<![CDATA[Jezebel: lily tomlin]]> http://tags.gawker.com/assets/base/img/thumbs140x140/jezebel.com.png <![CDATA[Jezebel: lily tomlin]]> http://jezebel.com/tag/lilytomlin http://jezebel.com/tag/lilytomlin <![CDATA[Kathy Griffin And Lily Tomlin Call Feminist Icon Jane Fonda]]> On last night's My Life on the D List, Kathy got to meet and hang out with Lily Tomlin, and she took the opportunity to get Lily to call Jane Fonda. Jane didn't seem too happy to speak with Kathy.

However, in their brief conversation, she did manage to own up to having slept with Klute co-star Donald Sutherland.

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<![CDATA[It's (Another) Boy For Gwen & Gavin]]>

  • Gwen Stefani gave birth yesterday! The baby boy, Zuma Nesta Rock Rossdale, weighed 8 1/2 lbs. Yes, "Nesta" was Bob Marley's middle name. Gwen and Gavin's other kid, Kingston, is named after a town in Jamaica. See the trend? [People]
  • Newly pregnant: Melanie "Sporty Spice" Chisholm. The dad is maybe probably property developer Thomas Starr, whom Mel has been seeing for six years. [The Sun]
  • Makeup mogul Bobbi Brown has been named as a New Jersey delegate for the Democratic convention to support Barack Obama. She's done Michelle's makeup! She'll be giving delegates goody bags in Denver. [NY Mag]
  • Teri Hatcher's former uncle through marriage, Richard Hayes Stone, had been serving a 14-year jail sentence for child molestation when he died Tuesday of colon cancer. Hatcher helped put Stone behind bars after she heard of a teen suicide involving a girl who knew Stone; Teri also revealed she'd been molested by Stone as a child as well. [Perez Hilton]
  • Michael Phelps was seen making out with Aussie swimmer Stephanie Rice. They "swapped spit" at a party and then posed together for Speedo, "laughing and groping" each other. Olympic heat! [Page Six]
  • No one wants to see Katie Holmes on Broadway. [MSNBC]
  • Rolling Stone Ronnie Wood, 61, is still torn between his wife, 53, and his Russian lover, 20, whom he calls a "slut." He's currently battling booze in rehab. [The Sun]
  • Despite the unexpected deaths of three patients and the rape of a teenage girl, Dr. Drew insists that Aurora Las Encinas is "an excellent hospital." As for the deaths and the rape, he says, "My heart is broken about these cases." While Drew Pinsky is the co-medical director of the chemical dependency program, he says of Las Encinas: "It's not my hospital." [LA Times]
  • The Gossip Girl girls wearing My Fair Lady costumes. [Just Jared]
  • Rihanna is number one on the charts, keeping American Idol alum David Archuleta from taking the top spot. [Reuters]
  • Haha, this story is ridiculous: "Presumably Rihanna hoped that donning a wacky pair of boots would divert attention away from her latest romantic outing with lover Chris Brown." [The Sun]
  • 50 Cent has met with officials regarding the fire that destroyed the house his baby mama and son were living in. The case is under investigation; what do you think they will find? [Perez Hilton]
  • Jay-Z's new track, "Jockin' Jay-Z," has lyrics about Noel Gallagher: "That bloke from Oasis said I couldn’t play guitar/ Someone shoulda told him I’m a muthafucking rock star/ Today is gonna be the day that I’m gonna throw it back to you/ I’m living life as a rocker…" So current! [The Sun]
  • Casting scoops on fall TV shows: Blythe Danner will guest star on Medium; there are two new peeps on Lost; James Cromwell is joining My Own Worst Enemy, that Christian Slater thriller. [EW]
  • So you know how Courtenay Semel, Lindsay Lohan's former "roommate" and Tila Tequila's girlfriend, went to jail in Vegas on Wednesday? She was trying to get into a club with a passport and a California I.D., one of which was not in her name. She was detained by security and ended up hitting a guard on the back of the head. She can pay a fine or go in front of a judge. She should probably just shell out the cash. [Yahoo News, via E!]
  • Sharon Osbourne has been approached to publish a work of fiction loosely based on her dealings with reality TV contests. A source says: "She wants it to be a Jackie Collins-inspired romp, something shocking, saucy and witty - and a chick lit hit." [Mirror]
  • Peaches Geldof's first week of married life involved seeing her husband's band play a gig. [Mirror]
  • A lady thought that Lily Tomlin was cutting down trees on her property and called the cops but it turned out she was wrong and Lily Tomlin was having trees cut on her own damn property and the lady was just an alarmist. [LA Times]
  • A dig at Amy Winehouse won funniest joke of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Here is comedian Zoe Lyons' joke: "I can't believe Amy Winehouse self-harms. She's so irritating she must be able to find someone to do it for her." [The Star]
  • Prepare yourself: Paris Hilton is coming out with something called The Bandit, which is "he first interchangeable hair extension headband." Act accordingly. [E!]
  • Holy crap, this Jean-Claude Van Damme mockumentary sounds kind of awesome: JCVD plays himself in the midst of a hostage situation in his native Belgium. [Reuters]
  • Pete Doherty has a new girlfriend. She's 18 and her name is Matilda. She says: "My mum made me attend alcohol counseling because I started drinking so much. Pete drinks a LOT and I feel like I have to keep up, but it's hard." [Mirror]
  • Headline of the day: "Did Jackie Kennedy's Jealous Lover Order The Assassination Of Her Beloved Brother-In-Law Bobby?" [Daily Mail]
  • Gary Glitter update: He's on his way to the UK, where he'll be met by police and placed on the sex offenders' register. [Guardian]
  • The California Supreme Court has refused to take up the case in a bitter legal dispute between the three surviving members of The Doors. This is the end. Beautiful friend. This is the end. [AP]
  • "I've kissed just three people in my life, other than stuff I've done for TV or movies. I grew up with the mindset that after work you go to dinner and watch a movie. I don't want to go to a club and not wear panties." —20-year-old Blake Lively, star of Gossip Girl. [Independent]
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<![CDATA[Funny Girls]]> lilytomlin5608.jpgSo what does Jeze-crush Lily Tomlin think about Christopher Hitchens' insistence that women can't be funny? "He's not the first to say that. There was a big fracas about Jerry Lewis doing it, too. That's been going on since the beginning of comedy. Here's one of my favorite stories from back in the early '60s, when I was working at the New York cabaret Upstairs at the Downstairs. Backstage in the dressing room, this actress who played the beautiful ingenue had me doubled over with her stories. So funny. She could make her hair expand by her own will. When I asked her why she didn't put it into her acting, she said, 'I wouldn't want anyone to think I was unattractive.' That was the thing, you couldn't be both funny and pretty." [Minneapolis Star-Tribune]

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<![CDATA[Whatever Happened To The "Comedy Of Equals"?]]> Good news for lady-helmed comedies! Baby Mama raked in over $18 million this weekend, according to Box Office Mojo, beating out Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay by about $4 million. I asked a friend who works in the film industry, and he says that while $18 mil is a definite hit, it remains to be seen whether Baby Mama's success will lead the way for more female-centric comedic films. "Sisters are doing it for themselves but its no Superbad," in terms of box office brawn, my film-y friend tells me. He also tells me that the highest grossing romantic comedy is Wedding Crashers, which earned $209 million. "How much better could Wedding Crashers have been had they given Rachel McAdams something to do besides stand still and look pretty?" wonders Molly Lambert at culture blog This Recording.

"Anyone who's seen Mean Girls knows what a fierce comic actress she is," Lambert continues, in a well-argued essay lamenting the loss of the Hollywood "comedy of equals."

The Screwball Comedies of the thirties and forties really were a Golden Age of well-matched onscreen couples. Film critics like A.O. Scott and Anthony Lane, and David Denby are not just whistling Dixie when they claim that it was better back then...Women remain a much underserved audience and we deserve much better than How To Lose A Guy Wearing 27 Dresses. I'm just thankful the discussions have finally been opened back up. There are many millions of different modes for being male and female in the modern age. Maybe someday soon we'll get to see some romantic comedies that genuinely reflect that. Lord knows Woody Allen's not gonna make them.

And seriously? What. Happened. In the thirties, tough dames like Rosalind Russell sparred with Cary Grant His Girl Friday while Katharine Hepburn and Cary duked it out in Bringing Up Baby and the Philadelphia Story. One could argue that these films of male and female equals disappeared during the late 40s in the post WWII push to get women back into the kitchen, but uh, it's been 60 years since then.

I imagine film execs think that a "comedy of equals" couldn't sell tickets and so give us movies about equally repellent personalities like that forthcoming Cameron Diaz/ Ashton Kutcher shitshow What Happens In Vegas. Maybe part of the problem is that movie actresses are now solely seen as the sum of their parts (the New Yorker's Anthony Lane on on Tina Fey: "She hasn't yet made up her mind how funny her body is meant to be. She isn't big enough to make a joke of her ripeness, like Bette Midler, but she's no Lily Tomlin, either."). Fingers crossed that Tina Fey and Diablo Cody's successes can help change all that, but it's going to take time.

In Which A Comedy Of Equals Beats A Bromance Every Time [This Recording]
Weekend Results [Box Office Mojo]
Anthony Lane Thinks Tina Fey Is Fat, But Not Fat Enough To Be Funny [Emily Magazine]

Earlier: Baby Mama Is Fertile Ground For Mixed Feelings From Reviewers
Does The Female "Buddy" Movie Exist?

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<![CDATA[Over-40 Women's Website Is Destined For Failure]]> There's a big splashy article in today's New York Times about the launch of Wowowow.com, a new website for women over 40 founded by NY Post gossip dowager Liz Smith, former presidential speechwriter Peggy Noonan, ex-Simon and Schuster president Joni Evans, 60 Minutes correspondent Leslie Stahl, and ad exec Mary Wells. The site, a sort of upscale alternative to iVillage, is described as "a virtual Le Cirque," where the aforementioned media matriarchs — along with contributors like Candice Bergen, Lily Tomlin, Whoopi Goldberg, and ex-Vogue editor Joan Juliet Buck — will "trade on their celebrity and sophistication." The thing is, this focus on the founders' celebrity and sophistication is exactly why their site will fail: These women are looking to form a community of sharp, like-minded women over forty, but they all seem to share the totally condescending attitude of Vogue-ette Buck, who tells Rosenbloom, "iVillage has always puzzled me...I love the idea but it's like Macy's or something."

Macy's?!? THE HORROR! The extra-moronic thing about that statement is that Macy's is popular and accessible. When you're creating a media property, those are qualities to aspire to, not denigrate. And most women, even Wowowow's target audience of successful women over-40, do not want to hear about how Halston lent Candice Bergen a "white mink bunny mask and strapless gown for Truman Capote's 1966 Black and White Ball," or how Joni Evans made an embarrassing gaffe at a party, "gushing to "Calvin Klein" about how she adored his designs, only to realize that she was gushing to Halston." You know why they don't want to hear about it? Because it's name-droppy and completely unrelatable to the average websurfer. And what do people look for in a web community? People who make them feel at home, not people who make them feel terminally unfabulous.

Finally, this site is doomed because the sort of women who would relate to funny little anecdotes about that fabulous night with Calvin and the boys at Studio 54 are not surfing the web all day. The Times piece makes it sound like Wowowow wants a readership much like themselves: "seasoned" women who "who broke through glass ceilings." And those women? Like the founders of wowowow, they're mostly "cyberneophytes" who probably delegate email reading to their personal assistants. Maybe a little bit of that "Macy's" flair could go a long way.

Boldface in Cyberspace: It's a Woman's Domain [New York Times]

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