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
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Hats off to the 100 Women We Love, class of 2008 (in no particular order, ’cause we love ’em all!).
Urvashi Vaid
Urvashi Vaid is a community organizer, attorney and Executive Director of the Arcus Foundation, which works towards achieving social justice for everyone, regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity or race, and ensuring conservation and respect of the great apes. Vaid took over leadership of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force’s Policy Institute in 1989, went on hiatus for five years and wrote Virtual Equality: The Mainstreaming of Gay and Lesbian Liberation, then resumed her work at the NGLTF for three more years as executive director. She is a writer, editor, lecturer and partner to political humorist and author Kate Clinton. Vaid holds degrees from Vassar College and Northeastern University School of Law and an Honorary Degree from City University of New York, Queens College of Law. –JB
In no particular order…
