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!).
Judy Francesconi
Photographer Judy Francesconi started her career by photographing dance companies, which uncovered her unique gift for capturing the kinetic sensuality of bodies. Today, she creates portraits of lesbian couples through her “Women with Women” series. These mostly-nude shots are evocative, artful and totally hot. Asked how she found her niche, Francesconi sagely answers, “A broken heart is a great motivator and sometimes necessary for the creative process.” If only all broken hearts produced such lovely symptoms. Her “greatest desire at the moment is to shoot private portrait sessions of every lesbian couple out there.” Ambitious, maybe, but what couple wouldn’t benefit from Francesconi’s uncanny ability to “reflect their love and intimacy back to them”? –MF
In no particular order…
