5 reasons we’re head over heels in love with Lily Tomlin
Whether she’s getting even with her horrible boss in 9 to 5, wowing a Broadway audience by playing a dozen characters in one night, or smuggling osteoporosis medication across the Mexican border on Grace and Frankie, there’s one glaring through-line connecting Lily Tomlin’s 6+ decade career: Nobody can do it like her.The singular performer and writer has delivered her particular, quirky brand of genius in too many projects to count, and her ability to embody the “lovable misfit” has earned her the adoration of queer audiences of all ages.With her iconic, seven-season run as “Frankie” alongside Jane Fonda’s “Grace” wrapped up as of earlier this year, there’s no better time to revisit these five reasons we will forever love the one and only Lily Tomlin.Few Hollywood couples can say they’ve been together for half a century — Tomlin and Wagner may be the only one that’s also responsible for shaping a specific brand of social commentary through comedy.
No big deal! The couple collaborated on Tomlin’s lauded one-woman shows, Appearing Nitely, The Search for Signs of Intelligent Live in the Universe and Not Playing with a Full Deck.
The characters they created examined the spectrum of the American experience, and Tomlin’s monologues were unafraid to explore topics of race, addiction and class.
They were also wildly entertaining. “[Jane] expresses how I feel, which I have no ability to do,” Tomlin said in 2020. “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.”They say activism starts at home, and Tomlin has been actively advocating for the L.A.
