100 Women We Love

by Melody Wells, editor

July 10, 2008

Tags: 100 women we love, activists, annie leibovitz, artists, cynthia nixon, daniela sea, entrepeneurs, god-des and she, heather matarazzo, jackie warner, jane lynch, kate clinton, lesbian, martina navratilova, melissa etheridge, politicians, suze orman

Barbara Gaines
Humor comes naturally to five-time Emmy-award-winner Gaines, the 50-year-old powerhouse who has produced 4,667 shows with David Letterman. At 18, she set these goals: "'Have sex, lose weight, take a shower every day, be the producer of a television show and win an Emmy." Looking back, "I never really thought either one of those [last two] would happen." In her Greenwich Village home, "Each statue has a tiny sweater my friend Laurie knit for them," though Gaines laments, "We’ll have to move them out of the house, since Simon (her ten-month-old son with partner Aari Ludvigsen) is seconds from walking." Having worked with Letterman since 1980, he was one of the first people she came out to in 1985, Gaines sees no end to their professional collaboration. "Frankly I'm with Dave as long as he'll have me," she says. "When that ends, I'd like to rest.” –MW