Lily Tomlin
Gifted comedienne and writer; star of stage and screen.
Lily Tomlin is a multi-talented performer and writer who began delighting television audiences in 1969 as a featured performer on the kaleidoscopic TV comedy show, “Laugh In”.
A gifted comedienne and actress, Tomlin created a memorable gallery of characters during her various stints on TV in the late 1960s and 70s, including the snide telephone operator, Ernestine, and the mischievous child, Edith Ann.
In 1975, she made a justly acclaimed dramatic film debut as the mother of two deaf children who has a brief affair with a womanizing country singer (Keith Carradine) in Robert Altman’s penetrating “Nashville” (1975). Her subsequent film work includes performances in Robert Benton’s offbeat mystery, “The Late Show” (1977), the title role in Joel Schumacher’s underrated comedy, “The Incredible Shrinking Woman” (1981), and in the employee’s revenge fantasy farce, “Nine to Five” (1980).
She showcased her remarkable energy, versatility and talent as a sketch performer in the award-winning, one-woman Broadway show, “The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe” (1986), which she committed to film in 1991. Her feature career was revitalized when she received raves for her recreation of Nancy Kulp’s Miss Hathaway in the hit film version of “The Beverly Hillbillies” (1993) and stood out among the ensemble of another Robert Altman panorama, “Short Cuts” (1993).
Tomlin narrated the acclaimed documentary “The Celluloid Closet” (1995), about Hollywood’s portrayal of gay and lesbian characters,” and in 1996, won praise for her portrayal of an aging hippie who is also Ben Stiller’s birth mother in “Flirting With Disaster.” That same year, she returned to series TV joining the cast of the CBS sitcom “Murphy Brown” as Candice Bergen’s new boss. Most recently, she can be seen on the hit television drama, “The West Wing.”