Lily Tomlin, soon to make her first-ever appearance in Portsmouth, talks about comedy, politics, and her 40-plus year career

Depending on when you start counting, Lily Tomlin’s career has spanned anywhere from about 40 to 60 years. She started putting on private shows on the porch of her family’s Detroit home when she was about 10 years old. She made her television debut in 1966 on “The Garry Moore Show” and followed it up with several appearances on “The Merv Griffin Show” and “Music Scene.”

But Tomlin doesn’t start counting until December 1969, when she landed a role on the cast of the sketch comedy show “Laugh-in.”

“I got famous on the last day of ’69, or almost the last day, so I count it from 1970,” Tomlin said during a phone interview. “So, 41 years, from fame.”

It was on “Laugh-in” that Tomlin adopted perhaps her most memorable character, the snooty and snorty telephone operator Ernestine (a close second would be Edith Ann, the precocious 5-year-old who philosophized from a giant rocking chair). Tomlin said she created Ernestine as a reaction to the telephone monopoly of “Ma Bell,” widely loathed in the late 1960s.

Ernestine helped make Tomlin a national celebrity, paving the way for a career that has explored many realms of performance. With help from her long-time partner Jane Wagner, Tomlin has written and starred in TV specials, sitcoms, movies, Broadway shows and comedy albums. In the process, she’s won six Emmys, a Tony, a Grammy and numerous other awards.

Now over 70, Tomlin is still active in film and television. But live performance remains her preferred artistic platform.

“If I was only going to do one thing, I would hope that I could still do that,” she said. “But I’m grateful that I’ve been able to do a little bit of it all.”

She quoted a line from her acclaimed 1985 one-woman Broadway show, “The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe,” in which she played 12 characters and which she called her single proudest achievement: “I always wanted to be somebody. I see now I should have been more specific.”

Tomlin will perform standup comedy at The Music Hall on Wednesday, Nov. 9. It’s her first performance in Portsmouth, but Tomlin is familiar with the city. She’s performed in Manchester and Concord and once held a fundraising event for then-Gov. Jeanne Shaheen. She’s had friends in Portsmouth and fondly recalled the Children’s Museum (she was a bit alarmed to learn it had relocated to Dover). 

Guests at The Music Hall might just catch a glimpse of some of Tomlin’s earliest and most familiar personas. She said characters like Ernestine and Edith Ann still live within her and sometimes peek out.

“If I have current and viable material for them, I do it. I mean, Ernestine has not been a phone operator for a long time, ever since the (Bell System) divestiture (of 1984),” she said.

In fact, Ernestine has pursued an array of career paths over the past few decades. During George W. Bush’s presidency, she had her own webcast chat show titled “Ernestine Calls You On It, and You Better Have an Answer.” In it, she satirically conversed with figures like Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and even Saddam Hussein. She gave Bush little pep talks—concerning his 2004 foe John Kerry, she advised the president, “You don’t have to worry about him. He only served in a war. You actually started one.”

Jabs like that reflect Tomlin’s penchant for providing humorous commentary on politics and current events (Ernestine now works for a health insurance company, where she invariably denies people health care). Although her leftward leanings are fairly evident, Tomlin does her best not to isolate people of differing beliefs.

“I try to approach it from a human place and not so much a divisive place, and yet you want to comment on it. You have to comment on the injustice,” she said.

A question about the presidential primary sent Tomlin on a lengthy political monologue about the lack of solidarity within the Republican Party, her support and admiration for the Occupy Wall Street movement, her disdain for the Supreme Court ruling equating corporations to people, and her encounter with a wealthy Texan who claimed to be one of the prime architects of the Swift Boat campaign.

“I said, ‘Are you telling me that because you’re proud of it, or are you confessing that to me?’” she recalled with a laugh. 

It is partly because of its lack of divisiveness that Tomlin harbors such personal fondness for “The Search,” which, following its Broadway premiere, went on a lengthy national tour and was later adapted into a film (starring Tomlin). The play was a critical and commercial success, drawing audience members from all walks of life.

“For whatever time that play had an impact, if it was a minute, 30 minutes or 30 days, they were united by a kind of affectionate feeling toward each other and themselves. It was a wonderful thing to be able to do every night,” she said.

These days, Tomlin is keeping busy with a number of projects, including her role as Lisa Kudrow’s mother on the Showtime series “Web Therapy,” as well as appearances on the CBS drama “NCIS” and the cable series “Eastbound and Down.”

Whether you know her from these recent endeavors, or for her enduring roles as Edith and Ernestine, or as “The Incredible Shrinking Woman,” or as Bette Midler’s twin in “Big Business,” or as Tom Waits’ wife in “Short Cuts,” Tomlin is one of those rare celebrities who has aged while remaining eternally young in the hearts and eyes of her fans.

After 41 years of professional performance, are there any artistic media Tomlin still has not tried but would like to?

“Maybe opera,” she joked.

The show begins at 7:30 p.m. on Nov. 9 at The Music Hall, 28 Chestnut St., Portsmouth, 603-436-2400, www.themusichall.org. Tickets are $68 to $64.