Tomlin Is Always A Classic
By Stan Jenson
An automobile is deemed a classic if it is still in demand after 20 years. By that token, Lily Tomlin becomes a “double classic” this year, 40 years after rising to world fame with Laugh In. Tomlin performs
“An Evening of Classic Lily Tomlin”
at the Orange County Performing Arts Center on March 6, and she seems to being going stronger than ever.
Growing up in a housing project in Detroit,
Mary Jean Tomlin loved observing the various characters in her neighborhood.
At night, she would regale her family
with impersonations of the people she had seen that morning, and she glowed when her parents laughed. While enrolled at Wayne State University, she entered a college talent show. She created the character
of a “Grosse Pointe society dame.” The upscale locale neighborhood had been criticized in the newspaper for being racially segregated, and Tomlin used her characterization to poke fun at the sort of people who would make such choices. The audience howled, and she was hooked.
Tomlin developed a stand-up act that she worked around Detroit and went to New York after she graduated. She made several appearances on the Garry Moore Show in the mid ’60s, and eventually got invited to Los Angeles in 1969 with offers for two different television shows.
When Tomlin arrived in Hollywood, she went to work at Rowan & Martin’s Laugh In, and the show’s executive producer,
George Schlatter, immediately understood what Tomlin’s work was all about. Soon, audiences were eagerly awaiting her popular characters: Edith Ann, the precocious child philosopher; and Ernestine, the bitchy telephone operator
(“Is that one ringy dingy or two ringy dingies?”). Tomlin was an overnight hit.
In 1971, Tomlin was working on an album exclusively featuring Edith Ann. She happened to catch an after-school special on TV called “J.T.” It was about an 10-year-old boy in Harlem, and Tomlin
found it satirical, tender, perceptive, harsh, edgy and true, with almost every line a perception. She realized her Edith Ann album could carry a lot more punch, so she contacted the scriptwriter, Jane Wagner, for help. Wagner didn’t respond at first, then, a few days before Tomlin was set to start recording her material at a comedy club, she received a collection of handwritten sheets with redactions and words written in the margins. It took a while to read it, but Tomlin loved it and set out to meet the author. She and Wagner
found that they shared a lot more than a love of writing, and 38 years later, they are one of Hollywood’s longest-lived and most respected couples.
After Laugh In, Tomlin moved to film, earning a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination for her work in Robert Altman’s
Nashville. Nine to Five (1980) was a huge hit, followed by All of Me with Steve Martin and Big Business with Bette Midler. Tomlin voiced Ms. Frizzle on the animated TV series The Magic Bus from 1994 to 1998. She also appeared on TV series Murphy Brown, Will & Grace, The West Wing and Desperate Housewives. In addition to her writing, acting and voiceover
work, Tomlin’s schedule includes between 40 and 50 live concerts each year. Although she schedules them in clusters, if someone asks her when her tour is over, the answer is usually “never.”
Wagner continues to write and is credited
with penning “The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe,” the one-woman show that earned Tomlin a 1985 Best Actress Tony and numerous other award nominations, both for the live show, and its televised incarnation. Their relationship is an example of what happens when love and talent collaborate, and although marriage may not be a option at this time, Tomlin and Wagner are strong supporters for same-sex marriage.
Tomlin discussed why many female comics are lesbians — among them, Ellen DeGeneres, Rosie O’Donnell, Rusty Warren, Margaret Gomez, Suzanne Westenhoefer and Wanda Sykes. Tomlin suggested that laughing is a vulnerable reaction to another person. Some men — and even some women — find stand-up too powerful and assertive a tool for a woman. Causing laughter may be “unattractive,” and cause them to lose their femininity. Fortunately, that myopic view is a rarity, and Tomlin said there are many talented young ladies doing comedy.
Tomlin’s performance at the O.C. Performing Arts Center will be much more informal than her other theater pieces. It will feature many characters and a lot of interaction with the audience. And, of course, there are sure to be visits from Ernestine and Edith Ann.