Comedian Phyllis Diller dies at 95
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Actress/comedian Phyllis Diller has died at the age of 95, her agent
confirmed to NBC News on Monday.
"She was a true pioneer," Fred Wostbrock said. "The first female
stand-up comedian. She paved the way for everybody. She paved the way
for Joan Rivers, Ellen DeGeneres, Chelsea Handler. Phyllis was the first
of the first. The first female to play Vegas ... she was on Broadway,
she made movies. She did it all."
Her longtime manager, Milton Suchin, told The Associated press, "She
died peacefully in her sleep with a smile on her face."
According to E!, her son Perry found her. She is also survived by two
daughters.
Diller suffered a near-fatal heart attack in 1999. The cause of her
death has not been released.
She was a staple of nightclubs and television from the 1950s - when
female comics were rare indeed - until her retirement in 2002. Diller
built her stand-up act around the persona of the corner-cutting
housewife ("I bury a lot of my ironing in the back yard") with bizarre
looks, a wardrobe to match (by "Omar of Omaha") and a husband named
"Fang."
Wrote Time magazine in 1961: "Onstage comes something that, by its own
description, looks like a sackful of doorknobs. With hair dyed by Alcoa,
pipe-cleaner limbs and knees just missing one another when the feet are
wide apart, this is not Princess Volupine. It is Phyllis Diller, the
poor man's Auntie Mame, only successful female among the New Wave
comedians and one of the few women funny and tough enough to belt out a
'standup' act of one-line gags."
"I was one of those life-of-the-party types," Diller told The Associated
Press in 1965. "You'll find them in every bridge club, at every country
club. People invited me to parties only because they knew I would supply
some laughs. They still do."
In 1992 she received the American Comedy Award for Lifetime Achievement.
Diller didn't get into comedy until she was nearly 40, after her first
husband, Sherwood Diller, prodded her for two years to give up a
successful career as an advertising and radio writer. Through it all,
she was also a busy mother.
"We had five kids at the time. I don't how he thought we'd handle that,"
she told the AP in 2006.
A Chicago Tribune columnist, describing her appearance at a nightspot
there in 1958, noted she was from San Francisco, hailed her as "the
weirdest, wildest yet" - and made sure to mention her five youngsters.
Her husband managed her career until the couple's 25-year marriage fell
apart in the 1960s. Shortly after her divorce she married entertainer
Warde Donovan, but they separated within months.
Through both marriages and other relationships, the foibles of "Fang"
remained an integral part of her act.
"Fang is permanent in the act, of course," she once said. "Don't confuse
him with my real husbands. They're temporary."
She also appeared in movies, including "Boy, Did I Get a Wrong Number"
and "Eight on the Lam" with Bob Hope.
In 1966-67, she was the star of an ABC sitcom about a society family
trying to stave off bankruptcy, "The Pruitts of Southampton." Gypsy Rose
Lee played a nosy neighbor. In 1968, she was host of a short-lived
variety series, "The Beautiful Phyllis Diller Show."
But standup comedy was her first love, and when she broke into the
business in 1956 it was a field she had largely to herself because
female comics weren't widely accepted then.
Although she could be serious during interviews, sooner or later a joke
would pop out, often as not followed by that outrageous
"AH-HHAAAAAAAAAAAA-HA-HA-HA!" laugh.
"It's my real laugh," she once said. "It's in the family. When I was a
kid my father called me the laughing hyena."
Her looks were a frequent topic, and she did everything she could to
accentuate them - negatively. She wore outrageous fright wigs and
deliberately shopped for stage shoes that made her legs look as skinny
as possible.
"The older I get, the funnier I get," she said in 1961. "Think what I'll
save in not having my face lifted."
She felt different about plastic surgery later, though, and her face,
and other body parts, underwent a remarkable transformation. Efforts to
be beautiful became a mainstay of her act.
Commenting in 1995 about the repainting of the Hollywood sign, she
cracked, "It took 300 gallons, almost as much as I put on every
morning." She said her home "used to be haunted, but the ghosts haven't
been back since the night I tried on all my wigs."
She recovered from a 1999 heart attack with the help of a pacemaker, but
finally retired in 2002, saying advancing age was making it too
difficult for her to spend several weeks a year on the road.
"I have energy, but I don't have lasting energy," she told The
Associated Press in 2006. "You have to know your limitations."
After retiring from standup, Diller continued to take occasional small
parts in movies and TV shows ("Family Guy") and pursued painting as a
serious hobby. She published her autobiography, "Like a Lampshade in a
Whorehouse," in 2005. The 2006 film "Goodnight, We Love You" documented
her career.
Her other books included "Phyllis Diller's Housekeeping Hints" and
"Phyllis Diller's Marriage Manual."
When she turned 90 in July 2007, she fractured a bone in her back and
was forced to cancel a planned birthday appearance on "The Tonight Show
With Jay Leno." But it didn't stop her from wisecracking: "I still take
the pill 'cause I don't want any more grandchildren."
Born Phyllis Driver in Lima, Ohio, in 1917, she married Sherwood Diller
right out of school (Bluffton College) and was a housewife for several
years before getting outside work.
She was working as an advertising writer for a radio station when a
comedy turn at San Francisco's Purple Onion nightclub launched her
toward stardom.
She made her network TV debut as a contestant on Groucho Marx's game
show, "You Bet Your Life." (Diller, asked if she was married: "Yes, I've
worn a wedding ring for 18 years." Marx: "Really? Well, two more
payments and it'll be all yours.")
She credited the self-help book, "The Magic of Believing" by Claude M.
Bristol, with giving her the courage to enter the business. For decades
she would recommend it to aspiring entertainers, even buying it for them
sometimes.
"Don't get me wrong, though," she said in a 1982 interview that
threatened to turn serious. "I'm a comic. I don't deal with problems
when I'm working."
"I want people to laugh."
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