Throughout the Lily Tomlin/Jane Wagner theatrical masterpiece Search for Intelligent Life in the Universe, Trudy the bag lady tries to explain human beings to her alien friends. In one instance, she uses Andy Warhol’s “Campbell’s Tomato Soup” artwork and a Campbell’s tomato soup can to distinguish between art and reality. At the end of the play, Trudy takes the aliens to see Lily Tomlin in the play “Search for Intelligent Life in the Universe” so they can experience “goosebumps.” Trudy’s disconcerted to learn that they’ve been watching the audience, not the play. But the aliens reply, “The play was soup, the audience – art.”
During Saturday night’s “Conversations with Coco,” the legendary actress and comedienne Lily Tomlin explained that Jane Wagner, her partner of 39 years, wrote Search based on the premise in physics that the very act of watching something changes that thing and the viewer. The two artists wanted the audience to leave the theatre changed. And if Coco’s extraordinary “conversation” with Tomlin before a packed audience at the L.A. Gay and Lesbian Center’s Renberg Theatre illustrated anything – it’s that the work and sensibilities of Lily Tomlin and Jane Wagner continue to give us goosebumps and inspire change.
The roughly two and a half hour show opened with an old clip of Lily Tomlin as her famous character “Ernestine” spoofing The Phone Company with the tag line: “We Don’t Care, We Don’t Have To.”
Photo - LA Gay & Lesbian Center - Danielle Gruen Photography
After a little strip tease entrance, the beloved Miss Coco Peru (aka Clinton Leupp) explained – in song – how the show was all about Lily – and a little about her. In fact, Coco was an extraordinary interviewer – she was well-versed in Lily Tomlin’s 45-year career – one that includes eight Emmys, two Tonys, a Grammy, an Oscar nomination, the Mark Twain award, and honors from GLAAD, the Center and many others, as well as TV specials and appears up to and including “Damages” with Glenn Close. But Coco also related how Lily’s career had personally impacted and empowered her throughout her life from a very early age – and in that way, she stood in for so many in the enthusiastic audience. We were moved and changed before we discovered Search, enabling many of us – like Coco, to make art out of our lives.
Not only that – but from the moment before Lily walked onstage until the moment the Coco and Lily left together to a sustained standing ovation – Coco made the audience feel like family. She welcomed Lily to the LA Gay & Lesbian Center’s Lily Tomlin/Jane Wagner Cultural Arts Center and then mentioned that the show was a benefit for the Center – important in this bad economy – so Lily should pay particular attention to the people in the first two rows. They both gave kudos to Center Artistic Director Jon Imparato.
Coco also noted that Jane Wagner was in the front row and asked Lily, “What’s the secret to a long term relationship?” “Love,” Lily said, “and side lights,” following up on a running joke about the lighting for the conversation. Lily also said that Lily and Jane embedded mention of their new love in their 1975 LP album collaboration, “Modern Scream.”
Photos - Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Center - Susan Goldman
Lily referred to – and talked to Jane throughout the show. “I fell madly in love with her as I laid eyes on her. So that was that,” Lily said of Jane, who she begged to come to California to help make Lily’s character Edith Ann “better than she was.” And, “Jane’s the writer. Everybody thinks I’m so smart. I’m not so smart.” But, said Coco, “you’ve got a smart mouth.”
Lily also talked about her family – in particular a funny story about eating corn off the floor in a falling-apart farmhouse where there were “horses with huge penises and cows with huge milks bags.” She said she’s always looking for a place to tell that story – and tried to slip it in during an improved scene with Meryl Streep during Robert Altman’s “Prairie Home Companion” – but it was edited out of the final film.
Lily also talked about her brother Richard who sawed their couch into five parts so they would have sectionals. He was never punished because “we dominated the family.” Richard apparently enjoyed furniture with hot pink and blue clay with silver threading and would wear a smoking jacket, sporting water in a champagne glass and fan blowing the sheers into the room – an experience “only this audience would appreciate.”
Lily’s first TV spot was in 1966 on The Garry Moore Show, his attempted comeback, which she called “the last gasp of the variety show.” The conceit was that she was in front of a mirror getting made up – and then she put on a gorilla head. Next was The Merv Griffin Show, where she played the Oldest Living Beauty Expert with a sagging face – the night Hermione Gingold (Gigi), an inadvertent look-alike, was on the show.
Here’s a clip of Lily introducing her character Ernestine on The Merv Griffen Show. Lily originally created Ernestine at The Improv, borne out of her hatred of the monolithic and powerful Phone Company. If you wanted your phone repaired, they’d say, “Will you be there between April and November?” The “Mr. Veedle” to whom she speaks is a reference to Gore Vidal, Lily said. (Later Lily started having Ernestine dial the phone with her middle finger).
Coco noted that Lily’s fast-talking character Suzie Sorority was a precursor to the Valley Girl, an assessment with which Lily agreed. Suzie was part of the “Silent Majority” – a character the TV producers of Laugh In initially preferred to her iconic character Edith Ann. In the third and last season in December of 1969, Edith Ann was introduced and instantly became a big hit, as was Ernestine.
Lily also cracked up telling of how when she arrived at the Emmy Awards show – she was nominated for her Ernestine take off on Flashdance – dressed as Ernestine holding the leashes of two hounds. She had a special entrance – which apparently Dynasty’s Joan Collins initially thought was meant for her. “Ernestine was so full of herself,” Lily said. “She had so much information [via the Phone Company] and discovered there was power in threatening people.”
And, it turned out the Phone Company – actually AT&T – was threatened by her character, Lily said – offering her $550,000 to do a commercial for them just on the East Coast – at a time when she was making $2,250 a week (up from $750 a week) by the time she left Laugh In. “I burst into tears,” Lily said when her agent told her of the offer. “I felt like such a failure that the phone company felt they could buy me off.” She and Coco then mused about taking the money – and how it would give “Lily Sold Out” – her imitation Cher-Ann Margaret Las Vegas show – a whole new meaning.
Here’s a clip of Ernestine on the Joan Rivers Show – the Ernestine fan in the middle is Lily’s brother Richard- a portion of which was shown at the event:
Lily said she tried out Edith Ann at an out of the way comedy club called The Ice House in Pasadena where characters could be developed and “people wouldn’t write about you.” Edith Ann wound up being a character where “the essence of every sentence was like an aphorism – but it was like heightened naturalism.”
Lily also talked about several other characters – including her “drag king” character Tommy Velour. Coco said Lily in drag “empowered” her. But Lily said she didn’t think of Tommy as doing drag and “the liberation that comes from transcending gender” – but rather as another character, in this case based on an old style Wayne Newton-ish lounge singer who is “so magnanimous with this talent.”
Here’s Tommy singing to Elizabeth Taylor – with Michael Jackson by Taylor’s side.
Lily also said talked about Pervis Hawkins, the smooth Black R&B singer “Messiah of Love” (1982) who some of us thought was reminiscent of the late singer Teddy Pendergrass or the late (closted?) Luther Vandross.
Lily revealed that she dressed up as Pervis and with two girlfriend in a limo picked up two prostitutes and paid them $500-600 just to talk about their lives to learn about prostitutes for a character she was working on. The car motor wound up drowning out the tapes, however. Lily noted that she had a friend Tina in Detroit who was a prostitute. “She would say, ‘I’m so tired. I haven’t had my proper rest today.” Which I didn’t understand because she’d be in bed all the time.” Lily said he “just loved Pervis,” a character Jane originally wrote for Richard Pryor.
In the “film section,” Lily said, “It never occurred to me that I couldn’t be in the movies.”
And Lily had stories. Lily said meeting Barbara Harris when they worked on Nashville (1975) was “revelatory” after Lily saw her on Broadway in “Oh Dad, Poor Dad.” There were 24 actors who worked about two weeks each on Altman’s famous film. On the last day of shooting the Parthenon scene – Harris shows up waving the Screen Actor’s Guild book describing under what conditions the union actors can work. Apparently, actors were supposed to get $5 for lunch – whether they were on the set or not – which Altman then had to pay. “Bob never got over that,” Lily said. “But it was the most sublime thing in the world that she showed up and knew her SAG book!”
Lily said she studied sign language for the film still emails with actor who played her deaf son.
Jane Wagner, Coco Peru, Lily Tomlin, Kathryn Joosten - Photo by Karen Ocamb
One of Coco’s favorite films is “9 to 5” which Lily starred in with Jane Fonda and Dolly Parton, with whom she remains good friends. “Nothing will bond you like having the number one movie,” Lily said. “I should have invited Jane here tonight,” she said. Kathryn Joosten, who guest stars with Lily on Desperate Housewives was there. Ironically, Lily replaced Joosten on The West Wing when Joosten’s beloved Delores Landingham was killed in an accident.
Coco and Lily concurred that 9 to 5 was a “groundbreaking” film not only for its subject matter – feminism (equal pay for equal work, non-sexist treatment, flexible work schedules) and fantasies – but because it is so rare for movies that are number one at the box office to also star women. Lily also revealed that each star thought their character was the sane one, the “one in the middle.” She also said she has never seen Dolly Parton without her wig.
Lily said that Steve Martin, her co-star in All of Me, was “really sweet.” She said she sang a song about being beautiful each time they did the mirror scene – and that the fall at the end of the movie was a real fall.
Lily said talked the 1996 film Flirting with Disaster in which she played opposite Alan Alda as an LSD-producing couple who are the biological parents of young “up and comer” Ben Stiller. Lily said she and Alda improvised dialogue around the dinner table where they have accidentally laced the food of FBI agent with LSD. Lily also said that Glenn Fitzgerald was “inspired” as their other son.
Ironically, Lily said that it appeared to have been Alan Alda that get her first prime time special Lily on air. Lily said that Fred Silverman, who headed CBS in 1973, called the special a “$360,000 jerk off.” But after having lunch with Alda, “Freddy aired it – and it won two Emmies. But I never got a series.”
Lily said that Meryl Streep is “pretty open and very fun – she likes to play.” Lily said she surprised Streep before they did their improvisation-laced over-lapping dialogue as sisters dressing room scene during Prairie Home Companion, which Altman shot in one long take. “There’s no touching her. She’s out of sight.” During a publicity tour before an audience in San Francisco, Lily joked that “Frankly, she wasn’t my first choice.” Lily remembers the audience cracking up – but in the front row, one young girl said to another, “Well, that wasn’t very nice.”
Lily and Streep continued the sister-act during an Oscar night tribute to Robert Altman. Though Jane had written text for them, they only glanced at it for reference. “We didn’t want to be maudlin,” Lily said. “He’d die if we did that.”
Coco noted that “Appearing Nightly” in 1977 was the first ever one-woman stage show. “I couldn’t do it any other way,” Lily said.
Here’s a clip of Lily accepting a special Tony Lifetime Achievement award in 1977:
Coco took a moment when shifting to discuss Lily’s 1985 “masterpiece,” Search for Intelligent Life in the Universe. “I want to thank Jane for writing it because, as a solo performer, it changed my life,” Coco said.
Photo - Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Center - Susan Goldman
Lily said Search played two shows on the weekend. “It was a bit tiring,” Lily said. “But it was also very energizing because it’s so affirming.” She noted one review that said, “At the end, we were on our feet applauding our higher selves.”
Search, Lily said, “was really divine at a divine time.”
Coco asked Lily about stage fright and Lily told of how she’s glad she didn’t know that Katherine Hepburn, Meryl Streep and Barbara Streisand were in the audience during one performance of Search. Hepburn came back stage and Lily said she grabbed her head and kissed her all over. “I don’t think that’s something you normally do. But she tolerated it.” Streisand apparently didn’t feel well and she didn’t see her.
Screen star Claudette Colbert went backstage after Appearing Nightly and told Lily her real name was Lily, too. “She was gorgeous,” Lilly said.
Coco reached back and pulled out a poster a friend of hers had kept from Lily’s September 1977 appearance at the Hollywood Bowl. It was “A Star-Spangled Night for Rights” produced by Better Midler’s manager Aaron Russo. Coco choked back tears as she read that the night was also about equal protections for gays. And among the performers that night was Lily and Jane’s friend, Richard Pryor and the music group War. “You were changing my life and making it better” even then, said Coco.
One final video featured Lily at a performance at the Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Community Services Center in the early 1990s in which she reprised Ernestine answering the phone and said, “I work here now.”
Acknowledging that they barely skimmed the surface of Lily’s incredible career, Coco closed the show with a montage where a photo – of Lily with Jeffrey Friedman and Rob Epstein of The Celluloid Closet (1995), for instance – summed up people, places, and times where Lily Tomlin and Jane Wagner ran like a river through our lives, a constant source of affirmation that continues to refresh and change us with each encounter.
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Excellent Karen! Truly brilliant!
-Danielle
I just love Lily and Jane’s work. They are an inspiration…both professionally and personally.