LGBTI icons honoured at SAG Awards
Image: Grandma, starring Lily Tomlin.
LGBTI actors have been honoured at the Screen Actors Guild awards in Los Angeles on the weekend.
Icon Dolly Parton presented long-time friend Lily Tomlin, 77, with the SAG Life Achievement Award.
The two starred together in the film 9 to 5, and have discussed the prospect of a sequel.
“Get after it or we’ll have to call it 95,” joked Parton.
Tomlin, who has been with wife Jane Wagner for 45 years, was also nominated for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Comedy Series for her role in Grace & Frankie.
Alexis Arquette, who died in September, was honoured among the stars lost in the last year.
The Arquette family released a joint statement lauding Alexis’s bravery in coming out and her work in trans activism.
“Alexis was a brilliant artist and painter, a singer, an entertainer and an actor,” they said.
“We learned what real bravery is through watching her journey of living as a trans woman. We came to discover the one truth—that love is everything.”
Her family also praised her determination to reject stereotypical trans roles.
“Her career was cut short, not by her passing, but by her decision to live her truth and her life as a transgender woman,” they said.
“Despite the fact that there are few parts for trans actors, she refused to play roles that were demeaning or stereotypical. She was a vanguard in the fight for understanding and acceptance for all trans people.”
