Lily Tomlin & Jane Wagner on Their Careers and Partnership

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: But what about this Lincoln Center retrospective for both of you, “Two Free Women,” Lily Tomlin and Jane Wagner? Just both of you talk to me about just the title, “Free Women.”

LILY TOMLIN, ACTOR AND COMEDIAN: Well, you know, that’s — the curators are Thomas Beard of Lincoln Center and —

JANE WAGNER, PRODUCER AND DIRECTOR: And Hilton Als.

TOMLIN: Hilton Als, right, of — who writes for “The New Yorker.”

WAGNER: That must be the way they perceive us.

TOMLIN: They must perceive us as two free women. Otherwise, we would have taken a shy corner.

AMANPOUR: So, let me then ask you, because this was, obviously, before you came out and before you got married. You’ve been married, but you’ve been life and work partners for, I think, nearly 50 years. And you both really —

TOMLIN: Yes, very close.

AMANPOUR: Yes. I mean, your creativity, your writing, your performing is so intertwined. I can even see you finishing each other’s sentences right now. So, how — did people not know you were gay? Did — was it just not done? You couldn’t acknowledge each other —

TOMLIN: Well, no, I was gay, but I didn’t meet Jane until [13:25:00] 1971, which was a year after I had been on “Laugh-In.” And no, of course, it was — I mean, even Ellen came out in 1995. That was — they offered me the cover of “Time” at one point in 1975, but I didn’t want to be on the cover just for being gay. I wanted to be on the cover for being —

WAGNER: An artist.

TOMLIN: — an artist, right.

AMANPOUR: So, they had said to you that, “We’ll give you the cover if you come out for us”?

TOMLIN: Yes, they needed a gay person for an article in “Time,” and they used one. They got a service person. I think it was September of ’75. And then I got the cover of “Time” with our first Broadway show, “Appearing Nightly,” which was in ’77. And that was lovely. Although, Jane and I were there all the time interviewing together because we were on the road preparing our show for Broadway and —

WAGNER: Lily was already famous before I met you.

TOMLIN: Well, Jane was famous with the more discerning people.

AMANPOUR: Jane, do you think that had Lily done that cover for that reason in 1975, it might have actually been beneficial to the cause of LGBT or was it just not possible at that time?

WAGNER: No, I — and we’ve talked about it together soon and we think it should have been done probably. It might have accelerated something, but then you don’t want to think, well, it was so important either. But I think Lily was not quite as solid in your career and you wanted not to be thought of —

TOMLIN: Well, my mother was still living too. And we — I tried to protect her from too much publicity.