January 29, 2021
Watch: Lily Tomlin Recalls Fun Times with 'Beverly Hillbillies' Co-Star Cloris Leachman
Kilian Melloy READ TIME: 2 MIN.
Out comedian Lily Tomlin appeared on "The Talk" to share anecdotes about co-starring in a big-budget comedy with Cloris Leachman, U.K. newspaper the Daily Mail reports.
Leachman, who died Jan. 27 at the age of 94, starred with Tomlin in the 1993 movie version of "The Beverly Hillbillies."
Calling Leachman "the most extraordinary person," Tomlin, 81, recalled that her fellow comedian "would come into the makeup room every morning and just regale us with stories. Our mouths would be dropped open, half the time we'd be laughing out loud.
"'You just never knew what she was going to come up with,'" Tomlin added.
"When I heard the news about her, I was crestfallen," Tomlin shared. "I thought she was going to live forever."
Saying Leachman was "a great scene partner," Tomlin recalled a moment of improvisation from "The Beverly Hillbillies" in which the co-stars shared a comic moment in which they confuse their handbags while fleeing from a hospital.
Leachman played Granny in "The Beverly Hillbillies" movie. Though she won the Oscar for a dramatic role in "The Last Picture Show," it is for her comedy that Leachman is best remembered, including her turn as Frau Bluecher in the Mel Brooks sendup "Young Frankenstein" and her stint as Phyllis Lindstrom on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show." Leachman reprised the character of Phyllis in the eponymous 1975 – 77 spinoff series.
Tomlin took the role of Ms. Hathaway in "The Beverly Hillbillies" film, a role made iconic on television by Nancy Kulp. The character has long been celebrated as an early example of an LGBTQ figure on television, though the popular series – which ran on CBS from 1962 - 1971 – never explicitly depicted her as such. Tomlin currently co-stars with Jane Fonda in "Frankie & Grace," a Netflix comedy about two women who become roommates after their husbands come out as gay and leave them in order to embark on a new life together.
Wikipedia notes that Tomlin never "officially" came out, but Tomlin herself has said that it was well know within the entertainment industry that she is a lesbian, and that she and longtime life partner (now her wife) Jane Wagner were together.
Watch Tomlin in a clip from "The Talk," below.
Kilian Melloy serves as EDGE Media Network's Associate Arts Editor and Staff Contributor. His professional memberships include the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association, the Boston Online Film Critics Association, The Gay and Lesbian Entertainment Critics Association, and the Boston Theater Critics Association's Elliot Norton Awards Committee.
