Turner Classic Movies (TCM) today announced it will honor iconic actress and comedian Lily Tomlin with a hand and footprint ceremony at the world-famous TCL Chinese Theatre IMAX in Hollywood during the eleventh annual TCM Classic Film Festival on Friday, April 17. Tomlin, a Tony, Grammy, eight time Emmy and two time Peabody Award winner, has had a remarkable career starting in the 1960s starring in cinematic classics, television staples and on stage.
“Lily Tomlin’s talent has endured for fifty years because she knows who she is. She’s managed to play broadly drawn roles alongside more nuanced characters without a hint of falseness,” said Ben Mankiewicz, TCM primetime anchor and official host of the TCM Classic Film Festival. “Not long ago, Tomlin told The New York Times, ‘I wanted people to see the characters as human beings. And see themselves in them, too.’ The humanity she finds in the women she plays has enabled her to transition, seemingly with ease, from groundbreaking work on Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In to four Emmy nominations for Grace and Frankie, where she co-stars alongside another seminal artist, Jane Fonda.
There’s a consistent richness to her work, in comedy and drama, as well as on stage in her innovative one-woman show, The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe, and on the big screen. Whether your favorite Lily Tomlin performance is The Late Show, or 9 to 5, or Nashville…wait, I’m not done. Or All of Me, Flirting with Disaster, I Heart Huckabees, or A Prairie Home Companion, you know all of those pictures were made more memorable because Lily Tomlin was among the cast. It’s hard to imagine a more deserving artist to have her hand and footprints cemented outside Hollywood’s signature classic movie house.”
This marks the tenth consecutive year TCM has featured a hand and footprint ceremony at the legendary TCL Chinese Theatre IMAX. In 2011, Peter O’Toole was the honoree, followed by Kim Novak in 2012, Jane Fonda in 2013, Jerry Lewis in 2014, Christopher Plummer in 2015, Francis Ford Coppola in 2016, Carl and Rob Reiner in 2017, Cicely Tyson in 2018, and Billy Crystal in 2019.