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!).
Mary Connelly
“I believe the LGBT community continues to inform and inspire much of what makes it to the runway,” says Mary Connelly, American Fashion Director of Vogue Magazine. A native New Yorker, Connelly started her career in advertising at Out Magazine, where she worked on fashion accounts. “This was back in 1992 when only alcohol advertisers were marketing to the gay community,” she recalls. “But we made great strides, and obviously, much has changed in the cultural landscape regarding marketing to gay and lesbian people.” Connelly, who has worked at Vogue for three years, predicts positive change for the LGBT community. “I think that we have become less divisive over time,” she says, “and that as we make progress, for example with states recognizing our unions, we will see a seismic shift in the next generation.” –CL
In no particular order…
