Jane Fonda to be honored by Los Angeles LGBT Center with award to be presented by Lily Tomlin

The Los Angeles LGBT Center’s 46th Anniversary Gala Vanguard Awards is going to be one for the ages.

The Center has announced that film legend and activist Jane Fonda will be honored at the November 7 event with an award to be presented by her Grace and Frankie and Nine to Five co-star Lily Tomlin.

“This honor means a lot to me. The work that the Center does for the LGBT community, its children and extended families is profound and essential,” Fonda said in a statement.

Tomlin, a longtime supporter of The Center, had this to say: “Since long before I worked with Jane, I was in awe of her energy, activism and generosity. Three decades later, I am still in awe of her and feel truly privileged to bestow this well-deserved honor. She has earned this over and over and over in her lifetime.”

Fonda was an early LGBT activist who campaigned with Harvey Milk in the late 1970s against California’s anti-LGBT Briggs Initiative which sought to ban gays and lesbians from working in public schools.

Also being honored is Oscar-nominated screenwriter Ron Nyswaner who wrote Philadelphia, the first major studio film to address homophobia and AIDS. Nyswaner also wrote and received a Peabody Award for Soldier’s Girl, which tells the true-life story of transgender heroine Calpernia Addams. The film starred Fonda’s son, Troy Garrity, and Lee Pace as Addams.

Nyswaner’s latest film is Freeheld which hits theaters in LA on Friday. It tells the true story of Laurel Hester (Julianne Moore), a police detective with incurable lung cancer who fought a legal battle to have her pension benefits left to her domestic partner Stacie Andree (Ellen Page).

He also is the co-creator of the Nyswaner/Salzman Film Archive, the fourth largest LGBT film archive in the United States.

His award will be presented by Oscar and Emmy-winning actress Frances McDormand.