Teri Garr’s Tragic Final Secret: Late ‘Tootsie’ Star Spent Years Desperately Covering Up Crippling MS As She Feared Roles Would Dry Up If It Came Out

Quirky Tootsie and Young Frankenstein star Teri Garr took a sad secret with her to the grave when she died October 29 at the age of 79 after a long battle with multiple sclerosis, RadarOnline.com can reveal.

For years, she was afraid to tell anyone she had the dreaded disease for fear that Hollywood jobs would dry up.

The leggy blond dancer and actress with a superb sense of comic timing quietly began grappling with the debilitating disease in the late 1990s before publicly confirming her diagnosis in 2002.

During much of her career, Garr experienced mild symptoms of the chronic illness, including tingling body parts, tripping, fatigue and muscle weakness — but sources said what ate at her was the gossip.

In her 2005 memoir Speedbumps, she wrote: "Hollywood has its own culture, so the initial inquiries about my health ranged from caring to catty. But that wasn't the real problem; the gossip had an immediate and devastating effect on my career.

"I was still reading scripts, and I still felt like I was in the game. But what might have been a lull or the beginning of a slow dropoff became much worse as soon as word hit the street that I had MS. My work opportunities fell off a cliff.

"It was a done deal. The phone was ringing with inquiries about my health, but when it came to inquiries about my availability for roles, it was adios amigos."

Garr soldiered on paying the bills by taking a job as a spokesperson for an MS drug.

"I turned out to be one of the greatest jobs I ever had", she joked.

"For the first time in my life. I got to play myself all the time. And the character of me was going to need a lot of expensive costumes."

On a more serious note, she added: "I loved the idea of trying to make even a small difference in someone's life. Hopefully, my stories would help other people with MS connect and make them smile."

But Garr's road ahead was full of potholes.

In 2006, she was rushed to the hospital after suffering a potentially fatal brain aneurysm and lay in a coma for weeks. She recovered, but retired from acting in 2011.

Plucky Garr said: "When you hear the word ‘disabled’ people immediately think about people who can't walk or talk or do everything that people take for granted.

"Now, I take nothing for granted. But I find the real disability is people who find joy in life and are bitter.”

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