In the second half of a two-part interview with Lily Tomlin, she discusses her career, coming out and many of the amazing artists with whom she has shared the screen. Plus we delve even deeper into the secret behind what has made her partnership with Jane Wagner such a divine pairing. Once again, you can listen to the entire interview of Lily at www.windycityqueercast.com and show #243.
Amy Matheny: You're one of the more quotable women of our time, because Jane has fed you some great lines.
Lily Tomlin: Yes, she certainly has. One of the great lines I adore from The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life is, 'No matter how cynical you become, it's never enough to keep up.' And Ted Koppel must have used it five times on Nightline over the years. I'd write him every time and he'd say, 'As Lily Tomlin says,' which I guess is not incorrect, because I did say it [ laughs ] but I'd say, you know you should credit Jane.
AM: Some have said that when you narrated the HBO film The Celluloid Closet, that that was when you came out publicly. Is that true or were you ever really in the closet?
LT: I've been around so long. And of course I never, nobody, in those days [ laughs ] it sounds like eons ago. ... I always spoke of Jane very openly, and everybody in the industry knew. Well, many people in the heartlands still don't get that I'm gay, that I have a partnership with Jane that's 37 years long, and after you're around for so long, it's sort of like grandstanding. What happened is that I was doing an interview and the guy finally just wrote it blatantly. When I was on the cover of Time and in Newsweek back in '77, [ one article said ] that I shared a house with Jane Wagner and the other one said I lived alone. So you never knew what anybody was gonna write.
AM: You're Californians. Do you both think of making it legal?
LT: Getting married?
AM: Yeah.
LT: I don't know. We've talked about it. Some of our friends have gotten married and we have an invitation right now that just came from somebody getting married.
AM: Well, what is the secret? How have you made a 37-year relationship work? While you also work together?
LT: I guess the secret is just absolute commitment. I can't say anymore. I couldn't think of not being with her. There's so much about her as soon as I look at her. She has such a good brain and sometimes when she's sleeping, I think, I can't believe that brain would just be gone. I could get real maudlin about it, because she's a complex, interesting person, but also intimately kind. We call her Maybe Jane, because if she doesn't want to go someplace or do something, she just won't do it. She has no fear of obligations, social obligations.
AM: Are you different in that way?
LT: Oh my God, yes! That's why they say, 'Are you gonna come to dinner next week?' I say, 'Yes, I'm coming, and maybe Jane.' So, that's why anybody that's close to her, calls her Maybe Jane. [ And ] when she comes, it's such an event. I'm old-hat. I show up and they think, 'Oh, you again,' and she comes through the door and it's like an incredible gift and surprise. She empathizes with everybody, she's a wonderful conversationalist and there's nothing she doesn't know something about. And I sit there kind of mute.
AM: I feel we should play a new game called 'Two Degrees from Lily Tomlin.' You have worked with everybody from All of Me to And the Band Played On, to Nine to Five and more. Can you tell me what comes to mind with each of these actors? Bette Midler.
LT: Outrageous. I could talk 10 minutes on Bette. When we did Big Business, Bette gave me a big plaque saying that I'd done graduate school at the Midler School of Mugging! [ Laughs ] She can be so outrageous, and yet she can be so introspective. One time, Sophie, her daughter, was just a toddler on the set of Big Business and she'd say 'Lil, I interviewed a new nanny for Sophie, and I don't know whether I'm gonna see her again because she told me that she wasn't responsible for sudden infant death syndrome.' And I said, 'No Bette, you're not gonna see her again.' It's that kind of thing. I couldn't believe that she even would say to me, 'Well, I'm gonna talk to her again.' So, there's kind of an innocence or earnestness about her—this audacity and this earnestness. And she's forever reading a book; she's always reading. She's a pretty interesting woman.
AM: Steve Martin.
LT: I always felt very tenderly towards Steve. I felt like he was lonely when we were doing All of Me. As funny and out there as he can get, he's also very conservative in his behavior when he's not on. He's never performing off-screen. He's kind of serious but I've always sensed that kind of lonely core in him that made me feel maternally about him. I liked him tremendously.
AM: Meryl Streep.
LT: Divine. I had so much fun with her. She's a person who wants to [ and ] loves to have a good time, and she loves to act out of mischief. Even when she was a kid, she told this story that she'd be in church and she had a couple of brothers I think, and she wore glasses, and you could see this little kid with this blonde hair and these glasses. I can't show you, but she would be mouthing, exaggerating, screwing her mouth around or making it really big or in a certain shape like she was singing real big in the church. Of course, she would embarrass her family and they would tell her to stop, but she liked to stir things up. And she's so candid. You are amazed that somebody of her stature is so candid. She speaks right off the top. And then she's a big woofer. Nothing delighted me more than to be able to make her laugh. She'd go 'woof, woof' … She woofs when she's really tickled. Oh, she's just glorious!
AM: Jane Fonda.
LT: I was just e-mailing with Jane just a couple of days ago. Jane's another one who has such a young girl in her, who so wants to do good, do the right thing and I just love this about her. There is a tenderness inside of her that is like a young girl. She's also one who can have a good time. She can really cut loose. With Nine to Five, I hadn't accepted the part yet, if you can imagine that, the audacity of that, 'Uh, I have to see the script first, Jane.' She had developed it for Dolly and me specifically. And she said 'Oh Lily, you gotta take it, we're gonna take a leap of faith.' She was always talking about a leap of faith and she really did do it. That's why she'd get herself into tight spots too because she did—she absolutely let her soul go where it was gonna go.
A: Let's round out the Nine to Five ladies with Miss Dolly Parton.
L: Dolly … very sassy. And smart. Really smart and sassy and you'd never know it but she suffers no fools. I mean you'd never know. I don't know how she's the way she is. She can make everybody feel like she just did the most she could possibly ever do for somebody, and yet she can get on her bus and get out of town.
AM: That's a southern thing.
LT: Yeah, Jane [ Wagner, who is from Tennessee ] has it, too. Jane can talk to somebody. Friends will call if they have a problem, because she's like such a great counselor. It's down to earth but very smart somehow.
AM: Are you going to head to New York and see Nine to Five: The Musical or catch it when it's in California?
LT: It opens here first Sept. 20. I'm going to see it here first.
AM: How amazing is that leap of faith of Jane Fonda's!
LT: Exactly. Alison Janney who I worked on The West Wing is playing my part, Violet. She's another one I really like.
AM: I adore her, too! I loved your work on 'The West Wing.' It was one of the greatest shows.
LT: I loved it, too. I hated to see it go. I'm dying to see Allison in Nine to Five. Of course, it's not going to be the same as the movie, but it would be so great to see her in the exact same scenes and the exact same frames. I'd like to see different actors in movies—like you get to see more than one actor in a play—to see how they'd adapt to the script, what they bring to it, the new stuff.
AM: What can people expect from your show in Chicago? Your classic characters?
LT: Yes; I'll do 10 or 12 characters. It's much looser than doing a play or an evening of theatre. There'll be no fourth wall. I will talk about Chicago and Rosemont and local stuff and talk about the election. The election will be hours away practically, so that's going to be of great interest.
AM: That'll be ripe with possibilities.
LT: Challenging [ Laughs ]
Don't miss 'An Evening of Classic Lily Tomlin—One Night Only!' Saturday, Nov. 1, at 8 p.m. at the Rosemont Horizon Theatre; visit Ticketmaster.com . To hear the entire interview, check out www.windycityqueercast.com and show #243. Also, read the rest of this interview in next week's Windy City Times.
