The year was 1954. Phyllis Ada Diller was a typical 37-year-old housewife, raising five kids in suburban San Francisco. Her friends all told her she was funny and asked her to tell jokes at PTA meetings. Then, her husband lost his job and she decided to turn her talent into a career. She hired a drama coach and made her stand-up comedy debut at the Purple Onion in San Francisco’s North Beach neighborhood. She went on to play 87 straight weeks at the club — and subsequently made regular TV appearances with Bob Hope, Ed Sullivan, and Liberace.
Diller’s stage persona was that of a housewife from hell. Her one-liners skewered the gender norms of the day with self-deprecating humor, outlandish costumes, and a signature laugh. When she wasn’t making fun of herself, a fictitious husband named “Fang” was often the butt of her jokes. “All my new hair pieces are driving Fang to drink. Every time I flip my wig, he pops his cork.”
When Diller died in 2012 at the age of 95, she left behind a
“gag file,” a steel cabinet with 48 file drawers filled with more than 50,000 jokes. It’s now part of the Smithsonian Institution’s collection.
“I became a stand-up comedienne because I had a sit-down husband.”
