do it. Your father was a comic. Was he like a joke teller at home? Well, I don't remember that too much. It's a very interesting thing about writing a book about your life.

I seem to find a big, huge gap about, well, who was my father? And, you know, he died when I was 11. And most of the time when I was alive until he died, he was ill. So I couldn't really talk to him too much. And I had to be quiet because dad is sick. What was his sickness? Well, he had heart trouble. And when I was born, he was in a USO show in the South Pacific. And he fell out of a Jeep and broke his back.

And ever since then, he was not well. And they brought him back to Long Beach in a cast that was from the top of his chin to his knees. It was just a horrible, they didn't know how to treat a broken back. But something happened then, I think, that diminished his life. And he started having heart trouble and he started having all kinds of things. And he was always ill. He did character acting in movies. He did a movie with Marilyn Monroe. And I remember wanting to see that when I was a kid. And

He kind of made a living, but he was always ill. So I don't think I had much of a relationship with my father. And therefore, I don't know who men are. I think it's something like that. I don't know.

Do you think that affected your relationships? Oh, yes. That you didn't know much about your father? You know, I really do. And I never thought about it until I wrote this book. I always thought, just like everybody else, well, there's just not enough good men out there. But then I see people with relationships and able to have them, and I think, well, no, I think it's something else. I think it's your relationship to your parents that make you have relationships with people

other people or something like that. But it's been a confusing mess, believe me, that end of it. But I go on. Even though I'm much older now, I still think there's hope of finding someone interesting. So you're not part of a couple right now? Not part of a couple, no. Except me and my daughter, which is a good couple. You've played mothers in a couple of recent roles, like I said, including in Ghost World and the TV series Friends. And

Are there people you've been able to pattern those mothers on? Because it sounds like your mother was very different from the mothers that you've played. That's true. You know, most of the mothers that I play in movies, starting from Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Right. Suburban mothers. I patterned them after my sister-in-law because my brother married his high school sweetheart and my other brother married. They both stayed married all this time. But my

My one sister-in-law is very Martha Stewart, and my brother's a surgeon, and so she's a doctor's wife, and she knows about gardening and centerpieces and stuff like that, something that I completely never grew up knowing. And when I got those parts, I would think, I have no role model, because the role model I have is more like the Texaco man or something. So I went and would look at what my sister-in-law did and copy her.

Terry Garr, thank you very, very much for talking with us. Well, Terry Gross, thank you for having me. Terry Garr, speaking to Terry Gross in 2005. The actress died Tuesday. She was 79 years old. She was a frequent guest on late-night TV and a favorite of David Letterman's. Here she is in her last appearance on his show in 2008. Now, wait a minute. You dated... What?

There's something with you and Elvis. Wasn't there something with you and Elvis? No, no. Come on, there was. No. Yes, there was. Dave, no. Yes, there was. You and me, baby. Everyone asked me, what went on between you and Dave? I said, totally sexual. That's all. That's all there was. That's right. Filthy lie. No, I don't want to put you on the spot here again, but wasn't there a thing with you and Elvis? I mean, you knew Elvis, right?

Did you know Elvis? You want to put me on the spot? No, I don't. Just tell me, did you know Elvis or not? Yes, I did. You worked with Elvis, right? In films. What film were you in with Elvis? Fabulous films. Viva Las Vegas, Roustabout, Kiss and Cousins, all the good ones. The best. And you can still see these all the time on television. And so when we see you and Elvis, we can now know that there was a... Oh, yeah, big time. No. I bet he asked you out all the time. No, no, no. Sure he did. No, he didn't. You know you're not under oath.

All right, all right. Elvis and I. Bang, bang. Terry Garr with David Levin. Coming up, Justin Chang reviews Blitz, a new Steve McQueen movie about World War II. This is Fresh Air.

With more electoral college votes than any other swing state, Pennsylvania is largely seen as the make or break battleground. Getting those last couple yards in the red zone in Pennsylvania is really, really tough. The presidential candidates have their eyes on it, and so do we. All this week on the Consider This podcast from NPR. Come along.

Adrian, do you feel that nip in the air, the smell of pumpkin spice wafting from your local coffee shop? Yeah, the overwhelming urge to suddenly watch holiday rom-coms? Yes, with all of these warm and fuzzies on the brain, it is the perfect time to explore the economic side of romance on The Indicator. We've got a week of episodes we're calling Love Week. Subscribe wherever you get podcasts.

Hey there, this is Felix Contreras, one of the co-hosts of Alt Latino, the podcast from NPR Music where we discuss Latinx culture, music, and heritage with the artists that create it. Listen now to the Alt Latino podcast from NPR. This is Fresh Air. In the new World War II drama Blitz, Saoirse Ronan plays a London factory worker trying to protect her young son as German bombs fall across the city.

It's the latest movie written and directed by the English filmmaker Steve McQueen. Blitz opens in theaters this week and begins streaming on Apple TV Plus November 22nd. Our film critic, Justin Chang, has this review. From Empire of the Sun to Au Revoir Les Enfants, there's been no shortage of films that show us World War II through the eyes of a child.

Youthful innocence can magnify the horrors of war, as it does in shattering dramas like Come and See or the animated Grave of the Fireflies. But then there's Hope and Glory, John Borman's 1987 portrait of his boyhood years during the Blitz. It's the rare film to treat life during wartime with a buoyant sense of adventure.

The wonderful new movie Blitz is a sadder, more somber look at a time when German bombs rained down on London. The filmmaker Steve McQueen plunges us right into the chaos and devastation, the falling bombs, the burning buildings, and the utter randomness of death and survival. But Blitz, while not exactly a movie for children, is nonetheless a story about a child. And it has powerful moments of wonderment, humor, and even joy.

It follows a nine-year-old boy named George, played by the captivating newcomer Elliot Heffernan. It's 1940, and as the nightly air raids grow worse and worse, George's mother, Rita, played by a luminous Saoirse Ronan, decides to send him to the countryside, where hundreds of thousands of English children were sent during the war. But George doesn't want to go. Why can't you come with me, sweetheart?

I told you it's an adventure for children only. Grown-ups not allowed. But it's gonna be great. You're gonna make new friends. My friends are here. Yeah, well, you'll play games in the countryside. That'd be nice. There'll be cows and there'll be horses. But they smell. I want to stay with you. Yeah, I know. It's only until all this is over and then the schools will open again and life will get back to normal. I promise. Please, Mum. Don't send me away.

It may sound like a familiar, even cliche, scene, but beneath the stiff upper lip conventions, McQueen is up to something pointed and even subversive. George is the son of a white mother and a black father, a Grenadian immigrant who was unjustly deported years earlier, as we see in a harrowing flashback. George never knew his dad, but he knows firsthand the racism his dad experienced.

That's why he can't bear to be separated from his mother and his grandfather, played by the great singer and songwriter Paul Weller. And so, not long into his journey, George leaps from the train and heads back to London. Blitz follows him from one peril to the next. There are sweet moments of uplift, like when he rides the rails with three boys, also making their way home.

The story also takes some darkly Dickensian turns, like when George meets a gang of robbers who are exploiting the Blitz to their crooked advantage. In one moving chapter, George is aided by a friendly air raid warden named Ife, nicely played by Benjamin Clementine. Ife is a Nigerian immigrant, and almost certainly the first black man George has ever seen in a position of authority. It's here that the profundity of McQueen's vision comes into focus,

He may be working in a more classical mode than he did in historical dramas like Hunger and Twelve Years a Slave, but there's something quietly radical about his perspective. He's showing us an England that was more racially diverse and more racially divided than most movies of the period ever acknowledged. At times, Blitz plays like a prequel to McQueen's 2020 anthology series, Small Axe, a vibrant portrait of the West Indian community of London where he grew up.

It also has some overlap with Occupied City, his 2023 documentary about Nazi-occupied Amsterdam, a very different film about a city under siege. Race isn't the only thing on McQueen's mind. He also salutes the crucial role women played in the war effort, women like George's mom, Rita, who by day works in a munitions factory and by night volunteers in an underground shelter.

Once Rita learns that George is lost in London, Blitz becomes the heart-rending tale of a mother and child trying to find each other across a bombed-out landscape, a smoky ruin in Adam Stockhausen's brilliant production design. For all these stark and apocalyptic images, the London we see in Blitz also pulses with life. The use of music throughout is inspired, and I don't just mean Hans Zimmer's brooding score.

McQueen guides us into a dance hall where black musicians perform for white partygoers, and through a busy pub where George's granddad tickles the ivories. One terrific scene unfolds on the factory floor, where Rita, a gifted singer, cheers up the crowd with a song, an original tune as it happens, co-written by McQueen and Nicholas Bertel. The music in these moments never feels like just a diversion.

These are songs of defiance, and in them you can hear a nation's very will to survive. Justin Chang is a film critic for The New Yorker. He reviewed Blitz, starring Saoirse Ronan. On Monday's show, Al Pacino. He talks about some of his classic films, including The Godfather, and tells us about growing up in the South Bronx with a single mother, little money, and friends who never made it out alive.

He talks about getting his start in avant-garde theater in Greenwich Village, nearly dying of COVID, and his life today. He has a new memoir. Join us. To keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews, follow us on Instagram at NPR Fresh Air. Fresh Air's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our senior producer today is Roberta Sharrock.

Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham, with additional engineering support by Joyce Lieberman, Julian Hertzfeld, and Charlie Kyer. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Anne-Marie Baldonado, Sam Brigger, Lauren Krenzel, Teresa Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Yakundi, and Anna Bauman. Our digital media producers are Molly C.V. Nesper and Sabrina Seward. For Terry Gross and Tanya Mosley, I'm David B. Kuhlman.

We've finally made it. Election week. It's what this whole never-ending election cycle has been building up to. And what happens now will dictate the future of the country. Keep up with election news when it matters most with NPR's Consider This podcast. All this week, we are taking major stories from the election to help you make sense of them and what they mean for you in under 15 minutes.

Listen now to the Consider This podcast from NPR. As Election Day approaches, NPR's Consider This podcast is zooming in on six states that could determine who wins the White House. Georgia, Nevada, Wisconsin, Michigan, Arizona, and Pennsylvania. We'll ask voters in these swing states what matters to them and which way they want the country to go. Follow along with new episodes this week on the Consider This podcast from NPR.

Every weekday, NPR's best political reporters come to you on the NPR Politics Podcast to explain the big news coming out of Washington, the campaign trail and beyond. We don't just want to tell you what happened. We tell you why it matters. Join the NPR Politics Podcast every single afternoon to understand the world through political eyes.