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!).
Becky Donohue
If you think Becky Donohue is an angry comic, you’re missing the point. But that happens. “I think it’s more palatable for audiences when women comics are nice,” she says. “I’m definitely a woman who screams a lot—in a good way.” Her less-than-ladylike approach hasn’t kept her from success, however. With appearances on Comedy Central’s Premium Blend and Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn, and as a commentator on TLC’s Trading Spaces, Donohue has reached far beyond her New York City home base. She has worked as a fashion police commentator for US Weekly and Life & Style, and was nominated for Best Standup Comic at the 2008 MAC Awards. Her first CD, Partly Yelling with a Chance of Breakdown, was released in 2006. The Comedian magazine calls her “a comic who has found her voice and leaves nothing to the imagination.” –LL
In no particular order…
