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Interview with Lily Tomlin

When Lily Tomlin calls, your mind says, “One ringy-dingy.” You can’t help it. And part of you really, really wants Ernestine to be on the other end of the line.

Fortunately, better judgment kicks in before you make the clichéd joke, even as you marvel at the fact that Tomlin’s characters are so ingrained in pop culture that the ringing of a phone brings to mind a whole slate of inspired comedy. The woman is, quite simply, an icon.

She also actively supports causes she believes in. On April 17, Tomlin and comedian Kate Clinton will perform “Back 2 Back” at the historic St. George Theater on Staten Island to benefit the Dr. Susan Love Research Foundation for breast cancer and Community Health Action of Staten Island.

Tomlin talked to AfterEllen.com about the event and caught us up on some of her other projects. She also shared her thoughts on how things have changed for the LGBT community during her 40 years in public life.

AfterEllen.com: How did the idea come up for you and Kate to do this benefit?

Lily Tomlin: Kate and I have been friends for a long time; she’s adorable. We have a lot of mutual friends and always see each other in Provincetown. About a year ago, we did a gala for Fenway Health in Boston – I was getting the Susan Love award and Kate was emceeing – and we started improvising and had a lot of fun. When our friend Santa Fareri wanted to do something on Staten Island for Susan Love and Community Health Action, she suggested that Kate and I do a show together.

AE: So you two haven’t really worked together very often?

LT: Just two or three times. But over the years, I’ve gone to her shows and she’s come to mine. Sometimes while she was on stage, I would jump up from the audience and tell her that she was losing the crowd and obviously needed my help. [Laughs] I’d step up to save the day. I love Kate – she’s adaptable and smart – and she makes me look good.

AE: Is breast cancer a personal issue for you?

LT: Not in the sense that I’ve had a brush with it, but I certainly have a lot of friends affected by it. And, of course, I’m interested in women’s issues and women’s health – my partner Jane Wagner and I have been involved with Fenway Health for 25 years.

AE: I understand you have a special fondness for Staten Island, too.

LT: Oh yes. When I first moved to New York from Detroit in the early ’60s, I loved to go to Staten Island. It was like going to another country – you get a boat ride and you’ve got all that water. We’d go over there where the navy base was and drink a beer or have coffee at some dive and walk around. It was like a vacation from New York. [Laughs]

I love boats and the water – that’s one of the reasons I love Provincetown – and when you live on the Lower East Side it’s easy to go over and ride the ferry and have a great time. We started thinking about that in terms of this event: get out of town, come over to Staten Island. Have some fun on the boat and we’ll be there to welcome you.

AE: Have you decided what you’ll do for the act?

LT: Kate and I will each do half of the evening and then do something together. I’ll do some characters, some stand up, we’ll have a Q&A – we’ll definitely carry on.

AE: Will we meet any new characters?

LT: Maybe. We’re always trying.

AE: Since our readers are mostly lesbian and bisexual, I’m wondering if you could talk a little about how the climate has changed since you’ve been performing.

LT: Oh, things have shifted radically over the past 40 years – we’ve gone from Martin Luther King to Obama in the White House. Some of the changes are astonishing; what the gay community has accomplished is incredible.

The AIDS crisis really brought the gay community together, breaking down the division that I didn’t like between gay men and women. We had to circle the wagons and look after AIDS victims. Then the general population started to see precious, talented people falling — people in their families, people in the arts — and the disease became more personal and human. And groups like ACT-UP led the way in teaching us to demand our rights; that helped to slowly educate people.

AE: And that carried over to the entertainment industry?

LT: Gradually. Ellen was no small factor – not that there weren’t people before her in even more pressured, inhospitable circumstances. I remember working on my TV special in the ’70s and a writer suggested that Jane and I come to work in separate cars.

AE: One of your own writers?

LT: Yes – and these are people in the arts! Crazy stuff. And if you weren’t married or didn’t have children, something must be wrong with you. In ’73, I was on the Carson show. He knew I was gay; it was widely known in the business and Jane was always with me. Anyway, Carson said to me, “You don’t have any children, do you?” I said no. “Don’t you want any?” I said that if he meant did I want to bear children, no, but I like children just fine.

You could’ve heard a pin drop. Here was a well-known female saying that she didn’t want to have children. I finally said, “Well, who has custody of yours?” [Laughs] Lots of silly stuff like that happened. Strides since then have been phenomenal.

You know, my family is from Kentucky and I was raised Baptist, but the generation that is my age has really done an about face. They still believe in Scripture or whatever, but they have kids that are openly gay. That never happened when I was a kid. We all had that woman cousin at family gatherings who’d sit around drinking beer looking butch. The folks would say, “That’s Mary Ellen. She moved away when she was 16; she’s always been a little odd.” [Laughs] It’s amazing that the next generation – people my age – has done such an about face.

AE: Are audiences more open to gay material, too?

LT: Well, you never know if you’ve lost somebody unless they start throwing things at you. [Laughs] But consciousness has changed. People still have their prejudices but they’re more careful about who they say disparaging things to. People are more tolerant in public.

But you know, racism used to be so bad that we separate bathrooms – Lena Horne couldn’t stay in a white hotel. So people do change – it just takes a long damn time. Our country is so advantaged and powerful in some ways, but so backward in others. But we’ve come a long way.

AE: Shifting gears a little, have you finished shooting Damages?

LT: Oh yeah, we’ve got three more episodes and it’s all coming to fruition. I’m very excited to see how it all unwinds. Playing Marilyn [Tobin] has been a lot of fun.

AE: Were you already a Damages fan?

LT: Actually, I was more of a fanatic. From the first season, I was mad for it — it’s one of the few shows I’ve ever run home to see.

AE: Maybe I should ask you how it feels to play a straight woman.

LT: (Laughs) You know, I did a bit like that on an album in ’75, Modern Scream. Jane and I were in the studio and my publicist called. She said, “Time will give you the cover if you come out.” Like, give us your private life and we’ll give you a cover. I was kind of insulted that they thought I could’ve been bribed that way.

My response was to put this bit on the album. I was the interviewer, Beatrice, and I interviewed myself, “Lily, what was it like seeing yourself on the big screen playing a heterosexual woman?” I did a whole interview, saying things like “I’ve seen this women all my life. I know how they walk; I know how they talk. Some people say I went too far. Some say I didn’t go far enough.” I did every old twist on that kind of interview.

AE: Perfect.

LT: The thing was – nothing came of it. There’s something about me, particularly at that time on television doing those characters that everybody was crazy about. It just didn’t register with people. They see me the way they want to see me. It was really odd – at least at that time. And nobody wrote about it. In ’77, when I opened my Broadway show, I did get on the Time cover; I had big stories in both Time and Newsweek the same week.

One article said I shared a house with Jane Wagner. The other said I lived alone. Journalists didn’t write about private lives. Now nothing is private. It’s scary, but it levels everything, taking the mystique out of celebrity.

AE: Isn’t a little mystique a good thing?

LT: You know, in the old days, we thought nothing was more fantastic than the Oscars. We didn’t see the big stars like Greta Garbo and Katharine Hepburn any other time. Nobody was taking pictures of them picking their teeth at Denny’s. They were forever glamorous, forever fabulous, and your heart would beat faster just to watch the Oscars. That kind of mystery is gone. It’s good and bad both, I guess.

AE: Speaking of mystery, what’s the status of the Desperate Housewives spin-off about mystery-solving sisters that you’re doing with Kathryn Joosten?

LT: Oh, we’re definitely working on it. Kathy has about another year on Housewives, so we’re taking this time to develop it. I love working with her – she’s just hilarious. It’s so much fun.

AE: Any final thoughts for our readers?

LT: Just come to Staten Island to support Susan Love Foundation. You can ride the ferry and relive my summers of the sixties [Laughs]. We’ll have a great time.

I don’t doubt it for a second. For tickets to Back 2 Back, visit the St. George Theater website.

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