| Lily Tomlin  AKA Mary Jean Tomlin
Born: 1-Sep-1939
Birthplace: Detroit, MI
Gender: Female
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Lesbian [1]
Occupation: Actor, Comic
Party Affiliation: Democratic Nationality: United States
Executive summary: Laugh-In Lily Tomlin is a comedian and actress. She first shot to fame in 1970 when she joined the cast of the slapstick sketch show Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In. Her most well-known characters include Ernestine (the "One ringy dingy, two ringy dingy..." telephone operator) and Edith Ann (the precocious child).
Her movies include Robert Altman's Nashville and Short Cuts, Nine to Five with Jane Fonda and Dolly Parton, All of Me with Steve Martin, Big Business with Bette Midler, Flirting with Disaster with Ben Stiller, and I Heart Huckabees with Dustin Hoffman. She also narrated and executive produced The Celluloid Closet, the 1995 documentary on how homosexuality has been portrayed in Hollywood films. On TV, Tomlin played Candice Bergen's boss on the last two seasons on Murphy Brown, the voice of Ms. Frizzle on The Magic School Bus, and Martin Sheen's secretary on The West Wing (after Mrs. Landingham died).
Tomlin's 1986 one-woman show, The Search for Signs of Inteligent (sic) Life in the Universe, was a long-running critical success. It won Tomlin a Tony, and was made into a film in 1991. On at least several occasions during its Broadway run, Tomlin donned disguises and chatted incognito with the crowds on the sidewalk lined up to get in. Like most of Tomlin's comedy act since the early 1970s, it was written by her long-time writer and lover, Jane Wagner. Wagner also wrote Tomlin's films Moment by Moment and The Incredible Shrinking Woman, and contributed to several of Tomlin's TV specials.
Her 1973 CBS-TV special, Lily, included a controversial sketch in which Tomlin and Richard Pryor answered a race-related questionnaire. The show ended with Tomlin and Pryor kissing, a startling black-and-white moment on national TV in 1973. Despite high ratings, the special was never rerun.
Tomlin studied under Charles Nelson Reilly, who, when he wasn't playing a prancing goofball on TV, was also a well-respected acting coach.
[1] "I never officially came out in any kind of really public way. I just always lived very simply and openly, but the press has never made a big fuss about me or said anything to me... In some ways I don't even identify myself in any kind of limited way. I don't want to. I wish none of us had to. I wish we were just people."Father: Guy Tomlin (factory worker; d. 1973)
Mother: Lillie Mae Ford Tomlin (nurse's aide)
Brother: Richard Tomlin
Girlfriend: Jane Wagner (writer, co-habitating since the early 1970s)
High School: Cass Technical High School, Detroit, MI (1957)
University: Wayne State University, Detroit, MI (dropped out)
Amnesty International
EMILY's List
Gore 2000
Hillary Clinton for President
John Kerry for President
MoveOn.org
Obama for America
Grammy
Tony
Kentucky Colonel
TELEVISION
The West Wing Deborah Fiderer
Murphy Brown Kay Carter Shepley
Laugh-In
FILMOGRAPHY AS ACTOR
The Walker (13-Feb-2007)
The Ant Bully (28-Jul-2006) [VOICE]
A Prairie Home Companion (12-Feb-2006)
I Heart Huckabees (10-Sep-2004)
Orange County (7-Jan-2002)
The Kid (25-Jun-2000)
Tea with Mussolini (26-Mar-1999)
Get Bruce (24-Jan-1999) Herself
Krippendorf's Tribe (27-Feb-1998)
Getting Away with Murder (12-Apr-1996)
Flirting with Disaster (22-Mar-1996)
Blue in the Face (15-Sep-1995)
The Celluloid Closet (13-Sep-1995) Narrator
The Beverly Hillbillies (15-Oct-1993)
Short Cuts (1-Oct-1993)
And the Band Played On (11-Sep-1993)
The Player (3-Apr-1992) Herself
Shadows and Fog (30-Mar-1992)
The Search for Signs of Inteligent Life in the Universe (8-Sep-1991)
Big Business (10-Jun-1988)
All of Me (21-Sep-1984)
The Incredible Shrinking Woman (30-Jan-1981)
Nine to Five (19-Dec-1980)
Moment by Moment (22-Dec-1978)
The Late Show (Jun-1977)
Nashville (11-Jun-1975)
Official Website:
http://www.lilytomlin.com/
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