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!).
Dana Sherwood
As a business manager of global technology at Merrill Lynch, Dana Sherwood maintains cutting-edge client service. As co-leader of the company’s LGBT Professional Network, she advocates for Merrill Lynch’s gay and lesbian personnel and recruits LGBT employees to promote diversity and meritocracy at the storied financial powerhouse. In New York’s financial district and elsewhere, LGBT recruitment is a movement on the rise. “It’s been widespread across Wall Street, and it’s still growing,” says Sherwood, who was honored last year with a Merrill Lynch Leadership, Diversity and Inclusion Award. This Pride month, Sherwood went to the floor of the New York Stock Exchange to perform the coveted honor of ringing the opening bell. “I am an example of a gay woman who has moved up through leadership experience within the Network,” she says. –CL
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