Hold on to your cowgirl hats because actress, comic and out lesbian for decades before so many others started to tiptoe out of the celluloid closet, Lily Tomlin, has been cast as country legend Reba McEntire’s mom in the new ABC sitcom pilot Malibu Country, Deadline reports.
Reba showrunner Kevin Abbott will helm the project that focuses on McEntire's character up and moving her entire family from Nashville to Malibu after her “good ole boy, rock star husband” cheats on her. Think The Beverly Hillbillies meets Under the Tuscan Sun.
“Tomlin will play Shirley, Reba’s classically Southern, warm and funny (not always intentionally) mother who joins the family in their move from Nashville to Malibu,” according to Deadline.
Tomlin, a veteran film actress in Nashville and Nine to Five, also made a name for herself in her one-woman show The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe, which her life partner Jane Wagner wrote and co-produced. Tomlin’s also been a presence on the small screen since the late sixties appearing in one of the original sketch TV shows Laugh In and moving on to series regular on Murphy Brown and recurring roles on West Wing, Will and Grace and Damages.
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