lily tomlin has accomplished quite a ton
in her decades-long career including
playing a surprisingly significant role
in the origins of one of the most iconic
tv shows of all time this is the untold
truth of a showbiz original
for much of her career lily tomlin's
sexual orientation was the worst kept
secret in hollywood as she and her now
wife jane wagner have been a couple
since the early 70s whenever the topic
was broached publicly tomlin typically
deflected it with humor during a 1973
appearance on the tonight show for
example host johnny carson mentioned to
her you're very attractive yet you've
never married to which she responded
well you've done it a few times how is
it working out and in 1999 tomlin told
the denver gay newspaper out front i
never officially came out in any kind of
really public way i just always lived
very simply and openly during a 2019
appearance on the ellen degeneres show
tomlin revealed that she had turned down
an offer to come out publicly on the
cover of time in 1975 in much the same
way that degeneres did in 1994. as
tomlin explained it was a hard decision
to make i fell down on the side of
probably after what you went through
probably good sense
one of lily tomlin's most legendary tv
appearances happened during a 1972 visit
to the dick cavett show the host asked
tomlin's fellow guest actor chad everett
if he owned any pets and he responded by
listing horses dogs and a wife everett
may have found his own joke amusing but
the audience didn't as they responded
with just a few sporadic chuckles but
then he doubled down by describing his
wife as the most beautiful animal i own
tomlin to put it mildly was taken aback
you own wow i have to leave
shortly after tomlin's abrupt exit
everett noted that her walk-off was
disturbing and expressed his desire that
she'd return she couldn't be serious
spoiler alert she was serious as she
later described the experience to the
new york times it was a perfectly pure
act i felt angels walked me off tomlin
also talked about the moment with the
san francisco chronicle as she insisted
that when she marched off the set she
wasn't angry as she put it i was in a
completely relaxed balanced kind of
state
in 1975 lily tomlin made her movie debut
in the robert altman directed nashville
as she played a gospel singer and mother
of two deaf children she made quite the
splash as the new york times praised her
spectacular dramatic debut and she even
garnered a best supporting actress oscar
nomination as she told the times in a
subsequent interview
she wasn't as surprised by her
nomination as those who had primarily
known her for the sketch series laughin
seemed to be as she put it i've always
been confident i should be in movies or
in any medium that i wanted to work in
tomlin didn't win that oscar as she lost
out to lee grant for shampoo and as of
2022 she hasn't been nominated again
nevertheless she has gone on to remain
relevant for a solid half century and
earned plenty of wins and nominations
from other awards bodies one of her most
notable recent acclaimed turns was in
the 2015 film grandma which netted her a
golden globe nomination she has a theory
for her enduring popularity as she told
showbiz 411 in 2015 i was never a movie
star
i was always a co-star
in 1977 lily tomlin made history on
broadway with the launch of her
one-woman show appearing nightly written
by jane wagner it was the first ever one
woman show to play on the great white
way as the journal of popular culture
described it lily tomlin's one woman
show defied easy categorization it
wasn't stand up it wasn't a play it
wasn't performance art instead it was a
collection of monologues the enactment
of characters the performance of
difference tomlin appeared on stage
alone with no props no set in simple
black slacks and a gray blouse that year
tomlin won a special tony award in honor
of her performance she later returned to
broadway in 1985 with a new show
entitled the search for signs of
intelligent life in the universe written
once again by wagner this production won
tomlin another tony this time for best
actress in a play then in 2000 she
mounted a revival of search which netted
her yet another tony as she admitted to
the morning call i love stage
performance most of all she also talked
about how her live performance style has
evolved as she noted over the years i've
gotten more relaxed informal and
hopefully funnier
lily tomlin was one of the first people
to ever host the sketch comedy
institution saturday night live as she
emceed the show's sixth ever episode on
november 22nd 1975 and it turns out that
her relationship with snl actually runs
far deeper as series creator lorne
michaels recalled in a 1979 interview
with rolling stone his entire path
changed when he met tomlin after leaving
his native toronto for los angeles as he
put it lily looked at my stuff from
canada and asked me to work with her she
was the first person i met who really
cared about quality and getting it all
right tomlin and michael's collaboration
resulted in lily an emmy-winning 1973 tv
special that led to two more also
co-produced by michaels those specials
grabbed the attention of mbc executive
dick ebersole who asked michaels to
develop a comedy show for a hip
intelligent audience and thus saturday
night live was born while speaking with
the new york times in 1976 michaels
praised tomlin for infusing her style
with a quote female aesthetic that
resulted in a type of comedy that hadn't
been done before as he put it
lily by refusing to be hostile by making
herself vulnerable is breaking the mold
a live 90-minute television show is not
exactly soothing to the central nervous
system
tomlin's oscar nomination for nashville
opened the door to a full-fledged movie
career but her third movie nearly
slammed that door shut written and
directed by her partner jane wagner the
1978 romantic drama moment by moment
paired tomlin with a young john travolta
who is hot off the success of saturday
night fever alas it proved to be an epic
bomb as it was hit with scathing reviews
and earned a measly 10.9 million dollars
at the box office the fallout was so
severe that tomlin and wagner considered
ending their creative partnership
as wagner told the morning call lily
could have blamed me and cut me loose
while both lead actors careers
subsequently rebounded tomlin has
continually expressed regret for moment
by moment as she told the los angeles
times in 1986 i made the wrong choice i
felt terrible i just done nashville i
didn't know myself i didn't know what to
do it was amazing to me that you could
pick up a magazine three or four years
later and still hear about it i felt for
jon too he's so sensitive
one of the most iconic moments of lily
tomlin's career happened when she
starred alongside jane fonda and dolly
parton in the iconic 1980 flick nine to
five the feminist revenge comedy is the
biggest box office hit in tomlin's
filmography and it also resulted in a
decades-long friendship between the
three leading ladies
as fonda revealed on the late show in
2017 she became hell-bent on getting
tomlin to co-star with her in nine to
five after seeing her broadway show
however it took a lot of convincing to
get her to sign on i didn't want to do a
cheap comedy
you're an artist you're an artist from
broadway
fonda ultimately succeeded as she
explained it took a year to convince her
and then after a week of shooting she
asked my producing partner to let her go
and she'd give the week's money back i'm
not kidding the reason for the hesitancy
was that tomlin saw early footage of her
performance and didn't feel confident in
her own work i was not doing a good job
and i thought oh this is i'm going to be
horrible in this
thankfully tomlin ultimately had a
change of heart when she saw the next
day's dailies and i was so good
35 years after working together in 9 to
5 lily tomlin reunited with jane fonda
for the netflix sitcom grace and frankie
they play the longtime frenemy title
characters who bond when their husbands
played by martin sheen and sam waterston
come out of the closet and leave them
for each other the show is met with
positive reviews and proved to be
popular enough to ultimately run for
seven seasons with the final batch of
episodes set to arrive in april 2022 it
will be a bittersweet moment for the
co-stars considering how close they've
become over the years in fact tomlin and
fonda are such good friends that they
even had the opportunity to discuss
their relationship for a ted talk as
tomlin revealed i look for someone who
has a sense of fun who's audacious who's
forthcoming who has politics who is even
a small scrap of passion for the planet
someone who's decent has a sense of
justice and who thinks i'm worthwhile
this sentiment garnered a round of
applause from the audience and then
fonda shared her perspective
i don't even know what i do without my
woman friends they make me stronger they
make me smarter they make me braver they
tap me on the shoulder when i might be
in need of course correcting
to say lily tomlin has won a few awards
in her day is like saying elon musk has
made a couple of bucks she's in fact one
of those rare performers who's just one
trophy away from the egot which refers
to winning at least one emmy grammy
oscar and tony as of 2022 tomlin has won
six emmys out of a whopping 25
nominations she also has one grammy for
her 1971 comedy album this is a
recording as well as three tonys
including two competitive trophies for
appearing nightly and the search for
signs of intelligent life in the
universe in addition to her one special
tony award alas she hasn't gotten the
love from oscar though she did nab a
nomination for nashville during a 2015
interview with the guardian tomlin
admitted that she would like to someday
win an academy award not just to
complete the egot but also as she put it
just because i'd like to make something
out of it she then declined to reveal
what exactly that something was as she
noted i don't want to tell you what i'd
like to do because then i won't be able
to do it
as a showbiz entity lily tomlin actually
consists of two people there's herself
and then there's her wife slash creative
partner jane wagner who has written
tomlin's material since the early 70s
while tomlin basks in the acclaim
wagoner prefers to remain in the
background i tried to protect her
from too much publicity
wagner did make a rare public appearance
in 2012 when the couple were jointly
honored with a star on the palm springs
walk of fame during their speeches
tomlin paid tribute to wagner as she
said i get credit for everything people
think i should be a un ambassador i
don't know what else they think i'm so
smart but the brainy stuff really comes
from her but she also made sure to
jokingly add she's willing to forego
that acknowledgement just so she can
sleep late tomlin discussed wagner more
seriously in a 2020 interview with
variety as she explained how wagner is
able to clearly elucidate tomlin's
feelings with words something todlin
struggles with as she put it she can
express in words what i feel about the
world about humans about the struggle
that we're in and presumably not the
inevitability of it all something that i
know speaks to other people check out
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