
This one is truly hard to talk about.
For fans of Late Night with David Letterman, any edition that billed Teri Garr as the night’s featured guest was a reason to be home and up well past midnight, because you just knew you’d regret it if you missed the interchange between Dave and Teri, surely one of the most appealing late-night guests of that, or any other, era.
Garr, who passed away Tuesday, was known for her acting (and dancing!) in movies, on stage and television; but surely the first thing that will come to mind among millions with fond memories of Garr is how she lit up the screen—and the eyes of the host—when she sat down to banter with Dave.
In the early Letterman years when she first began appearing, Garr had already made her name in movies, chiefly as a comic actress in hits like Young Frankenstein and Tootsie. She was a natural at playing what in older days had been called screwball comedy.
She brought all of that to her visits with Letterman, where she could be charming, ditzy, flirty, funny, and game for whatever Letterman threw at her, and never once looked like she was performing.
Letterman released a statement late Tuesday:
“Teri Garr’s many appearances on Late Night gave it a cachet and importance not possible without her. She was a first class actor and comedian and a lovely human being. A bright star and a real friend to the show. I was lucky to know her. She elevated all, and I’m sad she is gone.”
Separately, Late Show With David Letterman EP Barbara Gaines, who was with the Letterman show from start to finish had this to say, via email:”Teri Garr was a big movie star and one of the nicest guests we had on the show. She came to our anniversary parties and was absolutely part of the Late Night clubhouse, if we had a clubhouse.”
I was fortunate to interview her for my book The Late Shift, looking for insight into the tortured brilliance that made Letterman a late-night phenomenon. Garr talked about how special her appearances were, how the two of them sparked almost in almost every conversation.
But she worried about Dave’s intensity, and related a story of sitting with him during one commercial break, with the band playing so loud they really couldn’t converse much. She shouted over to him: “How are you doing?”
And the always perfectionist Dave scribbled out a note and handed it to her. It read “I hate myself!”
Garr told me she couldn’t quite understand how a funny and talented guy felt such inner conflict. But the commercial ended and they went on being clever and witty together.
Robert Morton, Letterman’s long-time producer who became a very close friend of Garr’s said, “She was the sweetheart of late night.” He praised her for her wit and charm and how game she was to keep up with the host. “She was as good as it gets. She always came to play. She knew how to act like she was pissed at something. She knew how to act like she was mad at the host. She did it with Johnny; she did it with Dave. And I say this so often: every guy was madly in love with her.”
One thing not many people outside her circle knew, Morton said, was how smart she was as well as funny. “She knew literature, she knew art. She really knew film. She was friendly with Truffaut and Louis Malle.”
Besides her many talk show shots—she was on with Letterman 39 times—Garr made three appearances as host of Saturday Night Live, her first coming in 1980. Alan Zweibel, who was a writer on the show at the time, remembered her as “so smart and so funny.”
Buck Henry, a favorite SNL host, and a hugely respected comedy writer in his own right, became a mentor to Zweibel and was a close friend of Garr’s. Zweibel recalled having lunches with the two of them and being in awe of the fast-paced repartee that was going back and forth between the two of them.
“Teri was right there, on Buck’s level,” Zwiebel said. He said he noticed the same interplay of quick wits in her appearances with Letterman. “She was so engaging. There was always a sort of wink in her eye that she was in on whatever the joke was.”
Her career was curtailed when the effects of multiple sclerosis took a toll on her, but she worked when she could, doing various guest star roles in shows like Law & Order. She also made a memorable last appearance with Letterman in 2008. Morton said, “That was a great thing Dave did. She was so grateful that she was still a member of the family.”
Morton remained close to Garr right up to her death. He said he visited her every several weeks in the care home where Garr lived the last years of her life. He said near the end of her life she was not able to talk except an occasional word.
“But she still liked to laugh,” Morton said. “She still radiated. She was still a star.”
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Teri was the ultimate in class. She got M.S. in 1983 and hid it for as long as she could. Dave eventually had to walk her to her seat it was getting so bad. She was on Carson in 1992, two weeks before he ended his show. She had fallen down stairs, but took her cast off to appear with Johnny who saw her with the cast on pre show. A true trooper.
Thanks for a good article, I enjoyed it. She clearly was a favorite of yours, too.