Mazel tov, Lily Tomlin!

[DonViejo]

The newly married 74-year-old has a new role -- Jane Wagner's wife

MARY ELIZABETH WILLIAMS

It took over four decades, but Lily Tomlin and Jane Wagner have put a ring on it. Columnist Liz Smith quietly dropped the news of the nuptials in a column Friday, noting, “My longtime friends, Lily Tomlin and her love, the writer Jane Wagner, got married on the eve of 2014 … My wish is that their happiness will be as great as their combined talents.”

The 74-year-old Tomlin, who will be a headliner at Michigan’s LaughFest 2014 in March, has spent much of her public life avoiding the image of poster girl for marriage equality. Four years ago, she revealed that when Time magazine offered her the opportunity to come out on its cover, “I was more insulted than anything. I felt it was a bribe: ‘We need a gay person, and we’ll take anybody!’” Even when she semi-officially came out in 2000, she insisted, “I never wanted to be anybody’s spokesperson or poster person. You know, I see what happens to too many people.” And for her decades-long circumspect approach to her private life, she’s faced criticism from other, more outspoken figures.

Yet even as she flew under the political radar, she has subversively used her comedy to make a statement. On her third album, “Modern Scream,” she included a bit about an interviewer asking an actress what it’s like “to see yourself on the big screen, playing a heterosexual woman.” “I’ve seen these women all my life,” she replied. “I know how they walk, I know how they talk.” She narrated the 1995 film “The Celluloid Closet.” In recent years she’s spoken more openly about her experiences in show business and her admiration for how “remarkably wonderful” it is that there’s more acceptance now for celebrities who come out.

Yet her approach to officially tying the knot with the woman she’s spent most of her adult life with remained openly ambivalent. In 2006, Tomlin spoke out against international opposition to marriage equality by saying, “I am happy for anybody who wants to get married and I think they should have every right to. It is an aggressively negative rejection.” But she added, “I am not a religious person and to me it is a kind of imitation of straight society. If anything, we could be more forward thinking and we could maybe create something different.” And just last March, during an appearance on “The View,” she admitted, “I’m not against it, I support same-sex marriage and I raise money for it and everything else, but I used to facetiously say I don’t even want to get into the wardrobe … We’d like to, but honestly it’s a lot to plan. And you got to make hors d’oeuvres and things like that.”

MORE
http://www.salon.com/2014/01/07/mazel_tov_lily_tomlin/

[tazkcmo]

1. Yay!

I had a crush on her for most of my life and am very envious of her partner. I'm also very happy for them both.

[elleng]

2. 'you got to make hors d’oeuvres and things like that.” '

[shenmue]

3. :)

Very happy for them.