Mary Jean “Lily” Tomlin (born September 1, 1939) is an American actress, comedian, writer, singer, and producer. She started her career in stand-up comedy and sketch comedy before transitioning her career as an actress on stage and screen. In a career spanning over fifty years, she has received numerous accolades including seven Emmy Awards, a Grammy Award, and two Tony Awards. She was also awarded the Kennedy Center Honor in 2014 and the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award in 2017. Her breakout role was on the variety show Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In from 1969 until 1973. Her signature role which was written by her then-partner (now wife), Jane Wagner, was in the show, The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe which opened on Broadway in 1985 and earned Tomlin the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play. She won Emmy Awards for the special, Lily (1973), and received a Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album for This Is a Recording (1972).
Tomlin has appeared in numerous other TV shows, including recurring roles on Murphy Brown (1988-1998), Aaron Sorkin’s The West Wing (2002-2006), Desperate Housewives (2004-2012), Damages (2007-2012), Eastbound & Down (2009-2013), Web Therapy (2011-2015), and Roger Spottiswoode’s TV movie And the Band Played On (1993), with Matthew Modine, Alan Alda, Ian McKellen, Richard Gere, Saul Rubinek, and Glenne Headly. She received nominations for 4 Primetime Emmy Awards, 3 Screen Actors Guild Awards and a Golden Globe Award for her role as Frankie Bergstein on the Netflix series Grace and Frankie (2015-2021), with Jane Fonda, Sam Water-son, Martin Sheen, Brooklyn Decker, Ethan Embry, June Diane Raphael, and Baron Vaughn.
Tomlin made her film debut in Robert Altman’s Nashville (1974), with David Arkin, Barbara Baxley, Ned Beatty, Karen Black, Ronee Blakley, Timothy Brown, Keith Carradine, Geraldine Chaplin, Robert DoQui, Shelley Duvall, Allen Garfield, Henry Gibson, Scott Glenn, Jeff Goldblum, Barbara Harris, Michael Murphy, Allan F. Nicholls, Cristina Raines, Bert Remsen, Gwen Welles, and Keenan Wynn. She was nominated for several awards including a Golden Globe and an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.
Her performance in Robert Benton’s The Late Show (1977), with Art Carney, Bill Macy, Eugene Roche, and Joanna Cassidy; won her the Best Actress Award at the Berlin International Film Festival and nominations for the Golden Globe and BAFTA Award for Best Lead Actress. She also co-starred with John Travolta in the romantic drama Moment by Moment (1978), which was a notorious box office bomb.
Films in the 80s include 9 to 5 (1980), with Fonda, Dolly Parton, and Dabney Coleman; Joel Schumacher‘s The Incredible Shrinking Woman (1981), with Charles Grodin, Beatty, John Glover, and Elizabeth Wilson; Carl Reiner‘s All of Me (1984), with Steve Martin; and Jim Abrams‘ Big Business (1988), with Bette Midler.
Films in the 1990s include Shadows and Fog (1991), with Woody Allen (who also directed), Kathy Bates, John Cusack, Mia Farrow, Jodie Foster, John Malkovich, Kenneth Mars, and Donald Pleasance; Altman’s The Player (1992), with Tim Robbins, Greta Scacchi, Fred Ward, Whoopi Goldberg, Peter Gallagher, Brion James and Cynthia Stevenson; Altman’s Short Cuts (1993), with Matthew Modine, Julianne Moore, Anne Archer, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Robert Downey Jr., Madeleine Stowe, Chris Penn, Frances McDormand, Lori Singer, Andie MacDowell, Buck Henry, Annie Ross, Huey Lewis, Lyle Lovett, Tom Waits, and Jack Lemmon; The Beverly Hillbillies (1993), with Jim Varney, Diedrich Bader, Dabney Coleman, Erika Eleniak, Cloris Leachman, Rob Schneider, and Lea Thompson; and Blue in the Face (1995), with Harvey Keitel, Victor Argo, Giancarlo Esposito, Roseanne Barr, Michael J. Fox, Mira Sorvino, Lou Reed, Mel Gorham, Jim Jarmusch and Malik Yoba.
Films in the late 1990s include Roger Getting Away with Murder (1996), with Dan Aykroyd and Lemmon; David O. Russell‘s Flirting with Disaster (1996), with Ben Stiller, Patricia Arquette, Téa Leoni, Mary Tyler Moore, George Segal, Richard Jenkins, Josh Brolin, Glenn Fitzgerald, and Alan Alda; Krippendorf’s Tribe (1998), with Richard Dreyfus; and Franco Zeffirelli’s Tea with Mussolini (1999), with Cher, Judi Dench, Joan Plowright, Maggie Smith, and Michael Williams.
Films in the 2000s include The Kid (2000), with Bruce Willis, Spencer Breslin, Emily Mortimer, Chi McBride, and Jean Smart; Jake Kasdan’s Orange County (2002), with Colin Hanks, Jack Black, Catherine O’Hara, Schuyler Fisk, John Lithgow, Chevy Chase, and Harold Ramis; Russell’s I Heart Huckabees (2004), with Dustin Hoffman, Isabelle Huppert, Jude Law, Jason Schwartzman, Mark Wahlberg, and Naomi Watts; Altman’s A Prairie Home Companion (2006), with Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline, Tommy Lee Jones, Woody Harrelson, Garrison Keillor, Virginia Madsen, John C. Reilly, and Lindsay Lohan; Paul Schrader’s The Walker (2007), with Woody Harrelson, Kristin Scott Thomas, Lauren Bacall, Beatty, Willem Dafoe, Moritz Bleibtreu and Mary Beth Hurt; and The Pink Panther 2 (2009), with Martin, Jean Reno, Alfred Molina, Emily Mortimer, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Andy García, Yuki Matsuzaki, and John Cleese.
Later roles include Paul Weitz’s Admission (2013), with Tina Fey, Paul Rudd, Michael Sheen, and Wallace Shawn; Grandma (2015), with with Julia Garner, Marcia Gay Harden, Judy Greer, Laverne Cox, and Sam Elliott; Moving On (2023), with Fonda, Malcolm McDowell, Sarah Burns, and Richard Roundtree; 80 for Brady (2023), with Fonda, Rita Moreno, and Sally Field.
Tomlin is also well known for voicing Ms. Frizzle for the children’s animated series The Magic School Bus (1994-1997) and The Magic School Bus Rides Again (2017-2020). She also voiced for the movies The Ant Bully (2006), with Julia Robert, Nicolas Cage, Streep, Paul Giamatti, Regina King, and Bruce Campbell; the English dub of Hayao Miyazaki’s Ponyo (2008), with Noah Cyrus, Frankie Jonas, Fey, Matt Damon, Liam Neeson, Cate Blanchett, Leachman, and Betty White; and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) with Shameik Moore, Jake Johnson, Hailee Steinfeld, Mahershala Ali, Brian Tyree Henry, Luna Lauren Velez, John Mulaney, Kimiko Glenn, Cage, and Liev Schreiber.
Each review will be linked to the title below.
(*seen originally in theaters)
(**seen rereleased in theaters)
- Scarecrow in a Garden of Cucumbers (1972) – directed by Robert J. Kaplan – uncredited voice – presumed lost
- Nashville (1975) – directed by Robert Altman
- The Late Show (1977) – directed by Robert Benton
- Moment by Moment (1978) – directed by Jane Wagner
- 9 to 5 (1980)** – directed by Colin Higgins – aka Nine to Five
- The Incredible Shrinking Woman (1981) – directed by Joel Schumacher
- All of Me (1984) – directed by Carl Reiner
- Big Business (1988) – directed by Jim Abrams
- The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe (1991) – directed by John Bailey
- Shadows and Fog (1991) – directed by Woody Allen
- The Player (1992) – directed by Robert Altman
- The Beverly Hillbillies (1993) – directed by Penelope Spheeris
- Short Cuts (1993) – directed by Robert Altman
- Blue in the Face (1995) – directed by Wayne Wang & Paul Auster
- The Celluloid Closet (1996) – directed by Rob Epstein & Jeffrey Friedman – narrator – documentary
- Getting Away with Murder (1996) – directed by Harvey Miller
- Flirting with Disaster (1996) – directed by David O. Russell
- Krippendorf’s Tribe (1998) – directed by Todd Holland
- Tea with Mussolini (1999) – directed by Franco Zeffirelli
- The Kid (2000) – directed by Jon Turteltaub
- Orange County (2002)* – directed by Jake Kasdan
- I ♥ Huckabees (2004) – directed by David O. Russell – aka I Heart Huckabees
- A Prairie Home Companion (2006) – directed by Robert Altman
- The Ant Bully (2006) – directed by John A. Davis
- The Walker (2007) – directed by Paul Schrader
- Ponyo (2008)* – directed by Hayao Miyazaki – English dub – aka 崖の上のポニョ, Gake no Ue no Ponyo, Ponyo on the Cliff – Japan
- The Pink Panther 2 (2009) – directed by Harald Zwart
- Shorts in Shorts (2012) – directed by Jacob Chase, Robert Festinger, Chris Foggin, Rupert Friend, Benjamin Grayson, Jay Kamen, & Neil LaBute – anthology
- Admission (2013) – directed by Paul Weitz
- Grandma (2015) – directed by Paul Weitz
- Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)* – directed by Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey, & Rodney Rothman
- Moving On (2023) – directed by Paul Weitz
- 80 for Brady (2023) – directed by Kyle Marvin
I Review Stuff 