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46 SAG-AFTRA | Fall 2016 | SAGAFTRA.org SAG-AFTRA COLLECTIONS SAG-AFTRA COLLECTIONS NORMAN SEEFF Right, Tomlin wins her first Tony Award after making her Broadway debut in Appearing Nitely in 1977; far right, Tomlin as prim homemaker Judith Beasley, one of several characters she played in 1981's The Incredible Shrinking Woman; bottom right, Tomlin starred in the Broadway production of The Search For Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe in 1985, winning her second Tony. She reprised her role in the 1991 film of the same name. For her dedication to the art of acting and humanitarian accomplishment, Tomlin has earned SAG-AFTRA's highest honor, the SAG Life Achievement Award. When she accepts the award on Jan. 29, she will be its 53rd recipient, and fresh off her Emmy Award nomination for Lead Comedy Actress in the breakout Netflix original series Grace and Frankie (the role of Frankie also earned Tomlin a Golden Globe nomination). Tomlin's collection of preeminent industry and public honors also includes a 2014 Kennedy Center Award, the 2003 Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, two Peabody Awards, multiple Emmys, numerous American Comedy Awards, two Tony Awards, a Grammy, a Writers Guild of America Award and both the Crystal Award and the Lucy Award from Women In Film. Those are in addition to her awards for humanitarian contributions as a proud out actor who supports LGBT and animal-related causes. Tomlin's success can be boiled down to a premise she's held firm on ever since starting out: "I thought I could do anything." Tomlin aspired to be a New York stage actor. And she did that. But her first big break came when she grudgingly accepted a job she thought she was too hip for. In late December 1969, Tomlin debuted on Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In. At the time, it was the No. 1 show on television, watched by more than 25 percent of all U.S. viewers. Laugh-In introduced mainstream America to characters such as the overbearing — and snorting — switchboard operator Ernestine, the philosophical 5-and-a- half-year-old Edith Ann and the tasteful suburban socialite Mrs. Audrey Earbore III. These early characters also appeared in Tomlin's acclaimed first solo Broadway show, Appearing Nitely, which earned her a Special Tony Award in 1977. Along with the already classic Ernestine and Edith Ann were Lucille, who has an unusually intense relationship with rubber; Lud and Marie; Sister Boogie Woman; and the touching Trudy the Bag Lady. Her next Broadway triumph was starring in The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe, a play written by her longtime partner, Jane Wagner. It earned Tomlin a second Tony for Best Actress, as well as a Drama Desk Award and an Outer Critics Circle Award. She later reprised the show in the film adaptation of the same name. On film, as in television and theater, Tomlin received acclaim from the get-go. Her first movie, director Robert Altman's 1975 film Nashville, earned Tomlin Oscar, Golden Globe and BAFTA nominations for her performance as Linnea, a gospel singer with a strained marriage and two deaf children. She went on to dozens of leading roles in a film catalog that includes The Incredible Shrinking Woman, written by Wagner; 9 to 5, with Jane Fonda and Dolly Parton; All of Me, with Steve Martin; Woody Allen's Shadows and Fog; David O. Russell's I Heart Huckabees, with Dustin Hoffman; Franco Zeffirelli's Tea with Mussolini, with Maggie Smith and Judi Dench; and other Altman movies, including Short Cuts and the director's final film,