Comedian Phyllis Diller: the ‘Zany Housewife’ Was a Smart Cookie
PHYLLIS DILLER, the comedian, was born in Lima, Ohio in 1918, an only child named Phyllis Driver. At the insistence of her parents, she went to Bluffton College, in Bluffton, Ohio, to get a degree in music-teaching.
Then she met Sherwood “Sherry” Diller and knew right away she wanted to marry him. He was handsome and a hard worker, and he recognized her talents, and admired them.
But they had financial problems for years, as Phyllis tried her best to raise five children. She wasn’t teaching music; she was a harried housewife. Once in a while she’d see a good comedian perform on TV, and for a few minutes the stress would roll off her as she laughed. Somewhere deep inside her was the subversive thought: ‘I could do that.’
When the kids were old enough not to need her all the time, and the family badly needed money, she went out and got a job. She wrote a column for a newspaper, then became an ad writer for a radio station. When she went to a laundromat, she’d tell jokes and funny stories to the other ladies in the laundromat. She always got a good response.
She was restless to go on stage as a comedian but she knew it would be hard, and she was scared. It bothered her that even an average singer would get a hand at the end of a song, but not an average comedian. People would hear a song ending and think to themselves ‘Applaud, stupid.’ But they didn’t give a comedian the same respect.
Also, there were very few female comedians in those days, which made it seem harder to succeed, and made her feel odd for being hungry to do so.
But she got hold of a self-help book called “The Magic of Believing” by Claude M. Bristol. That little book gave her courage, and she used to buy it for other people who were trying to break into show business.
Finally, in 1955, she took the plunge. She told anyone who would listen that she’d decided to be a professional stand-up comedian. In March of 1955, she wangled a two-week job filling in for the regular comedian at The Purple Onion nightclub, at 140 Columbus Avenue, in the North Beach section of San Francisco.
She went on stage pretty confident — and bombed. Material which had gone over great to an audience of bored women at the laundromat or to female friends at the PTA went over like a lead balloon at The Purple Onion. At the laundromat and the PTA were women not expecting to be amused. At the Purple Onion, most of the crowd was male, and everyone was expecting to laugh, to be amused by a professional. The bar was higher, and the things the audience found funny were different.
But she got steadily better, cutting some of her weaker impressions and song takeoffs, tightening the act, sharpening the humor. She realized some jokes could get two laughs, instead of one. Instead of saying “My Playtex Living Bra died of starvation” she’d say, “My Playtex Living Bra DIED.” (Long Pause, milking the applause) “Of starvation.”) She always got a second laugh there.
She insisted to herself that in five years she’d be headlining — and not at The Purple Onion but across the street at the far more prestigious nightclub, the hungry i. It took her just three years to get there.
One key to popularity was to make herself more visually striking. She started wearing colorful, often tacky dresses, carried long, jeweled cigarette holders, because her character was addicted to cigarettes, and made her hair wildly unkempt. She also developed a throaty cackle and looked on stage like a wacky fool trying to look regal. A Queen for a day.
Actually, Phyllis was very bright, didn’t smoke, and the routines were meticulously worked out, practiced and honed. The cackle gave her a trademark that was better than a spoken catchphrase because it didn’t matter if it was covered up by applause.
In her private life, she was an excellent cook but the character she played was awful. (“The vet said ’cause of my cooking, our cat only has two lives left.”) And: “My cooking’s so bad the kids thought Thanksgiving was to commemorate Pearl Harbor.” She also said, with a certain pride, “I can make a TV dinner taste like radio.”
Her first gig on television was as a contestant on “You Bet Your Life,” the game show hosted by Groucho Marx. Jack Paar liked her and in time booked her over 30 times on “The Tonight Show.” She put out an LP “Phyllis Diller Laughs” and then another, “Are You Ready For Phyllis Diller?”
She tapped into a big market for comedy clubs — middle-aged women, anxious about their aging faces and bodies; not sure they were raising their children correctly, not sure they were still valued by their husbands; and squabbling with their in-laws.
Diller told jokes mocking her own looks. (“I got a peekaboo blouse. My husband peeked — and booed.”) She also confessed that Peeping Toms called, begging her to pull down the shades, and that when she entered a beauty contest, people sent “Get Well” cards.
Of course, her driving was bad (“I got two tickets on my written test.”)
Many of her jokes or little asides were exploiting the anxious idea that marriage is not such a good deal for men. (“A bachelor is a guy who never made the same mistake once.”)
She joked about having a flock of kids (“Our playpen looked like a bus stop for midgets”) and not being able to keep house. (“I’m 18 years behind in my ironing.”)
The extended family was no help: “Of all my relations, I like my sexual ones most.” She noticed that bringing in sex sideways was often better than straight ahead.
And she kept dozens of mother-in-law jokes handy. She called her mother-in-law “the old bat” and confessed the woman was so large she put on her dresses with a compass, and had her own zip code. (“And when she wears a white dress, we show movies on her.”)
She had jokes about how close we all are to the end of the road. “Be nice to your children. They’re the ones who are gonna choose your rest home.” She retired from stand-up in 2002 at the age of 86, but at 89 published her memoir “Like a Lampshade in a Whorehouse.” She painted, and tried to keep up.
She was polite to her fans but not inclined to answer nosy questions. When a fan asked something that was none of his business, Phyllis might laugh and say, “You poor darling.” That usually shut them up.
Even in her 90’s, she was still making wisecracks. She told people “My back goes out more than I do” and “They’ve discontinued my blood type.” And she said, “I still take the pill — ’cause I don’t want any more grandchildren.”