From CNN, Los Angeles Times, Reuters:

Actress Terri Garr, the Oscar-nominated star of movies like “Tootsie,” “Young Frankenstein” and “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” says she was “shunned” by many people after her diagnosis with multiple sclerosis almost ten years ago. Then, two years ago, she had a brain aneurysm.

Now Garr’s back on the big screen with a performance in the just-released “Expired,” in which she plays twins. She’s got a lot to say about her life as an actress with disabilities.

“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,” Garr said in a recent interview. “Now, I take nothing for granted. But I find the real disability is people who can’t find joy in life and are bitter.”

… Garr wrote about her experiences with MS in the 2005 book “Speedbumps” (her original title for it was “Does This Wheelchair Make Me Look Fat?”) and worked tirelessly for the National MS Society, touring the country and talking about living with MS.

(Los Angeles Times photo)

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 27th, 2008 at 6:14 am and is filed under celebrities, chronic illness, movies, multiple sclerosis. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.