Lily Tomlin
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LIGHTS Up LAS VEGAS
Comedy ICon Presents “not PlayIng WIth a Full deCk”
The gift of laughter is a precious one. Lily Tomlin has been giving audiences throughout the world many reasons to
smile and laugh during her over 40-year career in show business. Whether it is her characters of comedy on television’s
Laugh-In, her numerous films such as Nine To Five and Big Business filled with many hilarious moments or her live stage
performances including the acclaimed Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe, Tomlin is definitely a queen of
comedy. The Rage Monthly spoke with Lily Tomlin as she was preparing to perform for the very first time in the city of sin…
otherwise known as Las Vegas on November 10 through November 18. by bill biss
Rage: This is your debut at the MGM Grand! take off and you see her chair on top of the car. Susie Sorority is (laughter)…Trudy
Lily Tomlin: Yeah, it is. I’ve never played Vegas. I did a show years ago in 1981. I tries to get in the car and Susie Sorority says, “Why can’t people like that just stay
had a special and it won an Emmy. It was called Lily: Sold Out about going to Vegas home?” and then she says, “I could just barf!” She doesn’t want Trudy to get in the
for the money but I didn’t really play Vegas. I shot the special there at Caesar’s. The car…but she does.
showroom was dark during the Christmas week or something and we were able Rage: Yeah, that was fantastic. Making the serious ridiculous is all in the self-parody. Your
to go in there and shoot. partner, Jane Wagner is such a force when it comes to her writing. Do you leave her alone?
Rage: Now with Not Playing With a Full Deck, can you tell me about the title and the premise How does that work?
of the show? LT: It’s hard to say…like most writers, she doesn’t really want to write. You know,
LT: I always do characters so…the show is hopefully funny and a little bit over it’s pretty lonely looking at that page. And so, she avoids it as much as she can. I
the top or wacky, but the kind of thing I’ve always done. On a literal level, you’ll might beg her to help me with something or she might surprise me and give me
see a lot of playing cards with my characters on them. So, when I perform, liter- a couple of great lines. Like, we’re working on Vegas now so she has to kind of
ally when I perform I wouldn’t have time to do a full deck. But on a content and IMMERSE herself in work and she doesn’t want to do it!
aesthetic level, I’d be kind of not playing with a full deck. Just fooling around and I’m more inclined to keep chugging along because I love to perform. I like to
having as much fun as I can…without being too…not being too in earnest like do live performance. I’m having fun getting ready for Vegas and adding stuff and
Ernestine (laughter). trying to create a little production without overwhelming what I do. I also have a
Rage: Is this a show that will tour? part on Damages this year and I’m flying back and forth to New York to shoot. If
LT: No, I’m making it to play in that showroom. Some bits I might be doing I had more time and less things on my plate, I probably would have opened for
maybe in a different frame or a different essence but certain things I’m adding to myself as Tommy Velour. That’s the kind of place that allows me to do something
the show are meant to be just for that showroom. like that…
Rage: Excellent. I saw you in Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe back in San Rage: I watched the first season of Damages and boy, does that show throw you some
Francisco. I couldn’t tell you when but my seat was way up high in the audience and I have a curveballs.
fear of heights… LT: Oh, I know, I know. I just love the show. I’ve been crazy about it like a fanatical
LT: Oh! You poor thing. fan. I had met the guys who created it…actually, it happened at a photography
Rage: (laughter) I was trying to enjoy it and laugh but even the stairs going up to my seat opening. I just went crazy for them. I leapt all over them and hugged them and
were steep. punched them. Anyway, I guess it paid off. I got on the show this year.
LT: That was back in the 1980s…heck, I’m sorry. Rage: Yeah. I have to thank you for all your advocacy work to fight AIDS. In 1994, my first
Rage: Heck no. It’s not your fault. partner was dying of AIDS and through Broadway Cares I believe, I got an autographed photo
LT: That theatre fits only about 1,600 or something. Oh my God and I looked like of you. I gave it to a lesbian friend and now we are not even friends anymore.
a little gob of a stand-up comic and you were only seeing the top of my head. LT: How sad. She probably gave it, like, to her grocer.
Rage: A while back I saw a clip of you playing all these different women in a car and one of Rage: For a loaf of bread...
them says, “I think I’m gonna barf.” It was really hilarious. LT: No. I don’t think she even did that well.
LT: Oh yeah. I made that for Saturday Night Live. That was way back in 1977. The Rage: You were really rolling from 1980 to 1988 with Nine to Five, The Incredible Shrinking
conceit was that Mrs. Beasley was driving all these characters to Broadway to do Woman, All of Me and Big Business. They were all sensational comedies. I wanted to ask what
that first Broadway show. We drove my old 1955 Dodge and on the back it says, you thought of the current state of film comedy.
“Broadway or Bust.” Then they pick Crystal the quad up on the highway and they LT: I’ve been surprised. I think it’s somewhat calculated but it doesn’t matter,
november 2009 | RAGE monthly 37
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