Return To Television
Tomlin voiced Ms. Frizzle on the animated television series The Magic School Bus from 1994 to 1997. Also, in the 1990s, Tomlin appeared on the popular sitcom Murphy Brown as the title character's boss. In 2005 and 2006, she had a recurring role as Will Truman's boss Margot on Will & Grace. She appeared on the dramatic series The West Wing for four years (2002–2006) in the recurring role of presidential secretary Deborah Fiderer.
In the 2008-2009 fifth season of Desperate Housewives she has a recurring role as Roberta, the sister of Mrs. McCluskey (played by Kathryn Joosten, who coincidentally had played Tomlin's secretarial predecessor on The West Wing). During the 2008 Emmy Awards, Tomlin appeared as part of a tribute to the influential 1960s television series Laugh-In. Tomlin voiced Tammy in the 2005 The Simpsons episode, "The Last of the Red Hat Mamas". Tomlin provided a voice for the film Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea, which was released in August 2009.
Since its launch in 2008, Tomlin has been a contributor for wowOwow.com, a website for women to talk culture, politics and gossip.
Tomlin and Kathryn Joosten were in talks to star in a Desperate Housewives spin-off, which was given the green light in May 2009. The series plan was scrapped due to Kathryn's illness and both on screen death and real life death in 2012. Tomlin guest-starred as Marilyn Tobin in the third season of Damages and in an episode of NCIS in the episode, "The Penelope Papers", playing Agent Timothy McGee's Sean Murray grandmother, Penelope Langston. In 2012, Tomlin guest starred on the HBO series Eastbound and Down. Appearing as Tammy Powers, mother of Kenny Powers, the show's main character, Tomlin appeared in three episodes of Season 3. It is unknown if she will reprise the role for the show's upcoming 4th season.
Tomlin co-stars in Reba McEntire's new TV series Malibu Country as Reba's character's mother Lillie Mae. The series started shooting in August 2012 with a premiere date of November 2, 2012 at 8:30pm EST.
Read more about this topic: Lily Tomlin
Famous quotes containing the words return to, return and/or television:
“At twelve, the disintegration of afternoon
Began, the return to phantomerei, if not
To phantoms. Till then, it had been the other way:
One imagined the violet trees but the trees stood green,
At twelve, as green as ever they would be.
The sky was blue beyond the vaultiest phrase.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“To save the theatre, the theatre must be destroyed, the actors and actresses must all die of the plague. They poison the air, they make art impossible. It is not drama that they play, but pieces for the theatre. We should return to the Greeks, play in the open air; the drama dies of stalls and boxes and evening dress, and people who come to digest their dinner.”
—Eleonora Duse (1859–1924)
“All television ever did was shrink the demand for ordinary movies. The demand for extraordinary movies increased. If any one thing is wrong with the movie industry today, it is the unrelenting effort to astonish.”
—Clive James (b. 1939)