Migrating to Hollywood in the mid-80s, Tomei landed her first regular series berth playing Dominique, running the scruffy underground channel, on the short-lived "Max Headroom" (ABC, 1987). After "China Beach", she found occasional work in TV-movies such as "The Betty Ford Story" (ABC, 1987) and "The Wyatts" (Fox, 1994), in which she was the mother of a young man who returns home with his pregnant bride. Tomei also played Dabney Coleman's wife on "Madman of the People" (NBC, 1995-96) and was a divorcee on the short-lived Fox sitcom "Lush Life" (1996).
Tomei's feature film appearances have been sporadic. She is perhaps best recalled as Christina Applegate's mother who goes away on vacation leaving unexpected havoc behind in "Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead" (1991). Tomei also was a mean-spirited principal clashing with Christopher Pettiet over a parrot in "The Goodbye Bird" (1993), Brendan Fraser's mother in "Twenty Bucks" (also 1993). More recently, she was featured as a shipboard traveler in the Jack Lemmon-Walter Matthau comedy "Out to Sea" (1997).