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Speedbumps: Flooring it Through Hollywood
Teri Garr
At once laugh-out-loud funny and remarkably down-to-earth, the popular Oscar- nominated actress muses about movies, men, motherhood, and MS in a book that is both Hollywood hilarious and personally moving
Hudson Street Press
November 2005
Featuring: Teri Garr
256 pages ISBN: 1594630070 Hardcover
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Non-Fiction Memoir
From Speedbumps:
I was originally up for the principal female role in
Young Frankenstein. Mel Brooks was directing. He had just
finished Blazing Saddles, and was at the top of the comedy
world. Mel had picked me out of five hundred girls, but admitted
that he was still trying to convince Madeline Kahn to take
the lead role. After I auditioned three times, Madeline
finally did decide to take the part of the fiancée. I was crushed. I’d never come so close to getting a major
part in a major movie. But then Mel told me that if I came
back the next day with a German accent I could read for the
part of Inga, Gene Wilder’s buxom lab assistant. A German accent in twenty-four hours? Luckily, I was still
on The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour, and, as fate would have
it, Cher’s wig stylist was German. So, I sat in on Cher’s
hairstyling session (that gave me hours of study!) and
emerged with a perfect German accent when saying, "Mein
Gott, zis vig veighs forty pounds." That would translate to
the script! There was one last thing I needed for Inga. Or two,
actually. I realized Inga’s part was really all about the
boobs, so the next day I went in to the audition wearing a
bra stuffed with socks. People pay over five thousand
dollars for a boob job today. Mine cost under five dollars
at Woolworth’s, and got me the part, my biggest to date. I was thrilled. I’d been chosen by one of the best. My
career was finally in motion. I got to thinking that I should have stuffed my bra with
socks for every audition. In The New Yorker, the late, great film critic
Pauline Kael called Garr, "the funniest neurotic dizzy
dame."
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