the rix mix

I've always loved Teri Garr. I first noticed her playing an incredulous 20th Century secretary on a Star Trek episode from 1968, stealing every scene she was in. She looked familiar, & later I learned she had been a dancer in Pajama Party & some Elvis movies. Her many appearances on the old Late Night with David Letterman in the 1980's were screwball highlights. One night, he coerced her into going to a dressing room & taking a shower on camera. Last night she wobbled unsteadily out on the stage of the Ed Sullivan Theater, slowed by MS & from a brain aneurysm 18 months ago, both her hands & one arm clearly not working well, helped to the guest chair by Letterman, who cracked that it gave him a chance to touch her " inappropriately." They are fond of each other. Once seated , Teri was funny & beautiful as always, a sharp intelligence behind the ditzy blonde image she's done well with over the years. She was in town promoting her new movie. She still refuses to answer questions about Elvis, but that was all tabloid stuff anyway. The "secret" about Elvis is that he was frightened by intimacy with the grownup young women he worked with in Hollywood but apparently treated them with good Southern manners, & decades after he passed they continue to repay him with respect. Teri said that she'd actually had a thing with Letterman, lifting her forearm erect.

Labels: culture