Teri Garr
Being sensitive to the problem of women is just another symptom of the quality of movies: I don't think you can do anything that's very sensitive. Everything's sort of broad strokes and big gestures - adventure things that boys, guys want to see.
I want to write more, because I think I've got a story to tell.
I'm really grateful for my dancers' discipline.
I want to write about my experiences since 'Speedbumps.'
Going to dancing school, or being in a play, is a very familial feeling. You're around friends.
Everyone I tell that I had an aneurysm always says, 'Oh, my cousin died from that.' Well, I didn't, so I'm amazed. I was in a wheelchair, and I had to go to rehab. And now I'm walking!
'30 Rock' is one of the best things on TV, I think.
Elvis used to have parties at his house - and I've told this story a million times - but they weren't really parties, because there was no chips or dip. Just Elvis and his boys watching TV, and him making funny comments, and everybody laughing at them. Is that a party? Not really. But that's Hollywood.
I feel very badly about anybody that's sick and in a wheelchair or not doing well. But you know, you have to go, 'Life is a poker game, and we're going to play our cards somehow.'
My mother was a role model.
God is in all - I believe in God, yes. And I believe God is in us.
I try to laugh as much as possible and enjoy the company of people who can make me laugh.
Having to manage fatigue is something I and many people with MS have to deal with, and heat is no friend to my MS, either; it can be devastating.
I have one brother who is a surgeon, there's me, and my other brother builds boats.
I had to learn to walk again, talk again, think again.
I started out in the 1970s doing the Wife, the Bimbo, and the Ditz, and if I somehow get a serious role, they all wanna know the same thing: When are you going back to comedy?
I went on the 'Letterman' show the first time to plug something, and then I came back as the Fool, the court jester.
I resent it when they write the part of a woman who's just a sexy femme fatale who seduces people to ger her way, perpetrating the myth that that's how woman have to operate, instead of using their brains or their wit.
This new movie, 'Full Moon in Blue Water,' I loved the idea of working with Gene Hackman, who is a great actor, but when I read the script, I threw it right into the trash can, because I didn't like this woman. She was just a doormat.
If I counted them all up, I was a dancer in sixty movies!
Directors would tell me, 'We want you to play a character a little less complex than you are.' Yeah, sure. What they mean is, 'You're playing a dummy.'
When you're a kid, you should be a kid.
If you get somebody laughing - and then stick in a point about something important - they'll remember it.
It doesn't help to contemplate how sad your life is. You have to move on.
They drilled a hole in my head and wrapped a coil around my brain so it wouldn't bleed anymore.
I went to physical therapy, occupational therapy, voice, every kind of therapy except mental therapy - obviously!
I did a string of about six or seven Elvis movies, all in a row. He made all of those movies in two years' time. All of them bad. Don't quote me.
If there's ever a woman who's smart, funny, or witty, people are afraid of that, so they don't write that. They only write parts for women where they let everything be steamrolled over them, where they let people wipe their feet all over them.
Being a successful Hollywood actress may be challenging, but little did I know that the very body that had always been my calling card would betray me.
The Academy not only knew I existed, they thought I was good!
I had been nominated for an Academy Award for my performance as Sandy Lester, Dustin Hoffman's neurotic, struggling actress girlfriend, in 'Tootsie.' Under Sydney Pollack's direction, 'Tootsie' had been a runaway hit starring Dustin as an unemployed actor who pretends to be a woman in order to land a role in a soap opera.
I thought, 'If I can't be prom queen, I can dance 'Les Sylphide.'
I'd like to play something classical. I'm in the Strindberg society, and we do readings of Strindberg plays. I'd love to do Nora in 'A Doll's House.' And Chekhov. I have been working back to back on what I call 'regular jobs,' so it's hard to do plays.
How come women are treated differently from men all the time? Not only handicapped people, but women - and handicapped women, forget it!
I was trying to work, but I noticed that people, if they had any inkling of the idea that I was sick or had MS... people shunned me. No work after that.
There are several drugs out right now that can't stop multiple sclerosis, but they can slow it way down. They also made me puff up like a balloon. So I looked horrible. I hated that.
My next book's title is going to be, 'I Have One Foot in the Grave and Another on a Banana Peel.'
What's worse in Hollywood, being handicapped or being a woman over 50?
I didn't tell people because I didn't want pity, and I was afraid I wouldn't get work. But others with MS need to know they are not alone. We don't have to be victims.
Joan Collins was the best. She really could sort of pull it off, be really outrageous and never even flinch.
There's people doing whatever the hell they want and getting away with it.
My father died when I was 11. He was a vaudeville comedian. He worked in one movie, 'Ladies of the Chorus,' as Marilyn Monroe's father.
My mother was a Rockette at Radio City.
I went to North Hollywood High. I'm the original Val girl.
My agents have me in the Actors' Protection Program. It seems to be working very well. Nobody can find me.
I get this thing every once in a while that I call 'ESS:' emergency sleep situation. I'll get like lead, really fatigued, and I can't move.
I think I look pretty good. And I know there are human beings my age who look the way I do. There must be stories about us - not just about people who are young and good-looking.
When I was a dancer, I would see that dancers were treated like garbage. I mean like, like extras.
What's happening to me is I'm still happy and functioning, being able to listen to music, see good movies, read good books. What else is there that I can't, you know, I mean, I'm OK.