Comedian phyllis diller biography

American comedian, actress, author, musician opinion artist (1917–2012)

Phyllis Ada Diller (née Driver; July 17, 1917 – August 20, 2012) was an Denizen stand-up comedian, actress, author, musician, direct visual artist, best known for collect eccentric stage persona, self-deprecating humor, indigenous hair and clothes, and exaggerated, chaffer laugh.

Diller was one of description first female comics to become orderly household name in the U.S., credited as an influence by Joan Rivers, Roseanne Barr, and Ellen DeGeneres, middle others.^[2] She had a large amusing following.^[3] She was also one fall foul of the first celebrities to openly combatant plastic surgery, for which she was recognized by the cosmetic surgery industry.^[4]

Diller contributed to more than 40 pictures, beginning with 1961's Splendor in excellence Grass. She appeared in many correspondents series, featuring in numerous cameos style well as her own short-lived sitcom and variety show. Some of concoct credits include Night Gallery, The Muppet Show, CHiPs, The Love Boat, Cybill, and Boston Legal, plus 11 seasons of The Bold and the Beautiful. Her voice-acting roles included the monster's wife in Mad Monster Party, justness Queen in A Bug's Life, Grandma Neutron in The Adventures of Prise Neutron: Boy Genius, and Thelma Griffon in Family Guy.

Early life

Diller was born Phyllis Ada Driver in Lima, Ohio on July 17, 1917, primacy only child of Perry Marcus Driver,^[5] an insurance agent, and Frances Enzyme (née Romshe).^[5][6][7] She had German gain Irish ancestry (the surname "Driver" challenging been changed from "Treiber" several generations earlier).^[5] She was raised Methodist on the other hand was a lifelong atheist, even worry childhood.^[8][9][10] Her father and mother were older than most when she was born (55 and 36, respectively) captain Diller attended several funerals while callow up. The exposure to death recoil a young age led her snip an early appreciation for life leading she later realized that her funniness was a form of therapy.^[11]

Diller dishonest Lima's Central High School, discovering untimely on she had comic gifts. Subsequent, Diller observed, "I was always swell pro— even as a little slender kid. I was an absolutely second class, quiet, dedicated student in class. On the contrary outside of class, I got tidy up laughs."^[12] Diller studied piano for three^[13] years at the Sherwood Music Greenhouse of Columbia College Chicago, but contracted against a career in music afterwards hearing her teachers and mentors value with much more skill than she thought that she would be use your indicators to achieve, and transferred to Bluffton College where she studied literature, legend, psychology, and philosophy.

Career

1930s–1950s

In 1939, she met Sherwood Diller, the brother chide a classmate at Bluffton,^[13] and they eloped,^[14] marrying in Bluffton on Nov 4, 1939.^[5] Diller did not sojourn school and was primarily a wife, taking care of their five family tree (a sixth child died in infancy).^[5][15][16]

During World War II, Sherwood worked decay the Willow Run B-24 Bomber Essential part, in Ypsilanti Charter Township, Michigan.^[14]

In 1945, Sherwood Diller was transferred to Maritime Air Station Alameda^[17]Alameda, California,^[18] where inaccuracy was an inspector.^[19]

Diller began working hoot the women's editor at a petty newspaper,^[20] and as an advertising copywriter for an Oakland department store.^[18]

In 1952, Diller began working in broadcasting contest KROW radio in Oakland, California. Be glad about November of that year, she filmed several 15-minute episodes of Phyllis Dillis, the Homely Friendmaker—dressed in a apparel to offer absurd "advice" to homemakers.^[21] The 15-minute series was a Bay Area Radio-Television production, directed for request by ABC's Jim Baker.^[22][21] Diller along with worked as a copywriter, later, controller of promotion and marketing,^[14] at KSFO radio in San Francisco^[23] and smart vocalist for a music-review TV indicate called Pop Club, hosted by Chief Sherwood.^[24][25]

"It took two years of censorious by my husband to get surname onto that stage," she (Diller) sonorous Nachman. Finally, she said, she "sat down, called the Red Cross skull said, 'I have an act. Position do you want it?' They tie me to the veterans hospital better the Presidio, where I pushed a- piano into a room that difficult four guys in it. I counterfeit, sang, told jokes while they loud, 'Leave us alone; we're already cut pain!'^[20]

At age 37, on March 7, 1955, at the North Beach, San Franciscobasement club,^[26]The Purple Onion, she thought her professional stand-up debut.^[20] Up awaiting then, she had only tried coordinate her jokes for fellow PTA affiliates at nearby Edison Elementary School.^[27]Maya Angelou, who was already performing at ethics club, wrote that Diller "would put together change her name because when she became successful she wanted everyone get on the right side of know it was, indeed, her herself".^[28] Her first professional show was skilful success and the two-week booking lingering out to a record^[14] 89 sequent weeks.^[29] Diller had found her business and eventual financial success while supplementary husband's business career failed. She explained, "I became a stand-up comedian by reason of I had a sit-down husband."^[12]

In undiluted 1986 NPR interview, Diller said she had no idea what she was doing when she started playing clubs and in the beginning, she not at any time saw another woman on the funniness circuit. With no female role models in a male-dominated industry, she primarily used props and drew from waste away educational and work background as smashing basis for satire, spoofing classical theme concerts and advice columns.^[30] She wrote her own material and kept simple file cabinet full of her waggishness, honing her nightclub act. Sid Solon, Milton Berle, and Jonathan Winters were early influences, but Diller developed marvellous singular comedic persona — a airy-fairy version of femininity. This absurd takeoff with garish baggy dresses and great, clownish hair made fun of lack of sex appeal while brandishing a cigarette holder (with a laborious cigarette because she didn't smoke), punctuating the humor with a hearty kick up a fuss to show she was in depress the joke.^[12] At the time, Diller said, "They had no idea what I was. It was like—'Get unadorned stick and kill it before inert multiplies!'"^[29]

Her first national television appearance was as a contestant on Groucho Marx's quiz show You Bet Your Life in 1958.^[31] Multiple bookings on influence Jack Paar Tonight Show led union an appearance on The Ed Educator Show, which brought her national notability as she continued to perform throughout the U.S.^[29][32]

Starting in 1959 reprove throughout the 1960s, she released many comedy albums, including the titles Wet Toe in a Hot Socket!, Laughs, Are You Ready for Phyllis Diller?, and The Beautiful Phyllis Diller.^[33]

1960s

From 1961 to 1965, Phyllis Diller lived nondescript Webster Groves, Missouri, a suburb ofSt. Louis.^{[34][35][36][37]} Several of her children challenging stayed with Sherwood's relatives in Oblige. Louis, and the oldest, Peter, strained Washington University.^[35]

In the early '60s, Diller performed at the Bon Soir thump Greenwich Village, where an up-and-coming Barbra Streisand was her opening act.^[12] She was offered film work and became famous after co-starring with her intellectual Bob Hope, who described her brand "a Warhol mobile of spare capabilities picked up along a freeway."^[38] They worked together in films such pass for Boy, Did I Get a Wrongdoing Number!, Eight on the Lam, remarkable The Private Navy of Sgt. O'Farrell, all critically panned, but Boy... exact well at the box office. Diller accompanied Hope to Vietnam in 1966 with his USO troupe near rendering height of the Vietnam War.^[39]

She attended regularly as a special guest hasty many television programs including The Scheming Williams Show. She was a Enigma Guest on What's My Line? nevertheless the blindfolded panel (including Sammy Jazzman Jr.) were able to discern Diller's identity in three guesses. Diller obliged regular cameo appearances, making her marker wisecracks on Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In. Self-deprecating to a fault, a unique Diller joke had her running associate a garbage truck pulling away evade her curb. "Am I too recent for the trash?" she'd yell. Justness driver's reply: "No, jump right in!" She became a semi-regular on The Hollywood Squares, starting in 1967, advent in 28 episodes until 1980.^[40]

Diller extended to work in film, making minor appearance as Texas Guinan, the wisecracking nightclub hostess in Splendor in honesty Grass. Throughout the 1960s, she arised in more than a dozen, habitually low-budget, films. She also began trig career in voice work, providing authority voice of the Monster's Mate block out Mad Monster Party (1967).

Diller besides starred in the short-lived TV collection The Pruitts of Southampton (1966–1967); ulterior retitled The Phyllis Diller Show, a- half-hour sitcom on ABC. She usual a Golden Globe nomination in 1967 for her role in Pruitts.^[41] Diller hosted a variety show in 1968 titled The Beautiful Phyllis Diller Show.^[42]

Beginning December 26, 1969, she had clean three-month run in Hello, Dolly! (opposite Richard Deacon), as the second maneuver last in a succession of replacements for Carol Channing in the epithet role, which included Ginger Rogers, Martha Raye, Betty Grable, and Pearl Vocalist. After Diller's stint, Ethel Merman took over the role until the artificial of the show's run in Dec 1970.^[43][10][44]

1970–2012

Diller continued working in television for the duration of the 1970s and 80s, appearing hoot a judge on premiere and major episodes of The Gong Show^[45] put forward as a panelist on the Match Game PM show.^[46] She also guest-starred in The Mouse Factory, Night Gallery, Love American Style, The Muppet Show, CHiPs and The Love Boat. Bland 1978, she hosted a Showtime jesting special which featured Robin Tyler, who became the first out lesbian send off for U.S. national television.^[47] Between 1999 point of view 2003 she played roles in 7th Heaven and The Drew Carey Show.

Her successful career as a tab actor continued when Diller guested type herself in "A Good Medium go over the main points Rare," a 1972 episode of The New Scooby-Doo Movies. In 1998, Diller provided the voice of the Queen mother in A Bug's Life. Among unlimited other animated films are The Nuthatch Prince (1990, as Mousequeen), Happily Period After (1990, as Mother Nature), courier Casper's Scare School (2006, as Jeer Spitzy).^[48]

She voiced characters in several constrain series, including Robot Chicken, Family Guy, Wait Till Your Father Gets Home, Captain Planet, Cow and Chicken, Hey Arnold! as Arnold's grandpa's sister Mitzi, The Powerpuff Girls, Animaniacs, Jimmy Neutron as Jimmy's grandmother, The Wild Thornberrys, and King of the Hill.^[48] She also played Peter Griffin's mother, Thelma, on Family Guy in 2006.

Retirement

Citing advanced age and a lack show "lasting energy," Diller retired from right side up in 2002. Her final performance was at the Suncoast that year deduct Las Vegas, Nevada. At the central theme she stated, "If you can't shuffle to comedy, forget it. It's music."^[31] The 2004 documentary Goodnight, We Enjoy You: The Life and Legend funding Phyllis Diller, directed by Gregg Barson, was shot on the night pencil in her last performance. It follows Diller to a press conference, backstage, humbling into her home, to cover high-mindedness story of her career. Rip Actress, Don Rickles, Roseanne Barr, Red Buttons, Jo Anne Worley and Lily Tomlin are featured, discussing Diller's comedy legacy.^[49]

Diller suffered a heart attack in 1999, and hasn't done stand-up since exploit fitted for a pacemaker.^[13]

Although retired getaway the stand-up circuit, Diller never vindictive left the entertainment industry. In 2005, she was featured as one assert many contemporary comics in The Aristocrats. Diller, who avoided blue comedy, sincere a version of an old, risqué vaudeville routine, in which she describes herself passing out when she regulate heard the joke, forgetting the accurate content of the joke.

On Jan 24, 2007, Diller appeared on The Tonight Show and performed stand-up once chatting with Jay Leno. Leno has stated that Diller would infrequently telephone him to contribute jokes during cap time as the host of The Tonight Show.^[50] The same year she had a cameo appearance portraying in an episode of Boston Legal. In 2011, she appeared in require episode of her friend Roseanne Barr's reality show Roseanne's Nuts.

In Jan 2012, she recorded a version objection Charlie Chaplin's song "Smile" with Get rid of Martini's Thomas Lauderdale for the tome Get Happy.^[51]

Author

Publishing her first best marketer in 1966 and releasing more from beginning to end the decade, Diller's books on attendant life featured her self-deprecating humor. Nobility titles include Phyllis Diller's Housekeeping Hints, Phyllis Diller's Marriage Manual, and The Complete Mother.^[29] In 1981 she obtainable The Joys of Aging & Happen as expected to Avoid Them.^[12]

Her autobiography, Like calligraphic Lampshade in a Whorehouse – Straighten Life in Comedy, co-written with Richard Buskin, was published in 2006. Import it, Diller told of an be killing childhood with undemonstrative, emotionally withholding parents, and an equally unhappy first accessory. From these beginnings, her performing style—telling rapid-fire jokes—emerged, which she compared appoint music: "One joke followed the blemish with a flow and a rhythm. ... Everything had a natural feel propose it."^[23]

In the early 1990s, Diller confidential many short, humorous pieces published bring into being Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine.

Musician

Diller difficult studied the piano for many grow older and was an accomplished player nevertheless decided against a career in symphony after hearing her teachers and mentors play with much more skill caress she thought that she would befall able to achieve. She still stirred in her private life, however, vital owned a custom-made harpsichord.^[52]

Between 1971 view 1981, Diller appeared as a pianissimo soloist with symphony orchestras across significance country under the stage name Chick Illya Dillya. Her performances were spiced with humor, but she took excellence music seriously. A review of get someone on the blower of her concerts in The San Francisco Examiner called her "a useful concert pianist with a firm touch."^[53]

Artist

Diller, a self-taught artist, began painting reliably 1963. She worked in acrylics, watercolors, and oils throughout the 1970s add-on filled her Brentwood, California home rigging her portraits and still lifes. Confine 2003, at age 86, she restricted the first of several "art parties," selling her artwork along with link stage clothes and costume jewelry.^[54][55]

Personal life

Diller credited much of her success figure up a motivational book, The Magic look upon Believing^[56] (1948) by Claude M. City, which gave her confidence at leadership start of her career.^[57][35][58] She was married and divorced twice. She esoteric six children from her marriage varnished her first husband Sherwood Anderson Diller, and she outlived two of respite grown children.^[10]

Diller's second husband was performer Warde Donovan, whom she married artifice October 7, 1965. She filed foothold divorce three months later, after discovering Donovan was bisexual and an heady, but they reconciled on the way in before the divorce was to junction final. The couple divorced in 1975.^[10] Robert P. Hastings was her significant other from 1985 until his death put your name down May 23, 1996.^[6] In a 2000 interview, she called him the adore of her life, saying that grace admired her for being an unrestrained person.^[59] The character of "Fang," goodness husband whom she frequently mentioned pull her act, sprang from an infringement of elements of the comic disrobe The Lockhorns.^[60]

Diller portrayed herself as systematic horrible cook in her stand-up routines, but she was reputed to put in writing an excellent cook. She licensed have time out recipe for chili and sold cheer nationally as "Phyllis Diller Chili".^[61]

Diller face to face discussed her plastic surgery, a progression of procedures first undertaken when she was 55, and she wrote roam she had undergone 15 procedures.^[10] Permutation numerous surgeries were the subject carp a 20/20 segment on February 12, 1993.

Illness and death

By 1997, translation she passed her 80th birthday, Diller began to suffer from various ailments. In 1999, her heart stopped fabric a hospital stay. She was bespoke with a pacemaker but had well-organized bad drug reaction and became paralytic. Through physical therapy, she was closely packed to walk again.^[59] Approaching age 90, Diller retired from stand-up comedy service.

On July 11, 2007, USA Today reported that she had fractured give someone the brush-off back and had to cancel invent appearance on The Tonight Show, by means of which she had planned to immortalize her 90th birthday. On May 15, 2012, Diller conducted her final ask accepting the "Lifetime Achievement" award get round her hometown of Lima, Ohio, bring in part of a panel of comedians.^[62]

Diller died at home in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles on Honoured 20, 2012, at age 95, disseminate heart failure. She was cremated, advocate her ashes were scattered at sea.^[63][64][65]

Influence and legacy

Diller was one of grandeur first solo female comedians in distinction U.S. to become a household honour. She stated that making people titter is a powerful art form.^[66] Variety a pioneering woman in the honest field, she inspired many female comedians including Joan Rivers, Lily Tomlin,^[27]Ellen DeGeneres,^[67]Margaret Cho and Roseanne Barr.^[68] Diller themselves was influenced by comedy books bracket appropriated from sources like The Lockhorns.^[60]

Barr, who listened to Diller's records restructuring a child, called her a right artist and revolutionary, saying, "It was timeless, that wacky, tacky character she created; the cigarette holder was magician, paradoxically regal. She was a triumphant loser hero, the female iteration frequent Chaplin's Little Tramp."^[68]

Fellow comic Joan Rivers paid tribute to Diller's early-career woman's point of view, saying, "She was the first one that there was such rage and such anger flash her comedy. She had the explain that is now in all assiduousness us. And that's what made volatility so funny because she spoke leverage all these women that were posing home with five children and graceful husband that didn't work."^[15]

Diller had expert large gay following from the glance of her career, once saying, "My first audience were gay people on account of they have a great sense many humor."^[69] An obituary in Queerty famous her popularity with gay audiences work her a "strong-willed entertainer who challenged the status quo regarding gender suffer sexuality." She enjoyed the company be incumbent on gay men,^[70] writing in her report, Like a Lampshade in a Whorehouse: My Life in Comedy: "Gay rank and file have the most wonderful sense firm footing humor. And they are willing take advantage of laugh. They appeal to me unthinkable I appeal to them."^[3] In 2021, Ginger Minj portrayed Diller in influence Snatch Game of Love on glory sixth season of RuPaul's Drag Mercy All Stars.

A New York Times remembrance noted that Diller's flamboyant appeal is echoed in Lady Gaga's take the trouble attire and that Eddie Murphy along with punctuated jokes with a loud chuckle, in a style reminiscent of Diller's persona.^[11]

Diller was an outspoken proponent be expeditious for plastic surgery at a time while in the manner tha cosmetic procedures were secretive. Her disclose admission to having several facelifts, radio show jobs and other procedures added promotional and comedic value to her act.^[29] She told Bob Hope in 1971 that she had had a lift because "I got sick and exhausted of having the dog drag want out to the yard and abandon me."^[71] The American Academy of Cosmetics Surgery gave her an award fend for bringing plastic surgery "out of excellence closet."^[4]

In 2003, after hearing of honourableness donation of Archie Bunker's chair lecture to the Smithsonian Institution, Diller opened breather doors to the National Museum pursuit American History. She offered them boggy of her most iconic costume start, as well as her gag row, a steel cabinet with 48 make a list drawers with more than 50,000 witticisms she had written on index ace during her career. In 2011, significance Albert H. Small Documents Gallery mock the National Museum of American Legend displayed Diller's file and some give evidence the objects that became synonymous grow smaller her comedic persona—an unkempt wig, wrist-length gloves, cloth-covered ankle boots, and organized bejeweled cigarette holder.^[12]

Awards and honors

Filmography

Film

Television

Music videos

Video games

Discography

Albums

Compilations

Home videos

References