Lily Tomlin

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Lily Tomlin
Birth name Mary Jean Tomlin
Born September 1 1939 (1939-09-01) (age 69)
Detroit, Michigan, U.S.
Official site www.LilyTomlin.com

Lily Tomlin (born September 1, 1939) is an Academy Award-nominated American actress, comedian, writer and producer. Tomlin's body of work, which has spanned over 40 years, has garnered her several Tony Awards and Emmy Awards, as well as a Grammy Award.

Contents

[edit] Biography

[edit] Early life

Tomlin was born Mary Jean Tomlin in Detroit, Michigan, daughter of Lillie Mae (née Ford), a housewife and nurse's aide who moved to Detroit from Paducah, Kentucky during the Great Depression, and Guy Tomlin, a factory worker.[1] She is a 1957 graduate of Cass Technical High School. Tomlin attended Wayne State University, where her interest in the theater and performing arts began. After college, Tomlin began doing stand-up comedy in nightclubs in Detroit and later, in New York City. Her first television appearance was on The Merv Griffin Show in 1965.

[edit] Career

Image:Lily Tomlin--Hair helmet.jpg
Lily Tomlin in a Laugh-In publicity photo.

In 1969, Tomlin joined the sketch comedy show Laugh-In. Her characters from the show have been associated with her throughout her career, including the gum-chewing, wisecracking, snorting telephone operator Ernestine, the bratty five-year-old Edith Ann, rocking in her oversized rocking chair, making rude noises, and telling stories about her baby brother and her dog, Buster, and the Tasteful Lady, who lives a gracious and naively entitled life in the upper class and shades of whom show up in Tomlin's film role in All of Me (see below). Additional characters include Susie the Sorority Girl, who appeared on Tomlin's album Modern Scream and in her 1975 appearance on Saturday Night Live.

AT&T offered Tomlin $500,000 to film a commercial using her character Ernestine, but Tomlin declined because she thought it would compromise her artistic integrity. About that same time, however, she did star as Ernestine in a parody of a commercial on a Saturday Night Live in 1976, in which she proclaimed, "We don't care, we don't have to...we're the phone company." In 2003 she made two commercials as Ernestine for WebEx. The character would later make a guest appearance at The Superhighway Summit at UCLA, January 11, 1994, interrupting a speech being given on the information superhighway by then-Vice President Al Gore.

Tomlin is noted for her versatility. For example, in Robert Altman's Nashville, for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, she played Linnea Reese, a strait-laced, gospel-singing mother of two deaf children who has an affair with a country singer played by Keith Carradine, who sings I'm Easy for her in a crowded nightclub. She was also secretary Violet Newstead in Nine to Five, performed several roles in the 1981 comedy film The Incredible Shrinking Woman, and was a sickly heiress in the Steve Martin comedy All of Me.

She and Bette Midler played two pairs of identical twins who were switched at birth in the 1989 comedy Big Business, set at the Plaza Hotel in New York City. Tomlin also played chain-smoking waitress Doreen Piggott in Altman's 1993 ensemble film Short Cuts, and, in two films by director David O. Russell, she appeared as a peacenik Raku artist in Flirting with Disaster and later, as an existential detective in I ♥ Huckabees.

Tomlin voiced Ms. Frizzle on the animated television series The Magic School Bus from 1994 to 1998. Also, in the 1990s, Tomlin appeared on the popular sitcom Murphy Brown as the title character's boss. In 2005 and 2006, she had a recurring role as Will Truman's boss Margot on Will & Grace. She starred on the dramatic series The West Wing for four years, between 2002 and the series' end in 2006, in the recurring role of presidential secretary Deborah Fiderer.

Tomlin starred in the hit 1985 one-woman Broadway show The Search For Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe, written by her long-time life partner, Jane Wagner. The show won Tomlin a Tony Award, and was made into a feature film in 1991. The text of the play is available in book form under the same name, in both paperback and hardcover.[2] Tomlin revived the show for a brief run in 2000. In 1989, she won the Sarah Siddons Award for her work in Chicago theatre.

Tomlin recently collaborated again with director Robert Altman, starring in the film A Prairie Home Companion, playing half of a middle-aged Midwestern singing duo with Meryl Streep.

[edit] I ♥ Huckabees controversy

Two heated, profane clips of Tomlin clashing with director David O. Russell during the filming of I ♥ Huckabees were posted to YouTube in March 2007 and briefly caused an internet sensation. When asked to comment by the Miami New Times she replied, “Adults have fights and go through stuff...I know some people are more dignified in the world, that if you transgress against that kind of professionalism, that it’s some kind of great sin, but I don’t see it that way.” She said the arguments with Russell were “in a way liberating…now it’s all over, and so what, and I don’t have to keep up some great pretention I’m the most dignified, eloquent, elegant, perfect, smart-thinking, kind, generous person. I’m just a plain old human with a whole bunch of flaws...After poor Britney Spears, with her poor little legs open...I’m not the least bit upset about it. That’s part of the upside and the downside of the Internet.”[3]

[edit] Personal life

Before she officially "came out," she was known for her involvement in feminist and gay-friendly film productions, and would often refer to her girlfriend, writer/producer Jane Wagner. On her 1975 album Modern Scream she mocked straight actors who make a point of distancing themselves from their gay characters; answering the pseudo-interview question, How did it feel to play a heterosexual? she replied, I've seen these women all my life, I know how they walk, I know how they talk ... . Her narration of the documentary The Celluloid Closet in 1995, a film examining Hollywood's portrayals of gays and lesbians, was also largely considered a nod to the open secret of her orientation.

[edit] Awards

Tomlin has received numerous awards, including: six Emmys; a Tony for her one woman Broadway show, Appearing Nitely; a second Tony as Best Actress, Drama Desk Award and Outer Critics Circle Award for her one woman performance in Jane Wagner’s The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe; a CableACE Award for Executive Producing the film adaptation of The Search; a Grammy Award for her comedy album, This is a Recording as well as nominations for her subsequent albums Modern Scream, And That's the Truth, and On Stage; and two Peabody Awards — the first for the ABC television special, Edith Ann’s Christmas: Just Say Noël and the second for narrating and executive producing the HBO film, The Celluloid Closet.

Tomlin was inducted into the Michigan Women's Hall of Fame in 1998. In 2003 she was awarded the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor.

Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play

Special Tony Award

  • 1977

Emmy Award for Outstanding Variety, Music or Comedy Program

  • 1981 Lily: Sold Out

Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing in a Comedy-Variety or Music Special

Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album

  • 1972 This Is A Recording

[edit] Filmography

Year Title Role Notes
1969 Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In Ernestine, the telephone operator; five -year old Edith Ann; tasteful lady; other characters
1975 Nashville Linnea Reese Academy Award nomination - Best Supporting Actress
1977 The Late Show Margo Sperling
1978 Moment by Moment Trisha Rawlings
1980 9 to 5 Violet Newstead
1981 The Incredible Shrinking Woman Pat Kramer/Judith Beasley
1984 All of Me Edwina Cutwater
1988 Big Business Rose Ratliff/Rose Shelton
1991 The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe Various Roles
1992 Shadows and Fog Prostitute
1993 The Beverly Hillbillies Miss Jane Hathaway
And the Band Played On Dr. Selma Dritz
Short Cuts Doreen Piggot
1995 Blue in the Face Waffle eater
1996 Getting Away with Murder Inga Mueller
Flirting with Disaster Mary Schlichting
1996-98 Murphy Brown Kay Carter-Shepley
1998 Krippendorf's Tribe Prof. Ruth Allen
1999 Tea with Mussolini Georgie Rockwell
2000 The Kid Janet
2002-06 The West Wing Deborah Fiderer
2002 Orange County Charlotte Cobb
2004 I Heart Huckabees Vivian
2006 The Ant Bully Mommo Voice
A Prairie Home Companion Rhonda Johnson

[edit] References

Image:Wikiquote-logo-en.svg
Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:
Lily Tomlin
  1. ^ http://www.filmreference.com/film/5/Lily-Tomlin.html
  2. ^ Wagner, Jane (1986). The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe, Hardcover, Harper & Row. ASIN 1986. 
  3. ^ Houston, Frank. "Lily Tomlin Reacts to Leaked Videos", Miami New Times, 22 March 2007. Retrieved on 2007-03-27. 

[edit] External links

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