Lily Tomlin (48591893841).jpg Photo by John Mathew Smith & www.celebrity-photos.com – Wikimedia Commons

Top 10 Facts about Lily Tomlin


 

Mary Jean’Lily’ Tomlin was born September 1, 1939. She is an American actress, comedian, writer, singer, and producer. Her career started as a stand-up comedian as well as performing off-broadway during the 1960s. Her breakout role was on the variety show Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In from 1969 until 1973. 

In 1975, Lily made her debut with Robert Altman’s Nashville. The film earned her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. In 1977, her performance as Margo Sperling in The Late Show won her the Silver Bear for Best Actress and nominations for the Golden Globe and BAFTA Awards for Best Actress. 

Some of her other notable films include 9 to 5 in 1980, All of Me in 1984, Big Business in 1988, Flirting with Disaster in 1996, Tea with Mussolini in 1999, I Heart Huckabees in 2004, and Grandma in 2015.

Her signature role was written by then-partner Jane Wagner in a show titled The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe which opened on Broadway in 1985. The show won her the Tony Award for Best Lead Actress in a Play. She won her first Emmy Award in 1974 for writing and producing her own television special, Lily

Lily won a Grammy Award for her 1972 comedy album This is a Recording. In 2014, she was awarded a Kennedy Center Honor and in 2017 she received the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award.

She starred as Frankie Bergstein on the Netflix series Grace and Frankie which debuted in 2015 and earned her nominations for four Primetime Emmy Awards, three Screen Actors Guild Awards, and a Golden Globe Award.

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1. Early Life

Lily Tomlin (48591893841).jpg Photo by Laurel Maryland, USA – Wikimedia Commons

Lily was born in Detroit, Michigan. She is the daughter of the Late Lillie Mae and the late Guy Tomlin. She has a younger brother named Richard Tomlin. Her parents were Southern Baptists who moved to Detroit from Paducah, Kentucky during the Great Depression. Although she attended a Southern Baptist church as a child, she later grew to become irreligious. 

2. Before Acting

Lily is a 1957 graduate of Cass Technical High School. She attended Wayne State University and originally studied biology. While she was at the university, she auditioned for a play, which sparked her interest in a career in the theatre and she changed her major. 

After college, Lily began doing stand-up comedy in nightclubs in Detroit and later in New York City. She continued studying acting at the HB Studio. Her first television appearance was on The Merv Griffin Show in 1965, a year later, she became a cast member on the short-lived third and final incarnation of The Garry Moore Show.

3. All of Her Characters

Lily Tomlin–Hair helmet.jpg Photo by NBC Television – Wikimedia Commons

In 1969, after a stint as a hostess on the ABC series Music Scene, Lily joined NBC’s sketch comedy show Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In. She signed as a replacement for the departing Judy Carne, Lily was an instant success in the already-established program. She began appearing as the regular characters she created.

Ernestine was a tough and uncompromising character. She wore her hair in a 1940s hairstyle with a hairnet. Lily reprised the role on several episodes of Sesame Street. Ernestine was one of her first characters in the show.

Some of her other characters were Edith Ann, Mrs. Earbore, Mrs. Judithe Beasley, and so many others. Her characters were all different in both characteristics and style, they all had a different voice and she was able to perfectly mimic them.

Lily was one of the first female comedians to break out in male drag with her characters Tommy Velour and Rick. She was later popularized by her January 22, 1983, Saturday Night Live appearance, where she premiered Pervis Hawkins. 

In 1970, AT&T offered her $500,000 to play her character Ernestine in a commercial but she declined to say it would compromise her artistic integrity. In 1976, she appeared on Saturday Night Live as Ernestine in aMa Bell advertisement parody. The character later made a guest appearance at The Superhighway Summit at UCLA on January 11, 1994.

She appeared as three of her minor characters in a 1988 ad campaign for Fidelity Investments that didn’t include Ernestine or Edith Ann. In the 1990s she brought Edith Ann to the forefront with three animated prime-time television specials.

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4. Lily’s Recordings

In 1972, Lily released This Is A Recording, which was her first comedy album on Polydor Records. It contained Ernestine’s run-ins with customers over the phone, and the album hit No. 15 on the Billboard Hot 200. It became the highest-charting album ever by a solo comedienne, she even earned a Grammy award that year for Best Comedy Recording.

Her second album was And That’s The Truth which featured her character Edith Ann. The album peaked at No.41 on the chart and earned her another Grammy nomination. 

Her third comedy album was 1975’s Modern Scream, it was a parody of movie magazines and celebrity interviews featuring her performing as multiple characters including Ernestine, Edith Ann, Judith, and Suzie. Lily’s 1977 release Lily Tomlin On Stage was an adaptation of her broadway show that year. Each of these albums earned her additional Grammy nominations.

5. Motion Pictures

Lily Tomlin (2008).jpg Photo by Nathan King – Wikimedia Commons

Lily made her dramatic debut in Robert Altman’s Nashville which she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress and an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She played Linne Resse who was a straitlaced, gospel-singing mother of two deaf children.

One of the few widely panned projects of Lily’s career was 1978’s Moment by Moment, which was directed and written by Wagner. In 1980, Lily co-starred 9 to 5, in which she played a secretary named Violet Newstead. The film was one of the year’s top-grossing films. 

Lily then starred in the 1981 science fiction comedy, The Incredible Shrinking Woman, she played three roles one of them being Edith Ann. The film was written by Wagner and met with mixed reviews. Lily bounced back with the critical and financial hit All of Me opposite Steve Martin, in which she played a sickly heiress whose spirit became trapped in Martin’s body.

In the 200s, she had a lot of work that elevated her; in 2015, she starred in filmmaker Paul Weitz’s film, Grandma. The film garnered rave reviews and earned her a Golden Globe Award nomination.

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6. Broadway and Stage Shows

In March 1977, Lily made her Broadway debut in the solo show Appearing Nitely which she co-wrote and co-directed with Jane Wagner at the Biltmore Theatre. She received a Special Tony Award for this production. The same month, she made the cover of Time with the headline “America’s New Queen of Comedy”

In 1985, she starred in another one-woman Broadway show The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe, it was written by her long-time life partner, winter, and producer Jane Wagner. The show won her a Tony Award and was made into a feature film in 1991. Lily revived the show for a run on Broadway in 2000 which then toured the country through mid-2002. 

In 1989, she won the Sarah Siddons Award for her work in Chicago theatre. Lily premiered her one-woman show Not Playing with a Full Deck at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas in November 2009. It was her first appearance in that city, though she did tape an Emmy-winning TV special. The show was called Lily: Sold Out which premiered on CBS in January 1981.

7. Lily’s Return to Television

Kathy Griffin, Lily Tomlin (5175341771) (cropped1).jpg Photo by Greg Hernandez – Wikimedia Commons

Lily voiced Ms. Valerie Frizzle on the animated television series The Magic School Bus from 1994 to 1997. But that’s not all, she appeared on the popular sitcom Murphy Brown as the title character’s boss. She also guests starred on The X-Files in 1998, in episode 6 of season 6 as a ghost haunting an old mansion. 

In the 2008-2009 fifth season of Desperate Housewives, she had a recurring role as Roberta. During the 2008 Emmy Awards, Lily appeared as part of a tribute to the influential 1960s television series Laugh-In. 

Lily and Kathryn Joosten were in talks to star in a Desperate Housewives spin-off which was given the green light in May 2009. The series plan was scrapped due to Kathryn’s illness. 

Lily guest-starred as Marilyn Tobin in the third season of Damages opposite Glenn Close, she was nominated for an Emmy. She later appeared in the NCIS episode.

Lily starred opposite Jane Fonda, Martin Sheen, and Sam Waterson in the Netflix original series Grace and Frankie. Lily plays Frankie Bergstein. She received her first Emmy nomination in 2015 as a lead actress for the role.

8. Personal Life 

Lily met her future wife, writer Jane Wagner in 1971. After watching the after-school TV special J.T. written by Wagner, she invited Wagner to Los Angeles to collaborate on Lily’d comedy LP album And That’s The Truth. 

On December 31, 2013, Lily and Jane married in a private ceremony in Los Angeles after 42 years together. 

Lily has been involved in a number of feminist and gay-friendly film productions, and on her 1975 album Modern Scream she pokes fun at straight actors who make a point of distancing themselves from their gay and lesbian characters. 

In 2013, Lily and Jane worked together on the film An Apology to Elephants, which Jane wrote and Lily narrated.

9. All of Lily’s Awards

LilyTomlinSept2011.jpg Photo by Angela George – Wikimedia Commons

Lily has received numerous awards including four primetime Emmys, a special 1977 Tony when she was appearing in her one-woman Broadway show Appearing Nitely. She received a second Tony as Best Actress, two Drama Desk Awards, and an Outer Critics Circle Award for her one-woman performance. 

Lily later received a CableACE Award for executive producing the film adaptation of The Search, and a Grammy Award for her comedy album, This is a recording. She received two Peabody Awards: the first for the ABC television special and the second for narrating and executive producing the HBO film.

In 1992, she was awarded the Women in Film Crystal Award. Lily was inducted into the Michigan Women’s Hall of Fame in 1998. In 2003, she was awarded the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, and in the same year, she was recognized again by Women in Film with the Lucy Award in recognition of her excellence.

In 2009, Lily received Fenway Health’s Dr. Susan M. Love Award for her contributions to women’s health. Later, on March 16, 2012, Lily and her partner, Jane received the 345th star on the Walk of Stars in Palm Springs, California. 

In December 2014, Lily was one of five honorees for the annual Kennedy Center Honors. In January 2017, Lily won the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 23rd annual Screen Actors Guild ceremony.

10. Net Worth

Over the course of her career, she has been in a lot of TV shows and films that have paid her a heavy sum for each appearance. With all of her appearances and character involvement, she had an estimated wealth of $20 Million.

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