100 WOMEN WE LOVE 2008
Lily Tomlin’s extraordinary career as a funny lady bloomed on the TV show Laugh-In in 1969, the year of the Stonewall rebellion. Fittingly, she has woven feminism and LGBT life into her characters—the not-so-hardworking phone operator Ernestine, Violet Newstead in 9 to 5 and the numerous personas populating The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe, the one-woman play written by Tomlin’s partner Jane Wagner, for which Tomlin won a Tony Award. She was also nominated for an Academy Award for her turn as Linnea Reese in Robert Altman’s Nashville, played recurring roles on TV shows from Murphy Brown to The West Wing, and has won six Emmys, a Grammy, and a Lifetime Achievement Tony Award in 1977. Tomlin, who has called Wagner the most influential person in her life and career, narrated 1995’s landmark LGBT documentary The Celluloid Closet. –KL
In no particular order…
Hats off to the 100 Women We Love, class of 2008 (in no particular order, ’cause we love ’em all!).
Deak Evengenikos
Actor Deak Evengenikos could have made this list solely on the basis of her character’s name in Jamie Babbit’s The Itty Bitty Titty Committee: “Meat.” The film is a coming-of-age story with a few twists on the standard: A teenage lesbian leaves her job at a plastic surgeon’s office to join the radical feminist group CIA (Clits in Action). Meat is CIA’s artsy member. “I wish there was a movie like it when I was coming of age,” says the New Jersey native and Sarah Lawrence grad. “In the future, I see queer film diversifying…” she adds. “I see the diversity of the community being fully represented.” With the kind of projects she has an eye for, this could happen sooner rather than later. –MF
In no particular order…
