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!).
Lauren LoGiudice
Actor Lauren LoGiudice, a Queens native, performs regularly at the immensely popular “Victoria” party at New York’s famed Stonewall Inn. In addition to the one-woman show she’s been working on, she plays piano, speaks Swahili and is honing her improv comedy skills at the People’s Improv Theater. Now that’s what we call a real renaissance woman. All of this, however, is ancillary to her main ambition: to rock the big and small screens. “Right now I’m incredibly focused and work extremely hard, because I know that when I focus all my energy on something, it happens.” Add that ambition and focus to LoGiudice’s natural beauty and talent and you’ve got a recipe for success. Just remember, you heard about her here first. -MF
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