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!).
Randi Weingarten
United Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten has devoted her career helping others. “I am proud…to provide children the educational opportunity and educators and other hardworking adults the economic opportunity they so richly deserve,” she says. Her mission has included promoting the professional growth of teachers and other educators, advocating for students and union members and expanding outreach to students and their parents. “I think it’s fair to say that I’ve been able to shake up the establishment a bit toward these goals,” she adds. Weingarten is also a vice president of the American Federation of Teachers and the New York City Central Labor Council and heads the city’s Municipal Labor Committee, an umbrella organization for 100-plus city unions. –JB
In no particular order…
