Lily Tomlin

In 2003 she won the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. Mae West has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1560 Vine Street in Hollywood. Tomlin was inducted into the Michigan Women's Hall of Fame in 1998. She is entombed in the Cypress Hills Cemetery at 833 Jamaica Avenue in Brooklyn, New York. Actually, Tomlin frequently referred to Wagner, but avoided saying point-blank that she herself was, in fact, gay. She died at her home in the Ravenswood apartment building on Rossmore Avenue. Tomlin came out in 2000 on the New York City cable-access TV program Gay USA. In November 1980, she suffered a stroke and was rushed to the hospital, but the prognosis was not good and she was sent home.

In fact, many of her fans are unaware of her sexual orientation. Both movies were amusingly terrible and failed at the box-office, in spite of the fact that before the release of Sextette large photographs of her reclining on a chaise longue went up on billboards all over Hollywood proclaiming, "Mae West Is Coming.". Though Tomlin is now open about being lesbian, the media doesn't focus on this aspect of her personal life. And at the age of eighty-five she returned in her last movie, Sextette (1978). Tomlin revived the show for a brief run in 2000. After an absence of almost thirty years from the silver screen, she appeared in Myra Breckinridge (1970) with Raquel Welch. The show won Tomlin a Tony Award. West also appeared on television talk shows and, in the early 1960s, she guest starred as herself on the Mister Ed series about a talking horse.

Tomlin starred in the 1985 hit one-woman Broadway show The Search For Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe, written by her long-time romantic partner, Jane Wagner. In 1958, she wrote her autobiography titled Goodness Had Nothing To Do With It. Tomlin currently plays presidential assistant Deborah Fiderer on the TV show The West Wing. In order to keep her appeal fresh with younger generations, she recorded a Rock and Roll album titled "Great Balls of Fire.". Frizzle for the Magic School Bus cartoon series (1994-1997). She was banned from the airwaves for several years. Tomlin also voiced of the character of Ms. On radio, West appeared on ventriloquist Edgar Bergen's show and did a sexy sketch with Bergen's dummy, Charlie McCarthy, that shocked the listening audience.

For example, she played Linnea Reese, a strait-laced mother of two deaf children who has an affair with a country singer played by Keith Carradine, in Nashville; secretary Violet Newstead in Nine to Five; and a sickly heiress in All of Me. She also starred in her own Las Vegas stage show surrounded by muscle men and singing to delighted crowds. Tomlin is noted for her wide range. Among her stage performances was the title role in Catherine Was Great on Broadway. AT&T offered Tomlin $500,000 to film a commercial using her character Ernestine, but Tomlin turned the offer down because she thought the commercial would compromise her artistic integrity. She remained active during the ensuing years. Tomlin joined the Laugh-In cast in 1969. West appeared in her last movie during the studio age with The Heat's On (1943) for Columbia.

After college, Tomlin began doing stand-up comedy in Detroit nightclubs. She denied ever marrying him, and records showed she had never lived with him, but she still found it necessary to seek a legal divorce. Tomlin attended Wayne State University, where her interest in the theater and performing arts began. She was apparently married April 11, 1911 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to Frank Wallace, a fellow Vaudevillian, who in 1942 showed up with a marriage certificate. Tomlin was the daughter of a factory worker and a housewife who moved to Detroit from Paducah, Kentucky during the Great Depression. During World War II, allied soldiers called their inflatable life jackets "Mae Wests" from its resemblance to her curvaceous torso. Have I reached the party to whom I am speaking?") and the bratty five-year-old Edith Ann, rocking in her oversized rocking chair and making rude noises (famous for her line "And that's the truth!"). Fields in My Little Chickadee at Universal.

She first became well-known for her character skits on television's Laugh-In, in which she created several indelible characters that have stayed with her and become associated with her throughout her career, including the gum-chewing, wisecracking, snorting telephone operator Ernestine (famous for her lines "One ringy dingy, two ringy dingy" and "A gracious good morning to you .. Then, in 1940 she starred opposite W.C. Lily Tomlin (born Mary Jean Tomlin on September 1, 1939 in Detroit, Michigan), is an American actress and comedian. West starred in eight movies for Paramount before their association came to an end. Her answer was to increase the double-entendre, saying phrases with risqué connotations that could also be taken to mean something else. In 1934, the Hays Office emerged to enforce censorship of movies and her scripts began to be heavily edited.

The movie was a huge success and earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture. She brought Diamond Lil, now Lady Lou, to the screen in She Done Him Wrong (1933), personally selecting Cary Grant for the male lead, a role that made him a star. In her first scene, a coat check girl exclaimed, "Goodness, what lovely diamonds." West became an instant sensation when she replied, "Goodness had nothing to do with it, dearie.". At first, she did not like her small role in Night After Night, but was appeased when she was allowed to rewrite her lines.

She maintained a residence there for the rest of her life. Upon arrival, she moved into an apartment in the Ravenswood at 570 North Rossmore Avenue, not far from the movie studio on Melrose Avenue. She signed and went to Hollywood to appear in the motion picture Night After Night starring George Raft. In 1932, she was offered a contract by Paramount Pictures.

It enjoyed an enduring popularity and West would successfully revive it many times through the course of her career. The show struck box-office gold and heralded the brazen blonde to new heights of fame. For her next adventure into theatre she had a Broadway hit, Diamond Lil (1928), about a racy, easygoing lady of the 1890s. If they did not get shut down for indecency, they closed because of slow ticket sales.

Her productions were plagued by controversy and other problems, however. She continued to write plays, including The Wicked Age, Pleasure Man and The Constant Sinner. It was a success, but audiences had to go to New Jersey to see it because it was banned from Broadway. Her second play was about homosexuality and was titled The Drag.

When she regained her freedom she set to work on her next creative effort. You're hitting a woman.". She regarded the freedom to talk about sex as a basic human rights issue; she was also an early advocate of gay rights, pleading against police brutality against homosexuals by saying "A homosexual is a woman's soul in a man's body. She served eight days, with two days off for good behavior.

While incarcerated on Welfare Island, she was allowed to wear her silk panties instead of the scratchy prison issue. She was prosecuted on morals charges and, on April 19, 1927, was sentenced to ten days in jail for public obscenity. The theatre was raided and West was arrested along with everyone else in the cast. The notorious production did not go over well with city officials, however.

Though critics hated the show, ticket sales were good. Her first starring role on Broadway was in a play titled Sex, which was also written, produced and directed by West. Eventually, she started writing her own risqué plays using the pen name Jane Mast. By the time she was twelve she was doing burlesque under the name "The Baby Vamp." Though she had not yet grown into her generous curves, the slinky, dark-haired Mae was already raising eyebrows with a lascivious "shimmy" dance.

Mae West started performing in vaudeville at the age of five. Her younger sister and brother were Mildred West, called Beverly, and John Edwin West. She was born Mary Jane West in Brooklyn, New York, the daughter of John Patrick West and Matilda Delker Doelger. Mae West (August 17, 1893–November 22, 1980) was an American actress.

Marlo Manners. Sextette (1978) (Crown International Pictures) .. Leticia Van Allen. Myra Breckinridge (1970) (20th Century Fox) ..

Fay Lawrence. The Heat's On (1943) (Columbia) .. Flower Belle Lee. My Little Chickadee (1940) (Universal) ..

Peaches O'Day. Every Day's A Holiday (1938) (Paramount) .. Mavis Arden. Go West, Young Man (1936) (Paramount) ..

The Frisco Doll (Rose Carlton). Klondike Annie (1936) (Paramount) .. Cleo Bordon. Goin' To Town (1935) (Paramount) ..

Ruby Carter. Belle Of The Nineties (1934) (Paramount) .. Tira. I'm No Angel (1933) (Paramount) ..

Lady Lou. She Done Him Wrong (1933) (Paramount) .. Maudie Triplett. Night After Night (1932) (Paramount) ..