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Phyllis Diller (born Phyllis Ada Driver, July 17, 1917) is a Golden Globe-nominated American comedienne, considered to be one of the pioneers of female stand-up comedy. She created a stage character persona that was a wild-haired, eccentrically-dressed housewife who made jokes about a fictional husband named "Fang" while smoking from a long cigarette holder. Diller is given credit for opening the doors for the stand-up comedy field to women such as Rita Rudner, Totie Fields, Joan Rivers, Lily Tomlin, Sandra Bernhard, Joy Behar, Rosie O'Donnell and Roseanne Barr.
Born: July 17, 1917 (1917-07-17), Lima, Ohio, United States
Occupation: Stand up Female Comedienne
Spouse(s): Sherwood Anderson Diller (November 4, 1939 – September 1965), Ward Donovan (October 7, 1965 – July 1975), Partnered Robert P. Hastings from c.1985 until his death, May 1996
Children: 5 children
Parents: Perry Marcus Driver, Frances Ada Romshe
Biography
Early life
Phyllis Driver was born on July 17, 1917, to Perry Marcus Driver and his wife, the former Frances Ada Romshe, in Lima, Ohio. She attended Lima's Central High School, then studied for three years at Sherwood Music Conservatory, Chicago, Illinois. She then transferred to Bluffton College in Bluffton, Ohio, where she met fellow "Lima-ite" and classmate, Hugh Downs.
Diller was a housewife, mother, and advertising copywriter. During World War II, Diller lived in Ypsilanti, Michigan while her husband worked at the Willow Run Bomber Plant. In the mid-1950s, she made appearances on The Jack Paar Show and was a contestant on Groucho Marx's quiz show, You Bet Your Life.
Although she has made her career in comedy, Diller studied as a serious piano student for many years. She later decided against a career in music after hearing her teachers and mentors play with much more talent than she thought she'd be able to achieve. She still plays in her private life, however, and owns a custom-made harpsichord which she prizes.
Career
Residing in the East Bay city of Alameda, California, near the Naval Airbase, Diller began her career as a stand up at San Francisco's legendary nightclub, The Purple Onion, for 87 straight weeks. This is where she cultivated her talent and perfected her act. Diller's fame was expanded when she co-starred with Bob Hope in 23 TV specials and three films in the 1960s: Eight on the Lam, The Private Navy of Sgt. O'Farrell, and Boy, Did I Get a Wrong Number!. All of these films were failures at the box office, but Hope invited Diller to perform with him in Vietnam in 1966 with his USO troupe during the height of the conflict in that country.
Diller seemed to be everywhere in pop culture in the 1960s. She appeared regularly as a special guest on many television programs during that decade. For example, she did a stint as one of the What's My Line? Mystery Guests on the popular Sunday night CBS-TV program. The blindfolded panel on that evening's broadcast included Sammy Davis, Jr., and they were able to discern Diller's identity in just three guesses. Also, Diller made regular cameo appearances making her trademark brief & pithy wisecracks on Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In. Self-deprecating to a fault, a typical Diller joke had her running after a garbage truck pulling away from her curb. "Am I too late?" she'd yell. The driver's reply: "No, jump right in!"
Though her main claim to fame is her stand-up comedy act, Diller also has appeared in other films besides the three mentioned above, including a cameo appearance as Texas Guinan, the wisecracking nightclub hostess in the 1961 Hollywood production of Splendor in the Grass. She appeared in more than a dozen, usually low-budget movies, including as "The Monster's Mate" in the Rankin/Bass animated cult classic Mad Monster Party (1967), co-starring Boris Karloff.
Diller also starred in two brief television series: The Pruitts of Southampton on ABC in 1966 and the variety show The Beautiful Phyllis Diller Show on NBC in 1968. More recent television appearances for Diller have included a guest spot on the long-running family drama, 7th Heaven, where she hilariously boozed it up while cooking dinner for the household, and The Drew Carey Show, as Mimi Bobek's grandmother. She posed for Playboy, but the photos were never run in the magazine. Her voice can be heard on Scooby Doo as herself, Jimmy Neutron as Jimmy's grandmother, and on Family Guy as Peter Griffin's mother.
She appeared on Broadway in 1969 in the long-running Hello, Dolly! as the last in a succession of replacements for Carol Channing, following Ginger Rogers, Martha Raye, Betty Grable, and Pearl Bailey.
Hollywood films have continued to capitalize on Diller's charm and recognizability. In 1998, Diller parlayed her unique cackle into the vocals for the Queen in Disney/Pixar's animated movie A Bug's Life. In 2005, Diller was featured as one of many contemporary comics in a documentary film, The Aristocrats. Diller, who avoids working blue, did a version of an old, risqué vaudeville routine in which she describes herself passing out when she first heard the joke, forgetting the actual content of the joke.
On January 24, 2007, she appeared on The Tonight Show and performed stand-up, before chatting with Jay Leno. Leno asked her to come back on her birthday for a celebration, and she said she'd be delighted.
Diller had a cameo appearance in an episode of ABC's Boston Legal on April 10, 2007. She appeared as herself, confronting William Shatner's Denny Crane character, alleging to have had a torrid love affair with him in the past. They seemed to have enjoyed a romantic moment in a foxhole during World War II.
Diller is a member of the Society of Singers, which supports singers in need. In June 2001 at the request of fellow Society member and producer Scott Sherman, she appeared at Kansas City and Philadelphia Pride events in support of gay pride and rights. The mayor of Philadelphia officially proclaimed June 8, 2001, as "Phyllis Diller Day" in PhiladelphiPhyllis Diller: On stage she was presented an official proclamation to a standing ovation. In 2006, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom proclaimed February 5, 2006 "Phyllis Diller Day in San Francisco," which she accepted by phone.
She has also recorded at least five comedy LP's, one of which was Born To Sing, released as Columbia CS 9523.
Although known for decades for waving cigarette holders in her comedy act, Diller is a lifelong nonsmoker, and the cigarette holders were stage props that the nonsmoking comedian had specially constructed.
Personal life
Diller, a longtime resident of Brentwood, California, credits much of her success to Bob Hope, in large part because he included her in the pictures and Vietnam USO shows mentioned above. She is an accomplished pianist as well as a painter.
Diller has candidly discussed her plastic surgery, a series of procedures first undertaken when she was 55. The results have drawn numerous awards and acknowledgments from plastic surgeons and medical organizations. In 1993, she was inducted into the St. Louis Walk of Fame.
Diller has been married and divorced twice. She also dated Earl "Madman" Muntz, a pioneer in oddball TV and radio ads. She had five children from her marriage to her first husband, Sherwood Anderson Diller. Her daughter Sally has suffered from schizophrenia for most of her life. Diller's second husband was actor Warde Donovan, who turned out to be gay. Two of her children have predeceased her, one dying of cancer. Her youngest son Perry, now 58, oversees her affairs today. Diller is not the mother of actress Susan Lucci, despite an urban legend to that effect, frequently passed through viral emails under trvia headings such as "Did You Know...?"
Diller has suffered medical problems, including a heart attack in 1999. After a hospital stay she was fitted with a pacemaker and released. A bad fall resulted in her being hospitalized for tests on her head and pacemaker in 2005. She has since retired from stand-up comedy appearances. She wrote her autobiography in 2005, titled Like a Lampshade in a Whorehouse. A direct-to-DVD version of the project, complete with early live clips of Diller, and interviews with her showbiz colleagues including Don Rickles, among others, was released in December, 2006. A screenplay about Diller's early years in stand-up, according to blind items in the trades, is in preproduction with Patricia Clarkson slated to play the comedienne.
On July 11, 2007, it was reported by USA Today that she fractured her back and had to cancel a Tonight Show appearance, during which she had planned to celebrate her 90th birthday.
Filmography
Features:
Splendor in the Grass (1961)
The Fat Spy (1966)
Boy, Did I Get a Wrong Number! (1966)
Eight on the Lam (1967)
Silent Treatment (1968) (unfinished)
The Private Navy of Sgt. O'Farrell (1968)
Did You Hear the One About the Traveling Saleslady? (1968)
Mad Monster Party (1969) (voice)
The Adding Machine (1969)
The Sunshine Boys (1975)
A Pleasure Doing Business (1979)
Pink Motel (1982)
Doctor Hackenstein (1988)
Pucker Up and Bark Like a Dog (1990)
The Nutcracker Prince (1990) (voice)
The Boneyard (1991)
Wisecracks (1992) (documentary)
The Perfect Man (1993)
Happily Ever After (1993) (voice)
The Silence of the Hams (1994)
A Bug's Life (1998) (voice)
The Debtors (1999)
The Nuttiest Nutcracker (1999) (voice) (direct-to-video)
Everything's Jake (2000)
The Last Place on Earth (2002)
Hip! Edgy! Quirky! (2002)
Bitter Jester (2003) (documentary)
Motocross Kids (2004)
West from North Goes South (2004)
Goodnight, We Love You (2004) (documentary)
The Aristocrats (2005) (documentary)
Madman Muntz: American Maverick (2005) (documentary)
Who Killed the Electric Car? (2006) (documentary)
Unbeatable Harold (2006)
Forget About It (2006)
Celebrity Art Show (2008) (documentary)
Blaze of Glory (2008) (voice)
You Know the Face (2009) (documentary)
Looking for Lenny (2009) (documentary)
Short Subjects:
Rowan & Martin at the Movies (1968)
The Lion Roars Again (1975)
Television Work
The Phyllis Diller Special (1963)
The Pruitts of Southampton (1966 - 1967)
An Evening with Phyllis Diller (1966)
The Phyllis Diller Special (1968)
The Beautiful Phyllis Diller Show (1968) (canceled after 13 episodes)
The Mad, Mad, Mad Comedians (1970) (voice)
Mooch Goes to Hollywood (1971)
Phyllis Diller's 102nd Birthday Party (1974)
The Gong Show (1976 - 1980) (recurring panelist throughout run)
On Location: Phyllis Diller (1977)
Whatever Became Of... (1981) (unsold pilot)
Jonathan Winters: On the Ledge (1987)
Alice Through the Looking Glass (1987) (voice)
The Bold and the Beautiful (recurring cast member from 1995 - 2004)
Kiss My Act (2001)
Casper's Scare School (2006) (voice)
Further reading
Autobiography: Like a Lampshade in a Whorehouse: My Life in Comedy, co-written with Richard Bushkin (Tarcher, 2005)
Phyllis Diller Interview
Ms. Diller, -what keeps you busy these days? What's your schedule like?
PHYLLIS DILLER: Oh, boy. Well if I were in town, every night I guess I'd be out at one of those big benefit balls giving away an award. Last night was an award to one of the world's greatest ear surgeons. Monday night I'm gonna go to the Writers Guild and give an award. That's like the Writer's Oscar.
Why do they select you to give the awards?
PHYLLIS DILLER: Well, I'm a big shot (Laughs). No, no, I always show up looking very glamorous and they love it. I have a wardrobe that makes the Queen of England's look like J.C. Penney. I open in Reno, at Harrah's, their big room. Harrah's is the best place there, and I love working for Harrah. I'm there for two weeks. Then I will fly home for one day to go to lunch for a show, for Cary Grant's widow. She's remarrying. Nancy Reagan will be there, and a lot of fun people. Then, another day when I'm in Reno, I have to fly home and do a TV show, no it's not TV, it's a movie, no, no it is a TV show. Dream On. It's one I don't know very much about. I'm giving a party in my own home where Dudley Moore is going to do a Salon concert. He, at the moment, is shacked up with Quincy Jone's daughter Julie. I can't keep up with his love affairs. I'm going to the National Safety Council GalPhyllis Diller: Where I studied music in Chicago, they are honoring me and I'm
having an art show at the Palmer House. Then I’m going to Branson, Missouri for the opening of John Davidson's Theatre. Then I'm going to the Kentucky Derby. I go every year, with my beau, if I can. Then, I'm going to have a week in Mexico, complete fun. While I'm there, my Whoopi Goldberg Show will play. Then I go to Fargo, North Dakota Civic Center, for a lecture.
What will you be lecturing on?
PHYLLIS DILLER: Probably old folks. Then I go to St. Louis to be honored. They're having a Walk of Fame. Then while I'm there, I get a Bench Award. In the park they're going to name a bench after me. Where I went to college in Ohio, they're giving me a Doctorate, at graduation. I'm going to give the Commencement address, and I'll give them a show, and they can make some money. Then I'm going to a big ball in New York, to honor Kitty Carlisle Hart. Then I'm going to do a lecture at Marymount Manhattan College in New York. Then, I'm going to do a Ronald McDonald House Benefit in Corpus Christi, Texas. Then, I'm going to the Edmonton, Canada Comedy Festival. Then I'm going to Salt Lake City to do a lecture for Senator Orin Hatch. Then I'm going to San Francisco to honor Ronnie Shel. He's going to work with my dear friend Jim Nabors for a week. So you see, I'm busy.
You didn't start out to be a stand-up comic.
PHYLLIS DILLER: Hell no. Nobody does, really, do they?
They do today.
PHYLLIS DILLER: But not when I started. It was an accident.
You wanted to be a musician.
PHYLLIS DILLER: Yes, I did. But, I don't have the talent, and I found it out.
How did you find it out?
PHYLLIS DILLER: I studied.
At one point, you were a newspaper columnist and a publicist. What did you write about in the paper?
PHYLLIS DILLER: I always made it funny, if they would allow it. So you see, I had this beat.
Did you cover "hard news?"
PHYLLIS DILLER: Now and then. I would, but not often. Usually I was a columnist. Like an Art Buchwald. You know, I was the funny person.
And who did you publicize?
PHYLLIS DILLER: Radio stations. I promoted two radio stations in the Bay Area.
What was it like for you the first time you went onstage? Did you get stage fright?
PHYLLIS DILLER: I shook for ten years. I shook like a leaf. I was frightened out of my wits. I was petrified for ten years. You have no idea what it takes to become a stand-up comic. I just admire all of them so much. They get an A for guts right away.
You could have done a series like Roseanne, couldn't you?
PHYLLIS DILLER: I have, but you're too young to know. I had my own TV sitcom series. It was called 'The Pruetts of Southampton.' It was on in '67.1 had a prime time hour NBC TV variety show, probably '67 or '68. Out of New York, I had an ABC TV regional, fabulous show that was also a half-hour variety show, which was a huge success.
When you started out, there were no such things as Comedy Clubs. You played Supper Clubs. Did you open for singers?
PHYLLIS DILLER: No. I was at Discovery Clubs, very chic, where owners on purpose look for new talent and presented it. But it wasn't like today, where they have an open mike night. You had to get the job and do it. In other words, you had to be pro. You had to start out as a pro almost. But, they would find talent, and those clubs, they were located in New York, San Francisco, and Chicago, and that was it. But they were there, and they always presented comics and singers.
We've got this huge number of comedy clubs nowadays...
PHYLLIS DILLER: 400.
Do you go into these clubs and...
PHYLLIS DILLER: Now and then, I go in on their dark nights, and charge more money, and give 'em a little revenue on their dark night.
You're talking about performing, I'm...
PHYLLIS DILLER: Yes, what else would I do, clean the toilets?
Do you go in as a customer, and listen to the other comics?
PHYLLIS DILLER: Ordinarily, I would be working if I were in a town, like Syracuse. In other words, I would be there on a one-nighter and doing a convention.
OK, so wherever you call home...
PHYLLIS DILLER: L.A.
Do you listen to other comics in L.PHYLLIS DILLER: clubs?
PHYLLIS DILLER: No. It puts a lot of pressure on you, because being the kind of person I am, regardless of how bad they were, I’d have to sit and laugh. I remember what it was like when someone like Bob Hope would drop in on me, or Jack Benny. I'd be scared out of my wits. So, I don't do much of that. I catch 'em on TV. I watch 'Improv' every night, so there I get to see all of the new ones; if they're any good they're going to be on there during the year. They're on twice a night on A and E. So, I see them all, and know them all. Just last night I met that deaf comic, that girl who's totally deaf and is a comic.
You market your own chili?
PHYLLIS DILLER: True, but it's over.
I didn't see it on the grocery shelves in Syracuse.
PHYLLIS DILLER: It never got that far. It is the world's greatest chili, the most fabulous, but that has nothing to do with marketing. It's over.
Now you're going to have to find something else to market.
PHYLLIS DILLER: Well, I have it already. It'll be out shortly. It's a Philly Dilly Twister Board. You stand on it and twist and it takes off the pounds and gives you a nice waist line and general exercise. For all ages. It's gonna burst on the scene. I've already done the commercial. I'm thrilled with that, 'cause I really believe in it. Of course, I believed in my chili too, but boy there's more to that than meets the eye. Eighty thousand dollars for every market. So, there's your profit — bye. The big companies freeze you out. They don't want you around, 'cause my chili is better.
Of all the performers you've either worked with, or have known, who has impressed you the most?
PHYLLIS DILLER: Well, I kissed him on the lips last night — Bob Hope. I love the man. I adore him. I worship him.
And you've met everybody I assume.
PHYLLIS DILLER: Jack Benny was a precious man. I loved working with him too. Of course, there's new guys I'm crazy about — Richard Jeni, he's wonderful. I'm crazy about Richard Lewis, and Bob Saget. These are the new Bennys and Hopes, baby.
Famous Phyllis Diller Quotes
A bachelor is a guy who never made the same mistake once.
Phyllis Diller
A smile is a curve that sets everything straight.
Phyllis Diller
Aim high, and you won't shoot your foot off.
Phyllis Diller
Always be nice to your children because they are the ones who will choose your rest home.
Phyllis Diller
Any time three New Yorkers get into a cab without an argument, a bank has just been robbed.
Phyllis Diller
Best way to get rid of kitchen odors: Eat out.
Phyllis Diller
Burt Reynolds once asked me out. I was in his room.
Phyllis Diller
Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing up is like shoveling the walk before it stops snowing.
Phyllis Diller
His finest hour lasted a minute and a half.
Phyllis Diller
Housework can't kill you, but why take a chance?
Phyllis Diller
I admit, I have a tremendous sex drive. My boyfriend lives forty miles away.
Phyllis Diller
I asked the waiter, 'Is this milk fresh?' He said, 'Lady, three hours ago it was grass.'
Phyllis Diller
I buried a lot of my ironing in the back yard.
Phyllis Diller
I want my children to have all the things I couldn't afford. Then I want to move in with them.
Phyllis Diller
I'm eighteen years behind in my ironing.
Phyllis Diller
I've been asked to say a couple of words about my husband, Fang. How about short and cheap?
Phyllis Diller
If it weren't for baseball, many kids wouldn't know what a millionaire looked like.
Phyllis Diller
It's a good thing that beauty is only skin deep, or I'd be rotten to the core.
Phyllis Diller
Most children threaten at times to run away from home. This is the only thing that keeps some parents going.
Phyllis Diller
My cooking is so bad my kids thought Thanksgiving was to commemorate Pearl Harbor.
Phyllis Diller
My mother-in-law had a pain beneath her left breast. Turned out to be a trick knee.
Phyllis Diller
My photographs don't do me justice - they just look like me.
Phyllis Diller
My recipe for dealing with anger and frustration: set the kitchen timer for twenty minutes, cry, rant, and rave, and at the sound of the bell, simmer down and go about business as usual.
Phyllis Diller
Never go to bed mad. Stay up and fight.
Phyllis Diller
Old age is when the liver spots show through your gloves.
Phyllis Diller
Our dog died from licking our wedding picture.
Phyllis Diller
The real reason your pro tells you to keep your head down is so you can't see him laughing at you.
Phyllis Diller
The reason the pro tells you to keep your head down is so you can't see him laughing.
Phyllis Diller
The reason women don't play football is because 11 of them would never wear the same outfit in public.
Phyllis Diller
There's a new medical crisis. Doctors are reporting that many men are having allergic reactions to latex condoms. They say they cause severe swelling. So what's the problem?
Phyllis Diller
There's so little money in my bank account, my scenic checks show a ghetto.
Phyllis Diller
Tranquilizers work only if you follow the advice on the bottle - keep away from children.
Phyllis Diller
We spend the first twelve months of our children's lives teaching them to walk and talk and the next twelve telling them to sit down and shut up.
Phyllis Diller
What I don't like about office Christmas parties is looking for a job the next day.
Phyllis Diller
Whatever you may look like, marry a man your own age - as your beauty fades, so will his eyesight.
Phyllis Diller
You know you're old if they have discontinued your blood type.
Phyllis Diller
You know you're old if your walker has an airbag.
Phyllis Diller