Consider Lily

Believe it or not, Lily Tomlin turns 71 today. She was such a brilliant comic performer for so many years I often thought people took her for granted. She got her big break on Laugh-In, where she introduced American to two of her most popular creations, Edith Ann and Ernestine, but that was just the beginning.

She's appeared in a fair numbers of movies, even getting an Oscar nomination, but I think her best work was generally elsewhere, such as in her TV specials and comedy albums. I saw her on Broadway and it was amazing how one woman could inhabit a stage for two hours, and create such a huge cast.