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!).
Barbara Hammer
California-native Barbara Hammer may just be the originator of experimental queer/feminist film. In her 30-year career, she’s made more than 80 films about subjects such as lesbian sexuality, female orgasm, menstruation and now, cancer and hope in A Horse is Not a Metaphor, which premieres at the Frameline International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival this June. Her films Optic Nerve (1985), Endangered (1988) and Nitrate Kisses (1992) were each selected for the Whitney Museum of American Art Biennials in their respective years. In addition to making films, Hammer teaches each summer at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland. She continues to be inspired by “the numerous, energetic lesbian, queer, transgendered, gay, and intersexed people who have picked up the camera and shared their own visions through the Internet and queer film festivals,” she says. “It’s great to be a grand dame and surviving, thriving pioneer!” –KL
In no particular order…
