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!).
Senator Sheila Kuehl
In 2000, California State Senator Sheila Kuehl became the first openly gay or lesbian person to be elected to her position, and the first woman to be named speaker pro tempore of the Assembly. When there was little or no precedent, she worked to add protections against discrimination in schools on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. The bill was struck down three times in a row, until a shift occurred in 1999: “I saw how personal the work is to all of us who serve in legislatures,” she recalls. “Everyone, virtually without exception, talked about their families and friends, a brother who had died of AIDS, a sister who had been beaten for being perceived as a lesbian, though she wasn’t…story after story. I felt both the burden and the privilege of being the first gay person elected to
our legislature, and a deep connection to our community.” –JB
In no particular order…
