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A stand-up comic is judged by every line. Singers get applause at the end of their song no matter how bad they are.
~ Phyllis Diller
Phyllis Diller posed for Playboy magazine in her youth, although the photos were never published by the magazine.
Phyllis Diller
Phyllis Ada Driver
17 July 1917, Lima, Ohio
I grew up loving Phyllis Diller. I watched all of her movies and her TV show. But beyond the jokes, the clothes and the wild hair she was and always will be a beautiful woman a talented actress and a talented musician. I was thrilled the first time I heard her play the piano. Of her movies, my favorites were the ones she did with Bob Hope. They made a perfect team.
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Phyllis Diller (born Phyllis Ada Driver; July 17, 1917) is an American actress and comedienne. She created a stage persona of a wild-haired, eccentrically-dressed housewife who makes jokes about a husband named "Fang" while pretending to smoke from a long cigarette holder. Diller is credited with opening the doors of stand-up comedy to women. Phyllis Diller's trade mark is her laugh.
Phyllis Diller was born to Perry Marcus Driver and his wife, the former Frances Ada Romshe, in Lima, Ohio.
Diller attended Lima's Central High School, then studied for three years at Sherwood Music Conservatory in 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 historic 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 the piano for many years. She later decided against a career in music after hearing her teachers and mentors play with much more ability than she thought that she would be able to achieve. She still plays in her private life, however, and owns a custom-made harpsichord.
Diller began her career working at KROW radio in Oakland in 1952. In November of that year, she began filming a television show titled "Phyllis Dillis, the Homely Friendmaker." The 15-minute series was a BART (Bay Area Radio-Television) production, directed for television by ABC's Jim Baker. The cameraman later admitted that there was no film: The camera was open during the filming. In the mid 1950s, while residing in the East Bay city of Alameda, California, Diller was employed at KSFO radio in San Francisco. Bill Anderson, along with a young Don Sherwood, wrote and produced a television show at KGO-TV called the Belfast "Pop Club". Don would conduct interviews and perform sketches with celebrities and the younger generation. The show was filmed live on set and it lasted only a half-hour on Saturdays. It was an early advertisement for Belfast Root Beer, now known today as Mug Root Beer. Anderson invited her onto his show on April 23, 1955 as a vocalist and started her stand up career at San Francisco's legendary nightclub, The Purple Onion owned by Enrico Banducci.
Diller appeared as a stand up at The Purple Onion on March 7, 1955 and remained there for 87 straight weeks. Diller appeared on Del Courtney's Showcase on KPIX television on November 3, 1956. Diller's fame was expanded when she co-starred with Bob Hope in 23 TV specials and three films in the 1960s: Boy, Did I Get a Wrong Number!, Eight on the Lam and The Private Navy of Sgt. O'Farrell. Although only Boy, Did I Get a Wrong Number! performed well at the box office, Hope invited Diller to perform with him in Vietnam in 1966 with his USO troupe during the height of the Vietnam War.
Throughout the 1960s she appeared regularly as a special guest on many television programs. For example, she did a stint as one of the What's My Line? Mystery Guests. 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 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 film Mad Monster Party (1967), co-starring Boris Karloff.
Diller also starred in two short-lived TV series: the half-hour sitcom The Pruitts of Southampton (later retitled The Phyllis Diller Show) on ABC from 1966–1967, and the variety show The Beautiful Phyllis Diller Show on NBC in 1968. More recent television appearances for Diller have included at least three episodes between 1999–2003 on the long-running family drama 7th Heaven, in one of which she got drunk while cooking dinner for the household, and a 2002 episode of 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 in several animated TV shows, including The New Scooby-Doo Movies (1972) as herself, The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius (2002) as Jimmy's grandmother, and on Family Guy in 2006 as Peter Griffin's mother, Thelma Griffin.
Beginning December 26, 1969, she had a three month run on Broadway in Hello, Dolly! (opposite Richard Deacon) as the second to last in a succession of replacements for Carol Channing in the title role, which included Ginger Rogers, Martha Raye, Betty Grable, and Pearl Bailey. After Diller's stint, Ethel Merman took over the role until the end of the show's run in December 1970.
In 1993, she was inducted into the St. Louis Walk of Fame.
In 1998, Diller provided 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 blue comedy, 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.
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 character Denny Crane, alleging to have had a torrid love affair with him. 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". On stage she was presented an official proclamation to a standing ovation. In 2006, Mayor of San Francisco 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 records, one of which was Born To Sing, released as Columbia CS 9523.
Although known for decades for smoking from long cigarette holders in her comedy act, Diller is a lifelong nonsmoker, and the cigarette holders were stage props that she had specially constructed.
Diller, a longtime resident of the Brentwood area of Los Angeles, California, credits much of her success to Bob Hope, in large part because he included her in many of his films and his Vietnam USO shows. She is an accomplished pianist as well as a painter.
Diller has been married and divorced twice. She also dated Earl "Madman" Muntz, a pioneer in oddball TV and radio ads. She had six children from her marriage to her first husband, Sherwood Anderson Diller. Her first child was Peter (b. 1940; d. 1998 of cancer). Her second child Sally, born in 1944, has suffered from schizophrenia most of her life. Her third child, a son, was a blue baby who lived for only two weeks in an incubator. A daughter, Suzanne, was born in 1946, followed by another daughter Stephanie (b. 1948 d. 2002 of a stroke) and a son Perry (b. 1950). Diller's second husband was actor Warde Donovan, who turned out to be gay. Her youngest son Perry, now 60, 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 trivia headings such as "Did You Know...?"
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 her 2005 autobiography, she wrote that she has undergone "fifteen different procedures".
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. Diller spends much of her time painting, cooking, and gardening.
On July 11, 2007, USA Today reported that she fractured her back and had to cancel a Tonight Show appearance, during which she had planned to celebrate her 90th birthday. On January 4, 2011 she appeared looking well on Anderson Cooper 360 on CNN as part of a panel of women comediennes.
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Received her first national exposure as a contestant on the Groucho Marx show "You Bet Your Life" (1950). She appeared on 30 January 1958 (Season 7, Episode 19).
In 1999 she suffered serious heart attack, although not expected to live, Diller recovered well enough to return to the stage for a couple of years.
Received the Women's International Center (WIC) Living Legacy Award in 1990.
She had a total of six children, though only three are still living as at July 2006, including youngest son Perry Diller who has appeared in at least two TV documentaries on his mother.
Has had numerous face lifts, a popular topic in her comedy routines.
Briefly served as honorary mayor in the affluent town of Brentwood, California.
Studied at Chicago's Sherwood Music Conservatory for three years before eloping with Sherwood Anderson Diller in 1939.
As of 2000, had appeared as a piano soloist with 100 symphony orchestras across the United States, including performances in Dallas, Denver, Annapolis, Houston, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Detroit, and Cincinnati.
Nominated for the Rock and Roll Hall of Shame for her recorded version of The Rolling Stones' "Satisfaction".
Earned a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1993.
She describes her comedy as "tragedy revisited."
Was a housewife in San Francisco suburb with five children and an under-employed husband who eventually convinced her to make money with the talent she regularly displayed in PTA skits.
Had 10-year affair with "the love of my life", lawyer Robert Hastings before his death on May 23, 1996.
Breakthrough came in March, 1955, age 37, with debut at San Francisco's Purple Onion club, and career was launched with subsequent appearance on Jack Paar's show. Later got major boost from Bob Hope, who saw Diller in a Washington, D.C. club. She went on to appear in 3 of Hope's movies and 23 of his TV specials.
Her second marriage, to actor Warde Donovan, actually lasted only nine weeks.
Announced her retirement from nightclub/stage tours at age 84 in May, 2002. Had pacemaker implanted at age 81. Lives in Brentwood section of Los Angeles, California.
Was a participant in many of Dean Martin's "Celebrity Roasts".
Attended a July 2003 Las Vegas function on invitation of Wayne Newton, to help celebrate the 45th anniversary of the Stardust Hotel and Casino.
Biography in: "Who's Who in Comedy" by Ronald L. Smith. Pg. 137-139. New York: Facts on File, 1992. ISBN 0816023387
Worked as a copywriter before becoming a comedian.
Retired from stand-up routine in 2002, due to ill health: She was 84 at the time! Continued to lend her voice to animated characters in movies.
In her later years after several cosmetic procedures, she posed semi-nude for spicy pictures proposed to be in Playboy magazine, similar to those published of Joan Collins, to prove that women can still be sexy in their 50s and 60s. The photos were not published in the magazine, but one is included in her autobiography "Like a Lampshade in a Whorehouse".
Has a large collection of Waterford Crystal which she has collected over the past 50 years.
Among her five children with Sherwood Anderson Diller were sons Peter Diller (now deceased), Perry Diller and daughters Sally Diller, Stephanie Diller (also deceased) and Sue Diller.
In the mid-1960s, the trademark quirky dresses that she wore during performances were designed by Gloria Johnson of Omaha, Nebraska. Phyllis jokingly referred to Johnson as 'Omar of Omaha,' as tent dresses were in vogue at the time.
Before Joan Rivers made it as a stand-up comic, she wrote jokes for Phyllis Diller.
Her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame is at 7003 Hollywood Blvd.
The cigarette with holder that she was famous for using in her stand-up routines in the 1960s and 1970s was only a prop for the act. She is a life-long non-smoker.
A once highly serious student of the piano, she owns a custom-made harpsichord which she prizes.
Often erroneously attributed with being the mother of Susan Lucci. Although their ages do not preclude this, they are not related.
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A stand-up comic is judged by every line. Singers get applause at the end of their song no matter how bad they are.
It's a good thing that beauty is only skin deep, or I'd be rotten to the core.
Always be nice to your children because they are the ones who will choose your rest home.
Aim high, and you won't shoot your foot off.
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