Lily Tomlin bringing her cast of characters to The Smith Center

Anyone who's caught Lily Tomlin's solo act knows that it's anything but.

Not with the vast cast of characters she brings with her everywhere she goes - including The Smith Center's Reynolds Hall, where she's performing Sunday afternoon.

Take Ernestine, the ex-telephone operator now practicing her patented brand of smugly sadistic customer disservice for a health insurance firm.

"She goes where the power is," Tomlin says of Ernestine, who transformed Tomlin into an instant star when they both turned up on TV's top-rated "Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In" in 1970.

"I went on 'Laugh-In' Monday night and by Tuesday, Ernestine was a star. Not me, Ernestine," Tomlin adds, recalling the time soon afterward, when she was at a supermarket and fellow shoppers recognized her as "the new girl on 'Laugh-In' " before telling her how great "the girl that does that telephone operator was."

When Tomlin told her fellow supermarket shoppers she was that girl, "it kind of struck me," she says, that her characters had a life of their own.

"I see them both inside and outside me," Tomlin explains in a telephone interview from a Pennsylvania hotel room, the first stop of a 10-day tour that stretches from Alaska to Florida. "I used to think Ernestine was like Bette Davis - and I imitated her."

But Ernestine's far from the only signature character Tomlin's bringing to Las Vegas. Everybody from wise-beyond-her-years Edith Ann, forever 6 years old, to Madame Lupe, "the world's oldest living beauty expert," will turn up in Tomlin's "compilation of new stuff and old stuff" Sunday afternoon.

"As long as they have something relevant to say," all her characters have a life in her shows, Tomlin maintains.

Even Tomlin's most Vegasy character - lounge singer Tommy Velour - will appear, if only in film clips. (To do him justice, Tommy needs music for his live gigs, she notes.)

"I use clips to satirize myself - and to show another side of myself," Tomlin explains.

And while no Tomlin show would be complete without Ernestine and Edith Ann, the number of personalities she brings to life reflects an interest in quirky characters that stretches back to the radio days of her childhood. (Not to mention memories of a grade-school teacher who used to read dialect poems aloud to her students every Friday.)

Tomlin's performing career stretches back to those days as well.

"From the time I was 10 years old, I've been putting on shows," says Tomlin, 72.

And she has no intention of stopping.

Even with a busy TV career, "I like to keep my hand in," she says. (Tomlin's recent roles range from washed-up baseball pitcher Kenny Powers' mother on HBO's "Eastbound and Down" and Reba McEntire's mother on "Malibu Country," a pilot in the running for ABC's fall schedule.)

Besides, "if I get a great idea, I can always find an audience," she adds. "I can always go down to one of the places in L.A. to do a set." Or, better yet, "I can make my friends sit down in the living room and watch."

Tomlin made her Vegas debut at the MGM Grand in 2009, four decades into a celebrated career that's earned her the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, an Oscar nomination (for her 1975 movie debut, Robert Altman's classic "Nashville"), a Grammy, two Tonys and six Emmys - including one for 1981's "Lily: Sold Out," in which Tomlin brings her Broadway show to Vegas and wonders whether she needs to change it to appeal to a mass audience. (Among the Vegas icons appearing on the special: Liberace, Joan Rivers and Paul Anka, plus "9 to 5" co-stars Jane Fonda and Dolly Parton.)

For all Tomlin's big- and small-screen success, however, there's something about performing live that retains its hold on her - and her audiences.

"I think it's the validation," Tomlin says. "It's like a mutual validation."

When audiences respond to her characters - and her observations - it demonstrates that "we're not so far apart," she comments. "Your response to it shows we're on the same page. We're delighted by the same thing."

And while Tomlin wonders whether Ernestine and Edith Ann would have the same impact if she were starting her career now, four decades of comedy have made her - and her characters - an integral part of people's lives.

"People tell me, 'Our mother used to put us to bed with Edith Ann stories.' It's kind of dear," Tomlin says, citing the shared history between performer and audience. "We both have the same reference."

Contact reporter Carol Cling at ccling@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0272.