SPEEDBUMPS: FLOORING IT THROUGH HOLLYWOOD, by Teri Garr with Henriette Mantel, Hudson Street Press, 244 pages, $23.95.

There are few actresses who have exuded the warmth and wit of Teri Garr, a strong, charismatic presence in movies and television since the late '60s. Her memoir, "Speedbumps," is intended partly to tell her interesting story of life in Hollywood and partly to talk about her years of struggle with MS.

It was only three years ago that she went public with her diagnosis of multiple sclerosis, but she suspected it more than 20 years ago. In fact, she pegs its beginnings to a time when she dropped a bottle of champagne and a shard of glass sliced the top of her foot, severing a tendon. She was convinced that something strange had happened — just as many others with MS believe it begins with some traumatic experience.

In 1983, Garr began to stumble for no apparent reason, and she needed a lot more sleep to keep her from fatigue. She also noticed that heat bothered her much more than it should. After Dustin Hoffman told her sitting in the sauna would help her lose five pounds, she spent a full 45 minutes taking a steam bath. "The sauna made me so weak I could barely walk, but I told myself that was normal. . . . Today I know that the absolute worst thing for MS is heat."

After that, she had ringing in her ears ("before cell phones"), and her right arm started to tingle. "It felt like a knife was stabbing me in the arm. But then, I was in Central Park, so maybe it was a knife." She said her body had suddenly become "a discordant symphony."

When she finally went to a neurologist, he told her she had a "degenerative nerve disease of the spine." He prescribed lots of Valium. Then he moved on to a strange device — he strapped a rope over a door with pulleys and sandbags on one side, and put Garr with the rope around her neck on the other side. It was ridiculous — reminiscent of "medieval torture." Garr said that she was actually working on her "next role as a giraffe."

According to Garr, "MS is to disease what Enron is to accounting. No rules. It's a big fat cheater." Her next problem was walking as if she were favoring her right leg — and eventually she got a brace for the leg. The doctor told her she would have to wear longer skirts.

Garr's response was, "You mean you're telling me, Teri Garr, known primarily for my great legs, that I have to cover them up?" Her advice to readers is to never take walking for granted.

A friend of Garr's was responsible for circulating a rumor that she had MS even before she had been diagnosed. The result was that the job market for films took a nosedive.

As Garr describes all of these unsettling developments in her book, she consistently cultivates a cheery, witty tone.

Along the way she talks about many of her movies and her experience on television. Her multiple guest stints on David Letterman's talk show made her a household name. She describes a show Letterman did from his office, during which he goaded Garr into taking a shower in the bathroom next door, and she compares Letterman to her little brothers. "They'd say, 'Go drop this soda off the roof.' I'd refuse, but they'd keep at it until I caved. I had the same dynamic with Dave, and I knew he wouldn't shut up about the shower until I relented.

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"Dave had won. He'd beaten me down, and across America every guy who'd ever tried to talk a girl into doing something she didn't want to do must have felt a small sense of victory."

That's not funny — it's profound. And possibly one of the things that turned Garr into a feminist.

This is a great book — although there are times when the reader may wish she would be just a little more serious about something that is very scary for all who have or might get MS.


E-mail: dennis@desnews.com

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