Best. Lesbian. Week. Ever. (May 11, 2007)

IT'S LIKE A WHO'S WHO OF BRITISH LESBIAN AND BI WOMEN. ALL 16 OF THEM.
British newspaper The Independent has just published the 2007 edition of its annual Pink List — a list of the 100 most influential gay people in Britain — and only 16 of the hundred were women. Only 16 percent! At least the recent Out magazine list of the 50 most influential gays and lesbians in America was comprised of 26 percent women (although the actual number still came to only 13).

The entertainment-related women on the list include novelists Sarah Waters and Jeanette Winterson, Shed Productions CEO Eileen Gallagher (who co-created Bad Girls), broadcaster/writer Sandi Toksvig and actresses Fiona Shaw (Petunia Dursley in the Harry Potter movies to most Americans) and Saffron Burrows (Circle of Friends, Time Code and, my personal favorite, the shark-revenge movie Deep Blue Sea), pictured here:

Interestingly, the list mentions that openly bisexual Burrows is the "one-time partner of Alan Cumming; current partner of Fiona Shaw." Saffron and Fiona — who have reportedly lived together in London for a few years now — have kept a fairly low profile as a couple, almost never being photographed together at events, and not commenting publicly on their relationship in interviews, but not exactly hiding their relationship, either. Here's a rare photo of the two with actress Kathy Najimy at a party in 2004:

Burrows is playing bi again in the upcoming movie The Guitar, the story of a woman (Burrows) who is "diagnosed with terminal cancer, fired from her thankless job, and abandoned by her boyfriend. Given two months to live, she blows her savings and maxes out her credit cards to pursue her dreams, which include romance and learning to play the electric guitar," according to the description on IMDb.

The aforementioned "romance" includes entanglements with both a male UPS driver and a pizza girl played by Paz de la Huerta (A Walk to Remember); here's a shot of Burrows in the film and a photo of de la Huerta:

Interesting premise -- I love how the threat of impending death awakens her dormant lesbian desires. As the old saying goes: There are no straight women in foxholes.