Phyllis Diller

After moving to Alameda, California, Diller began working in broadcasting in 1952 at KROW radio in Oakland, California. In November of that year, she filmed several 15-minute segments for the Bay Area television series Phyllis Dillis, the Homely Friendmaker—dressed in a housecoat to offer absurd "advice" to homemakers.[14] Diller also worked as a copywriter at KSFO radio in San Francisco[15] and a vocalist for a music-review TV show called Pop Club, hosted by Don Sherwood.[16][17]

With the encouragement of her husband, Diller made her debut as a stand-up comedian at age 37 in the basement of the San Francisco North Beach club, The Purple Onion, on March 7, 1955. Up until then, she had only tried out her jokes for fellow PTA members at nearby Edison Elementary School.[18] Maya Angelou, who was already performing at the club, wrote that Diller “would not change her name because when she became successful she wanted everyone to know it was, indeed, her herself”.[19] Her first professional show was a success and the two-week booking stretched out to 89 consecutive weeks.[20] Diller had found her calling and eventual financial success while her husband's business career failed. She explained, "I became a stand-up comedienne because I had a sit-down husband."[11]

In a 1986 NPR interview, Diller said she had no idea what she was doing when she started playing clubs and in the beginning, she never saw another woman on the comedy circuit. With no female role models in a male-dominated industry, she initially used props and drew from her educational and work background as a basis for satire, spoofing classical music concerts and advice columns.[21] She wrote her own material and kept a file cabinet full of her gags, honing her nightclub act. Sid Caesar, Milton Berle, and Jonathan Winters were early influences, but Diller developed a singular comedic persona — a surreal version of femininity. This absurd caricature with garish baggy dresses and gigantic, clownish hair made fun of her lack of sex appeal while brandishing a cigarette holder (with a wooden cigarette because she didn't smoke), punctuating the humor with a hearty cackle to show she was in on the joke.[11] At the time, Diller said, "They had no idea what I was. It was like—'Get a stick and kill it before it multiplies!'"[20]

Her first national television appearance was as a contestant on Groucho Marx's quiz show You Bet Your Life in 1958.[22] Multiple bookings on the Jack Paar Tonight Show led to an appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, which brought her national prominence as she continued to perform stand-up throughout the U.S.[20][23]

Starting in 1959 and throughout the 1960s, she released multiple comedy albums, including the titles Wet Toe in a Hot Socket!, Laughs, Are You Ready for Phyllis Diller?, and The Beautiful Phyllis Diller.[24]

Diller wearing colorful garb, 1960s

Diller at Korat Royal Thai Air Force Base, Thailand, 1966

In the early '60s, Diller performed at the Bon Soir in Greenwich Village, where an up-and-coming Barbra Streisand was her opening act.[11] She was offered film work and became famous after co-starring with her mentor Bob Hope, who described her as "a Warhol mobile of spare parts picked up along a freeway."[25] They worked together in films such as Boy, Did I Get a Wrong Number!, Eight on the Lam, and The Private Navy of Sgt. O'Farrell, all critically panned, but Boy... did well at the box office. Diller accompanied Hope to Vietnam in 1966 with his USO troupe near the height of the Vietnam War.[26]

She appeared regularly as a special guest on many television programs, including The Andy Williams Show"; 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 three guesses. 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 for the trash?" she'd yell. The driver's reply: "No, jump right in!" She became a semi-regular on The Hollywood Squares, starting in 1967, appearing in 28 episodes until 1980.[27]

Diller continued to work in film, making an appearance as Texas Guinan, the wisecracking nightclub hostess in Splendor in the Grass. Throughout the 1960s, she appeared in more than a dozen, usually low-budget, films. She also began a career in voice work, providing the voice of the Monster's Mate in Mad Monster Party (1967).

Diller also starred in the short-lived TV series The Pruitts of Southampton (1966–1967); later retitled The Phyllis Diller Show, a half-hour sitcom on ABC. She received a Golden Globe nomination in 1967 for her role in Pruitts.[28] Diller hosted a variety show in 1968 titled The Beautiful Phyllis Diller Show.[29]

Beginning December 26, 1969, she had a three-month run 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.[30][31][32]

Diller in 1973

Diller continued working in television throughout the '70s and '80s, appearing as a judge on premiere and subsequent episodes of The Gong Show[33] and as a panelist on the Match Game PM show.[34] She also guest-starred in The Mouse Factory, Night Gallery, Love American Style, The Muppet Show, CHiPs and The Love Boat. Between 1999 and 2003 she played roles in 7th Heaven and The Drew Carey Show.

Her successful career as a voice actor continued when Diller guested as herself in "A Good Medium is Rare," a 1972 episode of The New Scooby-Doo Movies. In 1998, Diller provided the voice of the Queen in A Bug's Life. Among her other animated films are The Nutcracker Prince (1990, as Mousequeen), Happily Ever After (1990, as Mother Nature), and Casper's Scare School (2006, as Aunt Spitzy).[35]

She voiced characters in several television 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.[35] She also played Peter Griffin's mother, Thelma, on Family Guy in 2006.

Citing advanced age and a lack of "lasting energy," Diller retired from stand-up in 2002. Her final performance was at the Suncoast that year in Las Vegas, Nevada. At the time she stated, "If you can't dance to comedy, forget it. It's music."[22] The 2004 documentary Goodnight, We Love You: The Life and Legend of Phyllis Diller, directed by Gregg Barson, was shot on the night of her last performance. It follows Diller to a press conference, backstage, and into her home, to cover the story of her career. Rip Taylor, Don Rickles, Roseanne Barr, Red Buttons, Jo Anne Worley and Lily Tomlin are featured, discussing Diller's comedy legacy.[36]

Although retired from the stand-up circuit, Diller never fully left the entertainment industry. In 2005, she was featured as one of many contemporary comics in The Aristocrats. Diller, who avoided 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, Diller appeared on The Tonight Show and performed stand-up before chatting with Jay Leno. Leno has stated that Diller would infrequently call him to contribute jokes during his time as the host of The Tonight Show.[37] The same year she had a cameo appearance portraying herself in an episode of Boston Legal. In 2011, she appeared in an episode of her friend Roseanne Barr's reality show Roseanne's Nuts.

In January 2012, she recorded a version of Charlie Chaplin's song "Smile" with Pink Martini's Thomas Lauderdale for the album Get Happy.[38]

Diller in February 2007

Publishing her first best seller in 1966 and releasing more throughout the decade, Diller's books on domestic life featured her self-deprecating humor. The titles include Phyllis Diller's Housekeeping Hints, Phyllis Diller's Marriage Manual, and The Complete Mother.[20] In 1981 she published The Joys of Aging & How to Avoid Them.[11]

Her autobiography, Like a Lampshade in a Whorehouse – My Life in Comedy, co-written with Richard Buskin, was published in 2006. In it, Diller told of an unhappy childhood with undemonstrative, emotionally withholding parents, and an equally unhappy first marriage. From these beginnings, her performing style—telling rapid-fire jokes—emerged, which she compared to music: "One joke followed the other with a flow and a rhythm. ... Everything had a natural feel to it."[15]

In the early 1990s, Diller had many short, humorous pieces published in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine.

Diller had studied the piano for many years and was an accomplished player but decided against a career in music after hearing her teachers and mentors play with much more skill than she thought that she would be able to achieve. She still played in her private life, however, and owned a custom-made harpsichord.[39]

Between 1971 and 1981, Diller appeared as a piano soloist with symphony orchestras across the country under the stage name Dame Illya Dillya. Her performances were spiced with humor, but she took the music seriously. A review of one of her concerts in The San Francisco Examiner called her "a fine concert pianist with a firm touch."[40]

Diller, a self-taught artist, began painting in 1963. She worked in acrylics, watercolors, and oils throughout the 1970s and filled her Brentwood, California home with her portraits and still lifes. In 2003, at age 86, she held the first of several "art parties," selling her artwork along with her stage clothes and costume jewelry.[41][42]