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Oscar-nominated actress Teri Garr, best known for her roles in Young Frankenstein and Tootsie, has died.

Garr, who also starred in Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, died at the age of 79 due to complications from multiple sclerosis (MS), her manager Heidi Schaeffer said on Tuesday.

She appeared in three episodes of Friends in 1997 and 1998 as Phoebe Abbott, the estranged birth mother of Lisa Kudrow’s Phoebe.

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'Tootsie' Film - 1982
Dustin Hoffman, Teri Garr, Sydney Pollack

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Teri Garr with Dustin Hoffman (L) and Sydney Pollack in Tootsie. Pic: Rex Features/Everett/Shutterstock

In a screen career that spanned more than 40 years, she was nominated for the best supporting actress Oscar for her role in 1982’s Tootsie, starring opposite Dustin Hoffman, but lost out to Maureen Stapleton.

Her most famous role was playing Inga, a Transylvania local who becomes the assistant to Gene Wilder’s Dr Frederick Frankenstein in Mel Brooks’s 1974 comedy hit, Young Frankenstein, part of a star-studded cast that included Cloris Leachman, Marty Feldman and Gene Hackman.

Garr had plenty of memorable lines, such as “Vould you like to have a roll in zee hay?”

She was a familiar face on sitcoms and late-night talk shows, including NBC’s The Tonight Show during the Johnny Carson era.

She struggled with health issues in recent years and in 2002, she revealed she had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and had been suffering symptoms for some two decades.

Five years later, she underwent surgery for a brain aneurysm.

Teri Garr in Los Angeles in 2012. Pic: Reuters
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Teri Garr in Los Angeles in 2012. Pic: Reuters

She later became a key advocate for MS awareness, traveling across the country to speak with doctors and patients about her experiences, NBC News, Sky’s US partner said. She retired from acting in 2011.

Teri Ann Garr was born in Cleveland in 1944 to showbusiness parents and began dance lessons aged six.

Her father, Eddie, was a vaudeville performer and actor who appeared on Broadway and her mother, Phyllis, had been a member of the Rockettes precision dance troupe.

After studying in Los Angeles, Garr moved to New York to pursue a career first in ballet and then in acting, studying at the famed Actor’s Studio in Manhattan.

Garr, a quirky comedy performer, got her break with bit parts in a number of 1960s Elvis Presley movies, including Viva Las Vegas and Roustabout.

As well as enjoying memorable movie roles, such in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation and One From The Heart, she was a familiar face on TV, including roles in That Girl, Batman, and The Andy Griffith Show, Variety said on its website.

She played a dizzy secretary in an episode of the original Star Trek and became a regular singer and dancer on The Sonny And Cher Show.

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In her autobiography, Speedbumps: Flooring It Through Hollywood, published in 2005, she complained of being typecast as a ditzy woman, Variety said.

In 1993, Garr married building contractor John O’Neil, and that same year, in November, they were present when their adopted daughter Molly O’Neil was born.

The couple divorced three years later.

She is survived by her daughter, and a grandson, Tyryn.

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Trump pick Matt Gaetz withdraws from consideration to be US attorney general

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Trump pick Matt Gaetz withdraws from consideration to be US attorney general

Donald Trump ally Matt Gaetz has withdrawn his name from consideration to be the next US attorney general.

Mr Gaetz, a controversial pick to be the country’s top legal official, said his selection was “unfairly becoming a distraction” to the transition of Mr Trump’s administration into the White House.

The Florida Republican had faced significant scrutiny over a federal investigation into sex trafficking allegations involving a 17-year-old girl.

He said in a post on the X social media platform: “There is no time to waste on a needlessly protracted Washington scuffle, thus I’ll be withdrawing my name from consideration to serve as attorney general. Trump’s DOJ (Department of Justice) must be in place and ready on Day 1.

“I remain fully committed to seeing that Donald Trump is the most successful president in history. I will forever be honoured that President Trump nominated me to lead the Department of Justice and I’m certain he will Save America.”

Mr Trump said in a post on his own social media site, Truth Social, that Mr Gaetz had a “wonderful future”.

“I greatly appreciate the recent efforts of Matt Gaetz in seeking approval to be Attorney General,” he wrote.

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“He was doing very well but, at the same time, did not want to be a distraction for the administration, for which he has much respect.”

Mr Gaetz previously faced a nearly three-year Justice Department investigation into sex trafficking allegations involving a 17-year-old girl, which ended in February 2023 without him facing any criminal charges.

He has always denied the allegations.

He has also been under scrutiny by the House Ethics Committee over wider allegations including sexual misconduct, illicit drug use and accepting improper gifts.

The inquiry was dropped on Wednesday 13 November when Mr Gaetz left Congress – the only forum where the committee has jurisdiction.

The Senate ethics committee is deadlocked on whether their report can be released.

Mr Gaetz’s withdrawal is a blow to Mr Trump’s push to install steadfast loyalists in his incoming administration and the first sign that he could face resistance from members of his own party.

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Dad who called 911 for help during break-in killed by Las Vegas police officer

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Dad who called 911 for help during break-in killed by Las Vegas police officer

A 43-year-old man was shot dead by police after calling 911 to report intruders had entered his home in Las Vegas.

Brandon Durham was at home with his 15-year-old daughter when he called the emergency line to report armed intruders were trying to break into his property on 12 November.

Bodycam footage shows Mr Durham struggling with a person over a knife in the moments before he was shot and killed at the scene.

“The loss of life in any type of incident like this is always tragic, and it’s something we take very seriously,” Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Assistant Sheriff Dori Koren said on Thursday.

The force is investigating the incident.

Mr Durham called 911 to report multiple people were outside shooting at his residence in Las Vegas’ Sunset Park neighbourhood, where he had been staying with his 15-year-old daughter, Sky News’ US partner network NBC reports.

It was one of multiple emergency calls reporting a shooting in the area.

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Mr Durham then said someone had managed to get into his home through the front and back doors of the property and he was locking himself in the bathroom, according to a police statement from 14 November, two days after the incident.

Officers reported to the scene at approximately 12:40am and could hear screaming from inside the residence.

One of the officers, Alexander Bookman, kicked open the front door and once inside, saw Mr Durham and another individual, later identified as 31-year-old Alejandra Boudreaux, struggling over a knife in a doorway.

Mr Bookman ordered them to drop the knife and about two seconds later, the officer fired the gun and Mr Durham appeared to be struck, the bodycam footage shows.

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Both Mr Durham and Mr Boudreaux fell to the ground and the officer fired another five shots. Roughly three seconds are believed to have gone by between the first and last shot, NBC reports.

Attempts were made to save the 43-year-old but he died at the scene.

Ms Boudreaux was taken into custody and is facing charges of home invasion with a deadly weapon; assault with a deadly weapon domestic violence; willful or wanton disregard of safety of persons resulting in death; and child abuse, neglect or endangerment.

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Homeless man charged in plot to bomb New York Stock Exchange

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Homeless man charged in plot to bomb New York Stock Exchange

A homeless man has been arrested and charged over a plot to bomb the New York Stock Exchange.

The 30-year-old man from Florida, Harun Abdul-Malik Yener, was arrested on Wednesday and charged with attempting to use an explosive device to damage or destroy a building used in interstate commerce, having unveiled some of his plans to undercover agents, according to the FBI.

They began investigating Yener in February based on a tip that he was holding “bomb-making schematics” in a storage unit.

Bomb-making sketches, many watches with timers, electronic circuit boards and other electronics that could be used for building explosive devices were found, the FBI said.

It also said he told undercover FBI agents that he wanted to detonate the bomb the week before Thanksgiving and that the stock exchange in lower Manhattan would be a popular site to target, and that doing so “will wake people up”.

An agent also allegedly recorded him saying: “I feel like Bin Laden.”

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He described how he hoped the bomb would “reboot” the US government, explaining that it would be “like a small nuke went off,” killing everyone inside the building, according to court documents.

The documents also claim he had rewired two-way radios so that they could work as remote triggers for an explosive device and planned to wear a disguise when planting the explosives.

Yener, who had also searched online for things related to bomb-making since 2017, was sacked from his job at a restaurant in Florida last year after his former supervisor said he threatened to “go Parkland shooter in this place”, the FBI added.

He had his first court appearance Wednesday afternoon and will be detained while he awaits a trial.

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