100 WOMEN WE LOVE 2008
Lily Tomlin’s extraordinary career as a funny lady bloomed on the TV show Laugh-In in 1969, the year of the Stonewall rebellion. Fittingly, she has woven feminism and LGBT life into her characters—the not-so-hardworking phone operator Ernestine, Violet Newstead in 9 to 5 and the numerous personas populating The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe, the one-woman play written by Tomlin’s partner Jane Wagner, for which Tomlin won a Tony Award. She was also nominated for an Academy Award for her turn as Linnea Reese in Robert Altman’s Nashville, played recurring roles on TV shows from Murphy Brown to The West Wing, and has won six Emmys, a Grammy, and a Lifetime Achievement Tony Award in 1977. Tomlin, who has called Wagner the most influential person in her life and career, narrated 1995’s landmark LGBT documentary The Celluloid Closet. –KL
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Hats off to the 100 Women We Love, class of 2008 (in no particular order, ’cause we love ’em all!).
Lori Megown
MTV Networks Vice President of Consumer Products and Radio Lori Megown joined Human Rights Campaign’s Board of Governors in 2007 after having volunteered for four years. In 2006, just before The L Word premiere party in New York City, organizer Megown was told that the bar where the event was to be held had closed down. That didn’t stop this dedicated volunteer—she quickly found another venue and somehow alerted hundreds of fans to the new location in time for the event, which benefits HRC. Megown is passionate about the need for greater visibility and funding for the LGBT rights organization. “This is a very important year for us, with the elections coming up and the ban on marriage in California being lifted,” she says. “New York could be next.” -LL
In no particular order…
