Jane Wagner

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Jane Wagner (born on February 2, 1935) is an American playwright and actress. Wagner is best known as Lily Tomlin's comedy writer, collaborator, and life partner.

She is the author of The Search For Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe, The Incredible Shrinking Woman, and other Tomlin vehicles.

Wagner was born and raised in Morristown, Tennessee, where she quickly developed a penchant for writing. She attended Morristown High School, where she wrote for the school newspaper. At 17, she left the hills of East Tennessee to pursue an acting career in New York City, where she also studied painting and sculpture at the School of Visual Arts and piano.

Early in her life she toured with Abingdon, Virginia’s well-known Barter Theatre and later became a designer for such firms as Kimberly-Clark and Fieldcrest.

She made her writing debut with the CBS afternoon special J.T. (1969), for which she won the Peabody Award – and drew the attention of Tomlin, who was looking for someone to help develop the Laugh-In character Edith Ann. It was the beginning of a collaboration that continues to this day.

Wagner has been nominated for Grammy awards, with Tomlin, for the comic’s recorded albums, and has won three Emmy awards and a Writer's Guild of America award, also with Tomlin, for the comic’s television specials.

She also wrote and directed Moment by Moment, starring Tomlin and John Travolta, and wrote The Incredible Shrinking Woman, which starred Tomlin.

The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe won Wagner a Special Award from the New York Drama Critics’ Circle and a New York Drama Desk Award. The film adaptation of the play brought Wagner a Cable ACE Award.

Wagner also won a second Peabody for the ABC special, Edith Ann’s Christmas: Just Say Noel (1996).