Teri Garr - Totally Teri Trivia Quiz

Answer: Teri Farr

In 1964, Teri was credited as "Teri Hope" in the musical comedy "Pajama Party", playing one of the dancing pajama girls. One of several films in the "Beach Party" series of 1960s teen musicals, "Pajama Party" starred Annette Funicello and Tommy Kirk. This role was the first time Teri was credited using a stage name, and the only time she was credited as Teri Hope.

Teri twice added an extra "r" to her first name, and was credited as "Terri Garr" for appearances on two of the all-time classic television series: "Terri" appeared on NBC's "Star Trek" (guest starring as Roberta Lincoln in the second season episode "Assignment: Earth"), and on CBS's "The Andy Griffith Show" (playing an unnamed girl in the eighth season episode "The Wedding"). Both episodes were originally broadcast on their respective networks in March of 1968.

Using the original spelling of her first name, Teri was credited five times as "Terry Garr", twice for motion picture roles, and three times for television appearances. Under this name, Teri played the supporting character Testy True in "Head", a 1968 vehicle for the (then-fading) pop music group The Monkees. She also portrayed a young wife in "The Moonshine War", a 1970 comedy/drama pitting a federal agent (Patrick McGoohan) against an Ozarks moonshiner (Alan Alda) during the Great Depression. In 1967, "Terry" made the first of her three television guest appearances, on ABC's Marlo Thomas sitcom "That Girl", playing the character Estelle in the first season episode "This Little Piggy Had a Ball". She later made two guest appearances in 1969 as Maggie Philbin on the ABC spy drama "It Takes a Thief", starring Robert Wagner; she appeared in the second season episode "Guess Who's Coming to Rio?", and then reprised her character the following season in "The Beautiful People".

As if three early screen names weren't enough to challenge the memory of even the most ardent trivia expert, Teri actually had a fourth: in 1969, she was credited one time as "Terry Carr", for a guest appearance on the NBC series "The Mothers-In-Law" (in the second season episode "Two on the Aisle"). Thankfully, her "identify crisis" finally ended in 1970, and she has been our beloved Teri Garr ever since.

Answer: Star Trek

During the second season of "Star Trek", Teri guest starred as Roberta Lincoln in the episode "Assignment: Earth". Robert Lansing also guest starred as Roberta's boss, Gary Seven, a mysterious 20th century human being who had been raised on another planet, and then returned to Earth tasked with preventing humanity from destroying itself. The USS Enterprise traveled back in time to Earth in the year 1968, on a mission to investigate the Cold War arms race. In the process, Kirk and Spock encountered Gary Seven on a mission of his own, to destroy an orbiting nuclear platform in an effort to reduce the proliferation of space-based nuclear weapons.

This episode, which originally aired on NBC on March 29, 1968, was also actually the pilot for a proposed spin-off series that was to have starred Robert Lansing, Barbara Babcock, and Teri Garr, continuing the saga of Gary Seven and his mission on 20th century Earth. As history records, however, the NBC executives of the era never really grasped what they had in Gene Roddenberry's "Star Trek", and the network declined to produce "Assignment: Earth" as a series.

Answer: Sergeant Phyllis Norton

"McCloud" - loosely based on the Clint Eastwood motion picture "Coogan's Bluff" - aired for seven seasons between 1970 and 1977. The show was originally part of the popular "NBC Mystery Movie" series, sharing its time slot with "McMillan and Wife", "Columbo", and "Banacek" on a rotating basis. Prior to her recurring role as Sgt. Phyllis Norton, Teri also had a guest appearance on "McCloud", playing the character Nora Mullins in the fourth season episode "The Million Dollar Round Up".

Answer: Yes

Not only did Teri appear opposite Alan Alda on "M*A*S*H", she played Hawkeye's love interest during her sole guest appearance on the series. Teri guest starred as Lt. Suzanne Marquette in the second season episode "The Sniper". The episode opened with Hawkeye and Suzanne enjoying a private moment together outside of camp, but their romantic interlude was abruptly interrupted by enemy sniper fire.

Answer: No

During his meteoric career, Elvis Presley starred in over 30 films. His first, "Love Me Tender", was released in 1957, several years before Teri made her professional debut as a dancer and actress. Teri made her first appearance in an Elvis film as an uncredited dancer in his 13th movie, "Fun in Acapulco", released in 1963.

She went on to dance in several more Presley films, including "Kissin' Cousins" (1964), "Viva Las Vegas" (1964), "Roustabout" (1964), and "Clambake" (1967).

Answer: Young Frankenstein

Teri Garr's character Inga in "Young Frankenstein" was her first major film role, and allowed Teri to showcase her comic irreverence and screen persona. Released in 1974, it was the watershed point in Teri's career; her performance as Inga quite literally put Teri on the map in the motion picture industry.

In a 1999 newspaper interview with the "Toronto Sun", Teri said the following regarding her role: "It was my very first big part, where my name was on the credits and on the poster and all that stuff. I think if I hadn't got that part, my life would be very different now. I'd be just another of the 900 girls a day who arrive in Hollywood on the bus, and then they don't make it and they fall through the cracks.

This really changed my life.

After this, I could get auditions for other things."

Answer: Close Encounters of the Third Kind

In "Close Encounters of the Third Kind", Teri played Ronnie Neary, the long-suffering wife of Roy Neary (Richard Dreyfuss). Roy was obsessed with chasing Little Green Men, leaving Ronnie to manage the home (Earth?) front, essentially destroying their marriage in the process. To say much more would lead to spoilers, so we'll leave it at that...

Answer: Oh, God!

Teri starred in all four films, but Carl Reiner's 1977 fantasy comedy "Oh, God!" was her only role opposite John Denver. John portrayed a supermarket assistant manager, Jerry Landers, who was given a mission by God (George Burns, in a perfectly-cast role) to deliver His message to the modern masses. Teri played Jerry's adorable wife Bobbie Landers; although Bobbie didn't disbelieve her husband, it took her some time to accept the fact that Jerry had actually been granted a personal audience with the Almighty.

Answer: Fruit of the Loom panties

Teri modeled Fruit of the Loom panties during a 1990 advertising campaign. She has a long history of advertising work, having appeared in television commercials for numerous products, including Band-Aids, Pepsi, Crest toothpaste, Safeguard soap, MJB coffee, and Tide laundry detergent. Of her advertising work, Teri once said, "I've always had this American-pie face that would get work in commercials... I'd say things like 'Hi Marge, how's your laundry?' and 'Hi, I'm a real nice Georgia peach.' Sometimes this work is one step above being a cocktail waitress."

In "Tootsie", Dustin Hoffman starred as actor Michael Dorsey, and Teri Garr played his girlfriend, Sandy. Michael had earned an industry reputation for being a difficult actor to work with, and as a result, roles were few and far between. Finding it impossible to secure acting work as himself, Michael decided to cross-dress and remake himself as a woman, "Dorothy Michaels", landing a starring role on a television soap opera in the process. The situation became even more complicated once Michael found himself falling in love with his co-star Julie Nichols (Jessica Lange), while simultaneously, "Dorothy" was attracting romantic attention from "her" male co-stars. Teri Garr's performance as Sandy earned her a 1983 Academy Award nomination for Best Actress in a Supporting Role.

Answer: Nastassia Kinski made her motion picture debut

Although "One from the Heart" was one of Nastassia Kinski's earliest film appearances, it was not her first; she had several earlier roles, including the lead in Roman Polanski's 1979 romance drama "Tess". Tom Waits' evocative score earned him a 1983 Academy Award nomination; Waits and Crystal Gayle performed vocals together on several of the soundtrack numbers. And yes, Teri Garr appeared topless in several scenes; it was the first (and only) time in her film career that she did so.

"One from the Heart" - a rare romance film from Coppola - told the simple story of Frannie (Teri Garr) and Hank (Frederic Forrest), a couple in love, but with vastly different outlooks and dreams. They experienced a breakup, each turning to someone else for a single evening; Frannie to a singer, Ray (Raul Julia), and Hank to a circus performer, Leila (Nastassia Kinski). How did things turn out? Tom Waits' lyrics offer a clue: "I'm just a scarecrow without you - Baby please don't disappear - I beg your pardon, dear."

Francis Ford Coppola considered "One from the Heart" to be a tour de force, but it was a commercial and financial disaster. The film was shot entirely at Zoetrope Studios, at a cost reputed to far exceed 20 million dollars (a staggering sum by industry standards in the early 1980s). Coppola, production designer Dean Tavoularis, and set designer William Cruse recreated Las Vegas on the soundstage (and in studio miniatures), including many famous, recognizable landmarks, even going so far as to recreate Fremont Street and McCarran Airport. The extravagant sets were filmed using very complex, artistic lighting under the direction of cinematographers Ronald Víctor García and Vittorio Storaro. During the production of "One from the Heart", Coppola pioneered the early use of computers and digital electronics as a filmmaking technique. In essence, "One from the Heart" was a very small story, told very large. As for the film's notorious box office failure, Waits' lyrics again offer a suggestion: "Well, I've told you before, and I'll tell you again - You don't defrost the icebox with a ballpoint pen."

Answer: The Player

Director Robert Altman is famous (some might say infamous) for battling the film industry establishment and the major Hollywood studios. "The Player" was a satirical piece about blackmail, corporate politics, and double-dealing, set against the backdrop of the motion picture industry. Teri Garr and Martin Mull both appeared as themselves, joining over 50 other stars and celebrities making similar cameo appearances.

Answer: Jackie Gleason and Mac Davis

Jackie Gleason and Mac Davis starred as Henry Gondorff and Johnny Hooker in the sequel. Teri's character, Veronica, had no equivalent in the original film. "The Sting II" told a tale similar to its predecessor, involving a complicated scam to con a crooked gangster out of a vast sum of money.

It's hard to follow a classic... "The Sting" was nominated for 10 Academy Awards in 1973, and won seven, including Best Picture. "The Sting II" was nominated for only a single Oscar in 1984 (Lalo Schifrin for Best Score), which it did not win.

Answer: Phoebe's

Ross and Monica were brother and sister, so Teri could not have been mother to just one of them; their parents (Jack and Judy Geller) were portrayed by Elliot Gould and Christina Pickles, and were frequent guest stars on "Friends". Rachel's parents (Sandra and Leonard Green) also made several appearances on the show, played by Marlo Thomas and Ron Leibman. Joey's parents (Joseph, Sr. and Gloria Tribbiani) appeared in only one episode ("The One With The Boobies"), and were portrayed by Robert Costanzo and Brenda Vaccaro. Chandler had the most "interesting" set of parents, Nora and Helena Bing, memorably played by Morgan Fairchild and Kathleen Turner; his mother Nora was the author of steamy romance novels, and his father Helena was the cross-dressing star of a drag queen revue.

Phoebe's parental situation was considerably more complicated than any of the other characters, but she was eventually reunited with both of her parents during the run of the series. Phoebe met her father, Frank Buffay, Sr. (played by Bob Balaban) during the fifth season episode "The One With Joey's Bag". Phoebe first encountered her mother (Teri Garr, in an inspired piece of casting) during the final episode of the third season, "The One At The Beach". That episode was a cliff-hanger, and Phoebe didn't discover that she was her birth mother, Phoebe Buffay, Sr., until the fourth season opener, "The One With The Jellyfish". Teri reprised her role as Phoebe, Sr. one more time, in the fourth season episode "The One With Phoebe's Uterus".

Answer: David Letterman

Ever the good sport, Teri took her memorable shower on November 20, 1985, on NBC's "Late Night With David Letterman". The show was filmed entirely in Letterman's office suite, reportedly due to a failure of the studio air conditioning system. After considerable prompting from David, Teri reluctantly showered in Letterman's office bathroom.

One of David Letterman's all-time favorite female guests, Teri has made over 25 appearances on "Late Night". Quoting from a "People" magazine article written by Jane Hall, published on July 14, 1986: "Another favorite is actress Teri Garr, who plays a dizzy Gracie Allen to Letterman's George Burns. Garr delights Letterman because, he says, 'Half the time I'm apologizing to Teri for what I did to her last time.' Perhaps regretting that he had persuaded Garr to take an on-camera shower in his office (In retrospect, it looked like a VFW smoker), Letterman sent her an electronic bouquet: Teri Garr Week, four nights of reruns on which she had appeared. 'David is "mean" like my brother was,' says Garr, who takes Letterman's kidding in stride. 'That's not really mean.'"

Answer: Multiple sclerosis

During an October 9, 2002 appearance on CNN's "Larry King Live", Teri revealed that she had been suffering from multiple sclerosis symptoms for roughly 20 years. She had previously kept her condition secret, fearing that if it became known she would find it difficult to obtain acting roles.

Multiple sclerosis is a chronic, progressive disease affecting the central nervous system. Its symptoms can include weakness, numbness and tingling in the limbs, difficulty walking and loss of balance, and vision impairments. The disease affects more than two million people worldwide, the vast majority of them women. Medications exist to control the symptoms of MS, but there is no known cure. For more information about this debilitating disease, visit the National Multiple Sclerosis Society web site at www.nationalmssociety.org.