Friday, June 11, 2010

Secreteri* (for Secretari*)

For a long time, Teri Garr kept her multiple sclerosis a secret, but no longer wishing to tarry, made a public announcement of her illness in 2002. Since then, she has been an untiring advocate for MS awareness and research; in 2005, she was honored as the National Multiple Sclerosis Society's "Ambassador of the Year." Terry Ann Garr is the daughter of a vaudeville performer and a Rockette and followed naturally in their footsteps. Early in her career, she was known variously as "Terri Garr," "Terry Garr," "Teri Hope," and "Terry Carr." But her self-effacing charm and effervescence, her impossibly ditzy smartness, have always made her unmistakable. Garr's first speaking role (one line) was as a "damsel in distress" in the 1968 Monkees vehicle Head, written by Jack Nicholson. The list of movies and TV shows to her credit is both lengthy and impressive, but Teri Garr is perhaps most fondly recalled for her frequent guest appearances and off-the-cuff banter with David Letterman, who once managed to talk her into taking a shower on his show. Garr is not one for secretive allure and guarded glamor, and is all the more beautiful for it. The typo Secreteri* appears eight times in OhioLINK.

(Teri Garr at a benefit for the AIDS Project, Los Angeles, Sept. 1990, from Wikimedia Commons.)

Carol Reid

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