Feature
The Gospel According to Lily Tomlin
by Jay Blotcher; Illustrations by Julia Kuhl


There are few performers who approach the generosity of spirit of
actor-comedian Lily Tomlin. Over the last three decades, she has evolved from funny lady to actress to humanist, excelling in all three personages. Even back in the late sixties, watching the precocious Edith Ann or the power-hungry Ernestine on “Laugh-In,” one was struck by the rich dimensions radiating from cartoonish characters. So adept at caricature, Tomlin was therefore an unexpected revelation in her first screen role, playing a yearning housewife and mother in the 1975 classic Nashville. (The spare, searing performance won her an Oscar nomination.)

From then on, the career of the former Mary Jean Tomlin (born Detroit, 1939) has veered effortlessly between performances onstage, comedy albums, screen roles, and television appearances, each garnering accolades and awards. With a dedication that brooks no condescension, Tomlin transmogrifies into her characters, from evangelist Sister Boogie Woman to lounge lizard Tommy Velour, from cocktail pianist Bobbi Jeanine to Tess the Bag Lady. Academics have linked her stage work, often performed with no more than a change in voice and facial expression, to the celebrated monologues of Ruth Draper.

The counterculture has a true friend in Tomlin. Her characters have dodged the draft, tripped on acid, marched in era parades, and, in quizzical despair, watched idealism grind to a halt with the onset of the Republican eighties. For most of her professional career, these alter-egos have been created by writer Jane Wagner, Tomlin’s collaborator and partner in life.

Solo shows over the years have spurred the type of fanaticism that attended the Sermon on the Mount. Perhaps Tomlin offers revelations. But they are simply lessons we have failed to fully learn: That we are all very much alike. That we are all human, and must embrace our frailties. That our survival depends on one another. Yet these truths have never been dispensed with treacle; Tomlin’s dispatches from the cultural wars are tart, disarmingly honest, and ultimately nurturing. Her masterwork remains “The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe,” a 1985 meditation on the loving absurdity of humanity that was remounted to acclaim in 2001. (Quibblers will note that the show will continue making the rounds in 2003, even as we hunger for fresh material.)

Currently, Tomlin is recurring character Deborah Fiderer on nbc’s “The West Wing.” Her role in this parallel universe, where a liberal and just man occupies the Oval Office, is appropriate; Tomlin’s own politics seem a throwback to the idealism of the Carter years (the last time a liberal and just man ran the country). While the word “liberal” is bandied about nowadays as epithet, Tomlin remains committed to issues of women’s equality, gay and lesbian liberation, civil rights, and social justice.

Seeing Tomlin’s old characters has the fizz of reuniting with wacky but wise friends. On February 2, “An Evening of Classic Lily Tomlin” arrives for one night at the Bardavon in Poughkeepsie.
From her home in Northern California in late December, Tomlin spilled forth with a torrent of ideas and fleeting thoughts, threatening never to complete a full sentence. Her words, however, were heartfelt and intense, as she discussed the role comedy can play in these increasingly uncertain times.

Chronogram: I’m told that you’re in the midst of a move.

Lily Tomlin: Oh yes, I am; I’m moving into a new house. It’s getting exciting—if I can just get it all done.

C: What persona would you draw on in order to get the strength to get that done?

LT: Oh, Mrs. Beasley’s [middle-class housewife from Calumet City, Illinois] the one that should be here. Absolutely. She could take it in hand. She’d have me moved in, have dishtowels bought, and everything. The whole thing would be in order. She’d have Jell-O in the cupboard. Sugar-free, I suppose.

C: There’s cause for celebration. You’re back on tour with “An Evening of Classic Lily Tomlin.” How many cities?

LT: I just do them when I have time off. I’m doing six cities on this little run—Baltimore; Troy, New York; Keene, New Hampshire; Portland, Maine; Poughkeepsie. I once bought a boat in Poughkeepsie and rode it back to Yonkers and then crashed it into the pier. Because I got back when it was dark—oh, anyway, it’s a long story.

C: Were you okay?

LT: I didn’t wreck it bad. I just ran into the pier, or ran into the slip, or whatever it was. But it was brand new; just hot off the boatyard. And later that same boat, it poured rain in Yonkers and the boat sank.... That was more than thirty years ago.

C: Is there a set routine for these six evenings? Is there a flexibility?

LT: There’s always flexibility, because I also will just engage the evening. Whatever happens in that town, or whatever happens in that audience. But sure, I have monologues and stuff that I do. But in between, I would try and live in the moment.

C: Now, I trust you’re not above pandering. If somebody wants a specific bit—

LT: You mean, they should shout it out? Don’t encourage them to do that, please. They might, anyway. But I wouldn’t say, “Lily is looking for requests.”

C: Will you offer routines that we adore, and also ones that you feel should be revisited?

LT: Yeah, some of them will be things that I still think have relevance or play, or that people still absolutely totally find funny or interesting. Some things you probably have never seen. Certainly, I’ll do a lot of the favorite characters and probably some characters you probably not have seen either. But I’ll do Edith and Ernestine, naturally, and Mrs. Beasley.

C: The reason why so many people feel a visceral connection to you is that since the ‘70s you not only hit people’s funny bones, but you also tweak their consciences. You’ve covered everything from drug decriminalization to feminism and the threat of big business. Sadly, today we open the papers and the headlines read like some sick parody of the stuff you were warning us about back then.

LT: I thought you were going to say, “You open the papers today, and you see you’ve had absolutely no effect.” [Laughs.] I don’t know what to say to that.

C: So do you respond to such bizarre current events with more comedy, or is there a point where comedy has run its course?

LT: I don’t think it ever runs out. This is not necessarily to the point, but [pertains to] commun-ications and humor. I was in Morocco about three or four years ago. I was with some girlfriends, and they were buying rugs like mad. So I had to sit around. So, I went and sat in an office with these two women who had on not burqas; they were covered, but their faces were not covered. And they didn’t speak a word of English, and I certainly didn’t speak their language. And we were sitting in a little tiny office in an old ancient building, tile everywhere. Beautiful, fantastic-looking structure. And there was a little narrow spiral staircase off about 30 feet away that went up and down this old building. It seemed so medieval. And we saw a man go by in a [long traditional robe] with the hood up...and it was so comedic. You couldn’t see his face, but this little hunched figure was running in a circle down this spiral staircase. It was this visual comedic thing. And all three of us laughed…It was just so divine.

C: So, you’re suggesting that if un officials learn slapstick, we could really take care of everything—

LT: I did a [tv] special one year, way back in the ‘70s, when I did the Three Stooges. I lay down on the ground and ran around in a circle. And I said, “If all the leaders in the world opened and closed every meeting like this, the world would be a better place.”

All I can say is—I’ve had the pleasure of doing [comedy]; that’s all I can say. I can’t change things too radically.

C: But does the current world situation offer a springboard to you and Jane for material that responds—

LT: Yes, I think you would find things applicable and meaningful. I’ve never done overtly topical—I usually do issues or larger human—I mean, I never went out of my way to do a Nixon joke. I never did particularly topical one-liners. Let’s say: I might just do something on war in general. Because of the circumstance, it would have much more impact. I might not just do something on invading Iraq. But if I were doing something on war that created some kind of human experience around it, maybe that would be more telling. Make it more universal.
There’s always something to say. But society and popular culture are pretty much owned by extremely young people in so many ways. And their sensibility is not always the most evolved. There was a time—I don’t know how old you are; are you very old?

C: 42.

LT: Well, that’s a lovely age. Even in your time, you had to earn a place in the culture. The culture didn’t come and pander to you when you were 14. We totally pander to a 14-year-old now. Apparently, they have so much disposable income or whatever it is. But it’s also critics and journalists and people, because they created a culture of immature hipness. They don’t want to be square…People will not comment negatively from a principled place anymore. They don’t want to appear square. They don’t want to appear prudish. They don’t want to appear Puritanical in any way. And the slightest judgment about something being inappropriate sexually—or anything that could be construed in some narrow way, or make you look narrow-minded—they are absolutely not going to participate in it. Because they want to look hip.
There is so little judgment in anything, because nobody wants to appear square, or moral. Nobody wants to appear to be a moralist. I don’t think it’s being a moralist at all; it’s a sense of decency or wholesomeness. Life should be a little better, a little more honored and ennobled, rather than constantly debased.

C: And yet we have Republicans in office who make no pretense about moralizing.

LT: You’re right. [Laughs.] Now, you’re gonna catch me in my quarrel here. But that’s a moralizing that excludes people; it’s not talking about how humanity could be more ennobled. I’m not saying they shouldn’t have whatever beliefs they have, but it shouldn’t be to the extent of condemning whole groups of people or dividing people. The kind of morality I’m talking about is something that unifies people into a kind of respect and wholesomeness for all of us. Not just because you think you’re right. Or righteous. I’m not talking about righteousness, I guess. I’m talking about something [where] people’s behavior against one another is condemned in some way. You don’t dishonor other human beings, whether it’s invading a country without a pretty strong consensus that that’s what we should do, or something needs to be done to make sure more people aren’t damaged or hurt. It’s certainly nothing that I am able to give you any new information about. But there has to be a better way to live, or else I don’t think we’re going to make it.

C: “The Search for Signs” was a celebration of what unifies us.

LT: Yes, the common experience of being a human being and muddling through and trying to have even a small portion of sanity and some peace and some joy. You can’t have all of it all the time, but we’re leaning toward insanity and joylessness.

C: Maybe there is a scientific study that indicates that right-wingers don’t have the goose bump experience.

LT: Don’t say that. And I’m not putting down all the right-wingers either. Because I’m not terribly thrilled about the Left. I don’t know what’s happened to us. It’s everybody jockeying for power and it’s like winning is the most important thing. Winning and holding place. I never could understand, when I was a child—I thought that if somebody was successful or people thought they were really smart, I was so naive as to believe they could only do what was good. They could only do what was right and decent. Of course, that’s not true at all. We’re so much more complex than that. But we’re terribly involved in self-interest.

C: You are one of the few artists willing to speak up on political issues. Not only do we have a national scene where most debate has been quashed in the aftermath of September 11, but there are so many artists focused on their image; they don’t want to stick their necks out politically.

LT: I don’t think there was ever that many people. A lot of people don’t care about anything politically. They just want to go about what they do. Or else they’re anti-politics; they don’t want to have a political point of view. Either they don’t care or they don’t have the consciousness or they really think everybody is crazy. [Laughs.] I have to say, I am inclined to lean that way myself as the years pass. But everybody on “The West Wing,” of course, is very politically active. I was quite surprised to find out just how involved everybody was, in one way or another. Of course, Martin [Sheen] always has been.

C: This is a man who goes as far back as you do. Political activism for him is not just en vogue.

LT: He’s totally committed and involved. And he’s been arrested many, many, many, many times; I’ve never even been arrested.

Like you said before, some visceral [connection], I think people—I don’t know if they would even arrest me. They’d feel like they were arresting Ernestine or something. Honestly, I’m so amazed at how people take an affectionate stance toward me. I’m always so surprised at how kind people are to me. They’re always so generous and affectionate with me. I feel blessed by it in so many ways.

We should have a world that was so well-intentioned and so wholesome in its pursuits that everybody could just have a relaxed, easy life in some fashion, rather than dodging bullets or jumping over land mines or starving to death or—[Sigh.] I don’t know…

C: That’s not a tone of despair in your voice?

LT: No…

C: For those of us who believe in a better world, we can turn on “The West Wing” every Wednesday night. We keep hoping that we’ll open the newspapers and Josiah Bartlett will be in the Oval Office.

LT: [Laughs.] Sometimes I’m in there with [Martin Sheen], and I have a scene, I think he is the president. I forget. I get transported. And I think, God, he’s such a good guy. He wants things to be so okay. Somehow I have bought into that world too. I lobbied to get this job; I wanted to be on the show so much. I’m proud to be on the show. The writing is so excellent and the actors are really first-rate. I just feel fortunate. I’m only contracted to do ten this year, and I’ve done only four, so I have six more to do. I’m just delighted to be a part of it. And Aaron [Sorkin, creator of “The West Wing”] just wrote a really fun, easy character for me. People congratulate me, but it’s there in the words; you just show up and do them.

C: How has television changed since you were Kay Carter-Shepley on “Murphy Brown”?

LT: I think it’s changed a lot. We didn’t have “The Sopranos”, we didn’t have “Six Feet Under,” we didn’t have “Queer as Folk.” We didn’t have “West Wing,” that’s for sure. A lot of barriers have been broken. Listen, on “Laugh-In”, I couldn’t even dial the phone with a middle digit. We got away with it for a few weeks, ‘cause half the fun of doing a show like that is being mischievous. And the censors are standing around, trying to say, I know you’re doing something, and they can’t quite figure out what it is yet. And silly things. Ernestine calling Mae West and saying, “I have reports that you have abused your instrument.” And finally that gets by. And the next week they figure it out and say, “You have to say telephone instrument or telephone equipment.”

When I was doing [tv] specials, I couldn’t get certain pieces on. I would sometimes fight for them and trade pieces even. When we did that piece Juke and Opal way back in 1973, and Richard Pryor was a junkie and I was running that soul food restaurant—[there were several battles over including it]. And they still put Juke and Opal at the end of the show.… They made us put a laugh track on it, and all that stuff.

It’s not the network, it’s just business. Now, they want everything to break the barrier as much as possible.

I don’t think people even care so much about it; I think they only care about being titillated. Or seeing violence. Sexualized violence. Everything being sexualized. I swear, it must be because we came from such Puritanical roots; this country is repressed. Other countries think we’re really immature—well, we are young. Maybe now we’ve finally seized our adolescence. By pandering to all the adolescents in this country, now maybe we’re going to pass into a new phase. But I don’t know. Not likely, is it?

But I don’t even want to be negative. I want to try to be a little more optimistic. At least outwardly.

C: The truism is that comedy comes from a dark place. Many well-known comedians, the tabloids inform us, are given to kicking small animals as well as their spouses when they’re not onstage. But you’re an anomaly. You’ve been in a loving relationship with Jane for three decades, and been in the business almost as long as Mick Jagger. How did you beat the odds and find happiness?

LT: Who said I found happiness? I mean, I’m just another human. I just had to go to Office Depot this morning to buy more boxes.