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!).
Beth Ditto (middle)
If you’ve been to a dyke bar in the past few years, you’ve probably danced to one of The Gossip’s infectious tracks featuring Beth Ditto’s tough, soulful belt. But her sound has transcended those haunts; The Gossip’s last studio album, Standing in the Way of Control, reached dance floors clear across the pond, hitting number one on the British indie chart. Along with band mates Brace Paine and Hannah Blilie, Ditto has toured with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, the White Stripes, and Sonic Youth (to name a few), as well as the 2007 True Colors Tour benefiting the Human Rights Campaign. This April, they released Live in Liverpool, a 2007 concert recording that captures the intensity of their blistering live sets. Ditto has been lauded as a voluptuous, feminist, lesbian pin-up, posing on the cover of the British music paper NME in nothing but her tattoos and a lipstick kiss on her ass. –KL
In no particular order…
