11th Annual Conference

CLOSING KEYNOTE SPEAKER:

Lily Tomlin

Lily Tomlin, one of America's foremost comediennes, continues to successfully venture across an ever-widening range of entertainment and creativity to include new projects in motion pictures, television, recording, animation, theater and video. More than 30 years ago, she joined the cast of television’s "Laugh-In" and overnight rose to national prominence and critical acclaim with her characterizations of Ernestine, the sassy telephone operator, and Edith Ann, the devilish five-and-a-half year-o1d. In all, she has starred in four television comedy specials for which she won Three Emmy Awards and a Writers Guild of America Award. Additional recent television appearances include her critically acclaimed appearance on the NBC drama "Homicide," for which she received an Emmy nomination(1996); the HBO telefilm And the Band Played On (1993; and the film adaptation of The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe (1991) for Showtime, which garnered her Emmy nominations for Best Actress and Executive Producer and a CableAce Award for Executive Producer.

Ms. Tomlin's comedy recording debut, This Is A Recording, won a Grammy in 1971, and her subsequent albums Modern Scream, And That's The Truth, and On Stage were all nominated for Grammy Awards. In 1977, she made her Broadway debut in Appearing Nitely, for which she won a special Tony Award, and which was also later adapted as both an album and an HBO special.

Ms. Tomlin made her film debut in Nashville, and her memorable performance was nominated for an Academy Award and both the New York Film Critics and the National Society of Film Critics voted Tomlin Best Supporting Actress. Most recently, she appeared in "Tea with Mussolini" and "Krippendorf's Tribe". Ms. Tomlin is currently developing a series plot for CBS Television.