Phyllis Diller

It’s kind of no wonder that her first film role was as playing Texas Guinan. Just as there was no one like Guinan, there was no one like Phyllis Diller. Oh, Roseanne Barr has certainly tried off and on over the years, and Joan Rivers wrote jokes for her before breaking out herself, but there was a panache to Diller that the others lacked. What’s more, when she got her start, there was literally no one like her. She was a wacky housewife who joked about her own appearance and failures, and all the other comedians she knew were . . . men. All of them. Phyllis Diller wasn’t the only comedienne at the time, but she might as well have been.

She was the only child of older, emotionally distant parents. She eloped with Sherwood Diller and had six children, one of whom died in infancy. By her own account, the marriage was not a happy one. And at PTA meetings and while working jobs to help support the family, she was funny. Eventually, her husband nagged her onto the stage. She had a comedy show on KROW radio in Oakland, then a television show as “the homely homemaker.” And then, she appeared at the Purple Onion club in San Francisco.

One of her earliest fans was Guy Johnson, Maya Angelou’s son; the two were working at the Purple Onion at the same time, and Angelou speaks fondly of her in Singin’ and Swingin’ and Gettin’ Merry Like Christmas. Bob Hope was, however, a slightly more influential figure. He took her under his wing and brought her to considerable higher heights, though given a two-week stint at the Purple Onion stretched to closer to two years, it seems clear that she was on her way no matter what.

Diller was never really a success in movies or TV except as herself, but her first love was standup, so it’s fine. She did guest spots on the variety shows of the ‘70s, not to mention the assorted celebrity panel shows. She was famous for being Phyllis Diller, but in the sense that she built herself a persona and did things under that persona, not in the sense that you were just expected to know who she was. She was loud and brash and funny, and that’s why you knew her.

Behind the scenes, she was a talented pianist, even owning a custom-made harpsichord. Despite joking about being a terrible cook, she apparently wasn’t bad. She kept going until quite late in life; even after her health declined. People even younger than I might remember her voice from Reading Rainbow or A Bug’s Life. And, of course, she’s the guest star of an episode of The Muppet Show. And, for RiffTrax fans, you can watch her give actually not terrible advice on how to have a money-making garage sale, though the quality of that short is so low it’s not something I would have used as an article image.