Comedy icon Teri Garr, known for her roles in “Young Frankenstein” and “Tootsie,” has died.

Comedy icon Teri Garr has died at the age of 79.

The actress quickly rose from a background dancer in Elvis Presley movies to a co-star in such favorites as “Young Frankenstein” and “Tootsie.”

Garr died Tuesday of multiple sclerosis “surrounded by family and friends,” said publicist Heidi Schaeffer. Garr has struggled with other health problems in recent years, and in January 2007 he underwent surgery to repair an aneurysm.

The actress, who was sometimes credited with the roles of Terri, Terry or Terry Ann during her long career, seemed doomed to show business from childhood.

Her father was Eddie Garr, a famous vaudeville comedian; her mother was Phyllis Lind, one of the first energetic Rockettes to play at New York’s Radio City Music Hall. Their daughter began dancing at the age of 6, and at 14 she was dancing with ballet companies in San Francisco and Los Angeles.

She was 16 when she joined the Los Angeles road crew of “West Side Story,” and by 1963 she began appearing in small roles in films.

In a 1988 interview, she recalled how she landed the role in “West Side Story.” After she was kicked out of her first audition, she came back a day later in different clothes and was accepted.

From there, the statuesque blonde Garr found steady work dancing in films and appeared in the chorus in nine Presley films, including “Viva Las Vegas,” “Roustabout” and “Clambake.”

She has also appeared on numerous television shows, including “Star Trek,” “Dr. Kildare” and “Batman”, and also appeared as a dancer on the rock ‘n’ roll music show “Shindig”, in the TAMI rock concert and as a cast member on “The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour”.

Her big film break came in 1974, when she played Gene Hackman’s girlfriend in Francis Ford Coppola’s thriller “The Conversation.” This led to an interview with Mel Brooks, who said he would hire her to play an assistant in Gene Wilder’s German laboratory in the 1974 film “Young Frankenstein” – if she could speak with a German accent.

“Cher had a German woman, Renata, sew wigs, so I took over her accent,” Garr once recalled.

The film established her as a talented comedic actress, with New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael declaring her “the funniest neurotic ditzy lady on screen.”

Her wide smile and off-center charm helped her land a role in “Oh God!” opposite George Burns and John Denver, “Mr. Mom” (as Michael Keaton’s wife) and “Tootsie”, in which she played a girl who loses Dustin Hoffman to Jessica Lange and finds out that he disguised himself as a woman to revive his career. (She also lost the Supporting Actress Oscar at this year’s Academy Awards to Lange.)

Though best known for comedy, Garr has shown in films like “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” “The Black Stallion” and “The Escape Artist” that she can handle drama just as well.

“I would love to be in ‘Norma Rae’ and ‘Sophie’s Choice,’ but I never had the opportunity,” she once said, adding that she was considered a comic actress.

She had a knack for spontaneous humor, often playing David Letterman’s foil during guest appearances on NBC’s “Late Night With David Letterman” in its early days.

Her appearances became so frequent, and the couple’s good-natured bickering so convincing, that for a time there were rumors that they were having an affair. Years later, Letterman credited these early appearances with making the series a hit.

It was also around this time that Garr began to feel “a little bit of squeaking or ticking” in his right leg. It started in 1983 and eventually spread to her right arm as well, but she felt she could live with it. By 1999, her symptoms had become so severe that she sought medical attention. Diagnosis: multiple sclerosis.

For three years, Garr did not reveal her illness.

“I was afraid I wouldn’t get the job,” she explained in a 2003 interview. “People hear about multiple sclerosis and think, ‘Oh my God, this person has two days to live.'”

After going public, she became a spokeswoman for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, giving humorous speeches at gatherings in the U.S. and Canada.

“You have to find your center and roll with the punches, because that’s a hard thing: to make people pity you,” she commented in 2005. “Just trying to explain to people that I’m fine is exhausting.”

She also continued her acting career, appearing on “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit,” “From Tucson with Love,” “Life with Bonnie” and other television shows. She also had a brief appearance on the 1990s sitcom “Friends” as Lisa Kudrow’s mother. After several failed romances, Garr married contractor John O’Neill in 1993. They adopted a daughter, Molly, before divorcing in 1996.

In her 2005 autobiography, “Speedbumps: Flooring It Through Hollywood,” Garr explained her decision not to discuss her age.

“My mother taught me that people in showbiz never reveal their real age. She never revealed her or my father’s age,” she wrote. According to California voting records, her date of birth is December 11, 1947.

She said she was born in Los Angeles, although most textbooks say Lakewood, Ohio. When her father’s career ended, the family, including Teri’s two older brothers, moved in with relatives in the Midwest and East.

Eventually, the Garrs returned to California and settled in the San Fernando Valley, where Teri graduated from North Hollywood High School and studied rhetoric and drama for two years at California State University, Northridge.

Garr recalled what her father told his children in 1988 about a career in Hollywood.

“Don’t get into this business,” he told them. “This is the lowest level. It’s humiliating for people.”