Lily Tomlin

It seems impossible that Lily Tomlin has never played Las Vegas in the 39 years since the world discovered her on TV's "Laugh-In."

Then again, she admits that's mostly her own fault.

The Las Vegas where Tomlin finally opens Tuesday is a different place than the one she lampooned in a TV special, "Lily: Sold Out."

The premise had Tomlin being bribed away from "a very pretentious, arty thing off Broadway called 'Seven Ages of a Woman,' " she recalls, to be shot out of a cannon and sing "Born Free" in Vegas.

"We invented Tommy Velour to do that show," she says of the loungey Vegas headliner inspired in no small part by Wayne Newton.

Sure, she could have lived down the irony of a 28-year-old special that's not even on DVD, even though it won an Emmy.

But for years, "I thought I wouldn't go over in Vegas. I thought I was not showbiz enough," she says. "I think it could have been true at the time."

Tomlin's forte is the extended monologue, sticking with a character long enough to really sell it and not worrying about gaps between punch lines.

But the actress/comedian, now 70, says she's "a little more flexible now." And, she adds, "I think people got used to me. I play casinos all over the place, and it's no different than any other place."

A nine-day run for "Not Playing with a Full Deck" at the MGM Grand also offers the chance to add video and props seldom seen in her act, including the actual rocking chair she used to play 6-year-old Edith Ann on "Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In."

"Of course it takes about six people to carry," she says.

When Tomlin joined the pop-art TV hit in 1970, she had never before costumed Ernestine, the brassy switchboard operator that remains her most enduring character.

"In fact, it was a point of purity that you never used costumes," she says. "You're supposed to be able to take the audience anywhere with just your voice and your body. Suspend disbelief.

"I grew up with radio a bit. I was enchanted by characterizations you imagined."

But she knew exactly what Ernestine looked like, and didn't need a costumer's help. She led the way to NBC's wardrobe vault, breaking a few union rules in the process, and "I tell you, Ernestine's costume practically leapt onto me."

However, "I already had the shoes, because I was a big aficionado of the '40s."

Tomlin always carved out her own niche of comedy, fusing stand-up with theater by creating characters out of whole cloth.

Her inspirations ranged from Ruth Draper -- a now obscure monologist of the 1920s to 1950s -- to a grade-school teacher who read poems in dialect on Friday afternoons.

"I had an act when I was like, 8 or 10 years old. Did it on my back porch. I even tried to sell tickets," she says of the Detroit apartment building where she grew up.

She learned to work solo partly out of necessity.

"I'd try to get my brother to do it with me, and he'd leave in the middle. He'd say it was too embarrassing. Other kids wouldn't show up or they wouldn't rehearse, and I was devoted to my act."

Las Vegans who don't get out of town much wouldn't know it, but Tomlin says there's never been much of a gap in her live work. She's also busy with character roles on TV, filming six episodes of the Glenn Close FX drama "Damages" just before this MGM run.

She tends not to be passive about TV series she loves. When she met "Damages" producer Todd Kessler at a social event, "You would not believe it. I leapt on this guy. It was like I had on those tennis shoes that, when you were a kid, made you think you could leap 10 feet."

But she wouldn't even know how to go about landing a date in Las Vegas. That, she says, was initiated by Jerry Hamza, longtime manager of the late George Carlin.

Las Vegans have some catching up to do, and may or may not be surprised to learn Ernestine is now "working at a health care insurance corp. denying health care to everyone."

"I love those old characters, and as long as they're interesting and fun," she will never stop doing them. However, "You want it to be unpredictable, too.

"I want to take them on a trip. If I can make them believe I'm a certain person or going in a certain direction and I can take them with me, then that's great. That's what used to happen to me as a kid."

Contact reporter Mike Weatherford at mweatherford@ reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0288.