The film “Grandma” is showcasing Lily Tomlin’s sly wit for a new generation of viewers — who are falling in love with the 75-year-old much the way America did 45 years ago when she was a breakout star on NBC’s “Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In.”
“Grandma” is making Tomlin a hot commodity again after her 60-year career on stage, film and TV — much the same way that “Downton Abbey” made Maggie Smith “hot” again, at roughly the same age (Smith was 75 when the show premiered in 2010). Tomlin’s even been mentioned as an early Oscar contender.
For those who don’t know about Tomlin’s heralded early career, we have put together an introduction, with clips and highlights. For one thing, she was always the smartest person in the room, a comic who was able to develop her gifts on a variety of platforms: television, recordings, Broadway and film. And this all began in 1970, the year Tina Fey, among the dozens of female comics influenced by Tomlin, was born.
Simply put, there was and is nobody else like her: a comedic chameleon who can play a variety of completely distinct characters. The most popular among her early successes was Ernestine, the snarky telephone operator on “Laugh-In” with the ’40s hairdo, who would call everyone from writer Gore Vidal to President Nixon — whom she called “Milhous” while making topical allusions to phone tapping as Watergate was making headlines. Tomlin’s other signature “Laugh-In” character was Edith Ann, a precocious 5-year-old who opined about life from an oversize yellow rocking chair and ended every session by saying, “And that’s the truth,” before sticking out her tongue.
During her time on “Laugh-In,” Tomlin made hit comedy albums that showcased each character: “This Is a Recording” for Ernestine and “And That’s the Truth” for Edith Ann. Both received Grammy nominations. Tomlin won Best Comedy Album for “This Is a Recording.”
She went on to write and star in comedy specials for TV, and won Emmy Awards, and it seemed that there was nothing she couldn’t do. Everybody wanted to work with her, from AT&T, which offered her $500,000 to play Ernestine in a commercial — she declined, saying it would compromise her artistic integrity — to director Robert Altman, who gave her many roles in his films. The first was as Linnea Reese, the mother of two deaf children who has a fling with rock star Keith Carradine in the landmark movie “Nashville.” Tomlin’s key scene, where Carradine seduces her from the stage while singing his Oscar-winning song “I’m Easy” to her, won her an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress.
What fields were left for Tomlin to conquer? Broadway, of course. In 1977, she appeared in a solo show — the first woman to do so — in “Appearing Nitely” at the Biltmore Theatre. In 1985, she returned in another one-woman Broadway show, “The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe,” written by her longtime life partner, writer-producer Jane Wagner. She won the Best Actress Tony.
Having proved herself as a matchless comedic chameleon and a dramatic actress, Tomlin went in on several mainstream Hollywood movies and became a terrific collaborator. She enjoyed a major success in the 1980 film “9 to 5,” appearing with Jane Fonda and Dolly Parton as one of a trio of women who get revenge on their sexist boss (Dabney Coleman).
(Tomlin now co-stars with Fonda in the Netflix comedy series “Grace and Frankie.”)
She also played opposite Bette Midler in another hit movie, 1988’s “Big Business,” about two pairs of identical twins switched at birth, and with Steve Martin in 1984’s “All of Me.” She worked with Altman in 1993’s “Short Cuts” and on his last film, “A Prairie Home Companion,” in 2006.
Tomlin has been an awards magnet since the beginning of her career. In addition to the Tony and the Grammy, she has seven Emmys, including one for her work on the animated children’s show “The Magic School Bus.” In 2003, she received the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. She was a Kennedy Center Honors recipient in 2014.