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!).
E. Denise Simmons
E. Denise Simmons is the mayor of Cambridge, Massachusetts and the first openly lesbian African-American mayor in the country. Simmons has been deeply committed to civic engagement in her home city of Cambridge throughout her life. As Cambridge City Councilor, she led the formation of the city’s LGBT Commission, a 14-member advocacy group. During her 10 years on the Cambridge School Committee, Simmons acted as family liaison to the LGBT community, bridging the gap between schools and LGBT families. She is also a small business owner and a justice of the peace. “I provide tangible evidence of what a lesbian, a woman, a person of color or even what a parent going it alone can do,” she says. –JB
In no particular order…
