Author Topic: Comedian Phyllis Diller dies at the age of 95  (Read 6419 times)

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Offline R4 TrumPence

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Comedian Phyllis Diller dies at the age of 95
« on: August 20, 2012, 07:29:58 pm »
LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- Actress and comedian Phyllis Diller has died at the age of 95 on Monday, the family tells Eyewitness News.

The family said she died peacefully in her sleep.

DEVELOPING: We will add more details to this report as they become available.

http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/entertainment&id=8780251


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Offline R4 TrumPence

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Re: Comedian Phyllis Diller dies at the age of 95
« Reply #1 on: August 20, 2012, 07:39:14 pm »

Phyllis Diller in Los Angeles in 2011.


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Offline alicewonders

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Re: Comedian Phyllis Diller dies at the age of 95
« Reply #2 on: August 20, 2012, 07:48:47 pm »
She was a funny lady - one of the best!    RIP
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Offline mountaineer

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Re: Comedian Phyllis Diller dies at the age of 95
« Reply #3 on: August 20, 2012, 08:00:35 pm »
She certainly was the pride of Webster Groves, I learned during my years in St. Louis. Very funny, groundbreaking entertainer.
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Re: Comedian Phyllis Diller dies at the age of 95
« Reply #4 on: August 20, 2012, 08:19:00 pm »
God Bless

Offline TheMom

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Re: Comedian Phyllis Diller dies at the age of 95
« Reply #5 on: August 20, 2012, 11:14:52 pm »
RIP.  She was a very funny lady.
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Offline BLC

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Re: Comedian Phyllis Diller dies at the age of 95
« Reply #7 on: August 20, 2012, 11:51:43 pm »
She was a funny lady - one of the best!    RIP
Yep, I always liked her. 

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Re: Comedian Phyllis Diller dies at the age of 95
« Reply #8 on: August 20, 2012, 11:59:26 pm »
Thanks for all the laughs Phyllis....I am sure you are putting on one hell of a show in heaven...
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Re: Comedian Phyllis Diller dies at the age of 95
« Reply #9 on: August 21, 2012, 12:42:30 am »
95 years... one heck of a run for any woman.

Imagine, a funny woman who can keep it clean. Yet Phyllis not only succeeded in that, she thrived. I consider her a great inspiration-- I only wish a lot of modern stand-up comics could learn the same. Of course, her appearance and age lent herself well to self-deprecation... and she worked it for every inch. Today, every comedienne wants to be a sex kitten.

Phyllis was still working up until a couple years ago. How long will a lot of these sex-kitten comediennes last?

Rest in peace, Phyllis.
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Offline R4 TrumPence

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Re: Comedian Phyllis Diller dies at the age of 95
« Reply #10 on: August 21, 2012, 01:30:38 am »
I loved the clips on Fox earlier. She was a hoot!


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Offline Atomic Cow

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Re: Comedian Phyllis Diller dies at the age of 95
« Reply #11 on: August 21, 2012, 01:38:26 am »
Maybe it's just my younger age, but I never cared for her.  However, she had a career like few others.

In an episode of JAG, "Ghosts of Christmas Past," which is set on the U.S.S. Ticonderoga during the Vietnam War,  Karri Turner plays Phyllis Diller.  She said it was one of her favorite episodes since she got to act crazy and play someone so famous and popular.  I wish I could find a video of it because it is a riot.
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Offline Rapunzel

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Re: Comedian Phyllis Diller dies at the age of 95
« Reply #12 on: August 21, 2012, 02:24:37 am »
Maybe it's just my younger age, but I never cared for her.  However, she had a career like few others.

In an episode of JAG, "Ghosts of Christmas Past," which is set on the U.S.S. Ticonderoga during the Vietnam War,  Karri Turner plays Phyllis Diller.  She said it was one of her favorite episodes since she got to act crazy and play someone so famous and popular.  I wish I could find a video of it because it is a riot.

She could always be counted on to join Bob Hope in entertaining the troops...... and I remember her being a frequent guest on Johnny Carson.
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Offline DCPatriot

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Re: Comedian Phyllis Diller dies at the age of 95
« Reply #13 on: August 21, 2012, 02:28:10 am »
Maybe it's just my younger age, but I never cared for her.  However, she had a career like few others.


Nor did I. 

I only remember her being a comedic guest on Dean Martin Show, or Bob Hope, Joey Bishop.

She did have a unique laugh though.

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Offline mystery-ak

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Re: Comedian Phyllis Diller dies at the age of 95
« Reply #14 on: August 21, 2012, 02:32:38 am »
She could always be counted on to join Bob Hope in entertaining the troops...... and I remember her being a frequent guest on Johnny Carson.

She was funny then..I remember those shows well.....
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Offline Rapunzel

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Re: Comedian Phyllis Diller dies at the age of 95
« Reply #15 on: August 21, 2012, 02:35:09 am »
She was funny then..I remember those shows well.....

There was no one like Johnny Carson.
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Re: Comedian Phyllis Diller dies at the age of 95
« Reply #16 on: August 21, 2012, 03:08:42 am »
She had some great times on the Carson show, funny lady, she had her own shtick and she worked it well. RIP to a good memory from my youth and to a fine lady.
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Offline Rapunzel

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Re: Comedian Phyllis Diller dies at the age of 95
« Reply #17 on: August 21, 2012, 03:29:22 am »
She had some great times on the Carson show, funny lady, she had her own shtick and she worked it well. RIP to a good memory from my youth and to a fine lady.

She was never ashamed of where she came from to get where she was.......
�The time is now near at hand which must probably determine, whether Americans are to be, Freemen, or Slaves.� G Washington July 2, 1776

Offline Rapunzel

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Re: Comedian Phyllis Diller dies at the age of 95
« Reply #18 on: August 21, 2012, 03:30:57 am »
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/moviesnow/la-et-st-critics-notebook-phyllis-20120821,0,5005741.story

Critic's Notebook: Phyllis Diller was completely and inarguably herself

Behind Phyllis Diller's wacky look was self-assured woman who clearly owned the joint. And with that attitude, she embodied women's liberation.





By Mary McNamara, Los Angeles Times Television Critic

August 20, 2012, 7:35 p.m.

I love Phyllis Diller, and I refuse to change the tense of that emotion with her passing because the love is most certainly still alive.

I love Phyllis Diller because she was hilarious, because she did stand-up before it seemed women were legally allowed to do stand-up and because well into old age she could still rock a mini-dress.

But most of all, I love Phyllis Diller because she was the first woman I ever saw who clearly and joyfully and consistently simply did not give a damn.

PHOTOS: Celebrities react to Phyllis Diller's death

About what men thought, about what women thought, about what anyone thought.

It didn't matter if she was standing her ground with Bob Hope, mixing it up with Merv, holding down a Hollywood Square or joining Orson Welles, Don Rickles and Sammy Davis Jr. at Dean Martin's roasts of people like George Burns, Betty White and Ronald Reagan (whom she nailed by zinging Nancy, in retrospect perhaps the single bravest comedic moment in history).

She inevitably looked like a Barbie doll left out in the backyard during a rainstorm followed by a drought, sounded like she had consumed a pack of Camels and six highballs for breakfast, and she owned the joint.

PHOTOS: Phyllis Diller | 1917-2012

In the late '60s and early '70s, there were a lot of women trying to own the joint, women who talked a good game about not giving a damn. Many of these women were wise and witty, outraged, outrageous and very important. But when you came right down to it, Gloria Steinem always looked slim and fabulous, and even Bella Abzug had her hats.

Phyllis Diller, on the other hand, didn't try to pretend that looks didn't matter while secretly straightening her hair. She didn't try to look her best and hope her talent would carry her through. She took the whole Cosmo Girl package, turned it inside out and covered it in spray paint and glitter glue.

The light-socket hair and kabuki makeup, the sequins and the metallic gloves, even the cigarette holder were all just props. What made Diller a walking, talking embodiment of liberation lived south of the wig hat, that molten voice and utterly unfeminine laugh, the wide-open lipsticked mouth, the rolling eyes, the loose-limbed gait all screamed of a woman utterly comfortable with who she was.

PHOTOS: Notable deaths of 2012: Classic television

Never mind that much of her humor hit middle octave notes of "I'm so fat, I'm so ugly, my husband doesn't want to have sex with me." The way she delivered the lines made it clear that although she was making a joke about herself, she was not making a joke of herself. In fact, the joke was the joke — it was funny to see her fretting about her looks, or her cooking, or her marriage, because it was so clear that she did not care, and neither, by the way, should you.

Her humor may have been self-deprecating, but it was never self-hating. Unlike other comedians who mine the negative — Joan Rivers, Woody Allen, even Sarah Silverman — Phyllis Diller clearly loved being Phyllis Diller. Rivers, who followed the trail Diller blazed and widened it considerably, had a similar sense of comedy; both women regularly exploited their appearances for laughs and both were plain-spoken about their extensive plastic surgery.

The differences were there too. Diller was wacky, while Rivers aimed for glamour.

Yet where Rivers played as neurotic and insecure, Diller projected a woman utterly self-assured. She was loud, brash, absurd and impossible to ignore, four things that were revolutionary for a woman at the time. For a woman of any time. The fact that she didn't appear to take herself very seriously made what she was doing seem even more serious — like Lucille Ball, she was entirely her own creation. But while Ball established herself as part of a couple, albeit the alpha member, Diller did it on her own — "Fang," her longtime "husband," was a piece of fiction; she didn't use her real life as fodder for her act. Phyllis Diller was a self-made woman, created by her own self from scratch.

It's easy enough to draw a line from Diller to a nursery full of modern comedians, and not all of them female. Tina Fey's Liz Lemon owes so much to Diller it's a wonder that "30 Rock" didn't have her on the show (as sister to Elaine Stritch's Colleen, how was this opportunity missed?) and Louis C.K. has a decided Dillerian streak of knowing and cheerful self-abasement.

But it wasn't just the comedy that made Phyllis Diller an icon. It was her ability to achieve grace through outrageousness. She was Cruella de Vil crossed with Auntie Mame, she was Fanny Brice as rendered by Andy Warhol. Year after year after year, she walked out onto 100 stages, in front of a million cameras, looking like pop culture's crazy great aunt, refusing to age, refusing to change, the personal as political in a feathered mini-dress and pink fright wig.

Year after year after year, a woman completely and inarguably herself. I think of Phyllis Diller, of what she did and how long she did it and the only truly appropriate reaction is a heartfelt and very appreciative "damn."

mary.mcnamara@latimes.com

« Last Edit: August 21, 2012, 03:33:26 am by Rapunzel »
�The time is now near at hand which must probably determine, whether Americans are to be, Freemen, or Slaves.� G Washington July 2, 1776

Offline Rapunzel

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Re: Comedian Phyllis Diller dies at the age of 95
« Reply #19 on: August 21, 2012, 03:41:09 am »
For people who are too young to really remember her in her hey-day, when you consider when when she was born, she was really an amazing woman.......

Early life

Diller was born Phyllis Ada Driver on July 17, 1917 in Lima, Ohio, the daughter of Frances Ada (née Romshe; January 12, 1881 – January 26, 1949) and Perry Marcus Driver (June 13, 1862 – August 12, 1948), an insurance agent.[2][3] She had German and Irish ancestry (the surname "Driver" had been changed from "Treiber" several generations earlier).[4] Her mother was about twenty years younger than her father.[5] Diller was raised a Methodist.[6] Diller attended Lima's Central High School, then studied piano for three years at the Sherwood Music Conservatory of Columbia College Chicago before transferring to Bluffton College, where she met fellow "Lima-ite" and classmate Hugh Downs.[7]

Diller was a housewife, mother, and advertising copywriter. During World War II, Diller lived in Ypsilanti, Michigan, while her husband worked at the historic Willow Run Bomber Plant. In the mid-1950s, she made appearances on The Jack Paar Show and was a contestant on Groucho Marx's quiz show You Bet Your Life.[8]

Although she made her career in comedy, Diller had studied the piano for many years. She decided against a career in music after hearing her teachers and mentors play with much more ability than she thought that she would be able to achieve. She still played in her private life, however, and owned a custom-made harpsichord.
Career

Diller began her career working at KROW radio in Oakland, California, in 1952. In November of that year, she began filming a television show titled Phyllis Dillis, the Homely Friendmaker.[9] The 15-minute series was a BART (Bay Area Radio-Television) production, directed for television by ABC's Jim Baker. In the mid 1950s, while residing in the East Bay city of Alameda, California, Diller was employed at KSFO radio in San Francisco. Bill Anderson wrote and produced a television show at KGO-TV called "Pop Club," which was hosted by Don Sherwood. "Pop Club" was a live half-hour show that combined playing records with "experts" rating them, and dancing girls encouraging audience participation. The show was an early advertisement for Belfast Root Beer, the show's main sponsor, known today as Mug Root Beer. Anderson invited her onto his show on April 23, 1955, as a vocalist.[10]

Diller first appeared as a stand-up at The Purple Onion on March 7, 1955, and remained there for 87 straight weeks. Diller appeared on "Del Courtney's Showcase" on KPIX television on November 3, 1956. After moving to Webster Groves, in St Louis in 1961, Diller honed her act in St. Louis clubs such as Gaslight Square's Crystal Palace. Mid-1960s - St Louis was always home to her. Getting her first start on the Charlotte Peters Show in St Louis, where many got their start. Diller's fame grew when she co-starred with Bob Hope in 23 television specials and three films in the 1960s: Boy, Did I Get a Wrong Number!, Eight on the Lam, and The Private Navy of Sgt. O'Farrell. Boy, Did I Get a Wrong Number! performed well at the box office and Diller accompanied Hope to Vietnam in 1966 with his USO troupe during the height of the Vietnam War.[11]

Throughout the 1960s, she appeared regularly as a special guest on many television programs. For example, she appeared as one of the 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 just three guesses. Also, 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!"
Phylis Diller hamming it up for the camera

Though her main claim to fame was her stand-up comedy act, Diller also appeared in other films besides the three mentioned above, including a cameo appearance as Texas Guinan, the wisecracking nightclub hostess in the 1961 film Splendor in the Grass. She appeared in more than a dozen, usually low-budget, movies, including voice work as The Monster's Mate in the Rankin/Bass animated film Mad Monster Party (1967), co-starring Boris Karloff.

Diller also starred in two short-lived TV series: the half-hour sitcom The Pruitts of Southampton (later retitled The Phyllis Diller Show) on ABC from 1966 to 1967, and the variety show The Beautiful Phyllis Diller Show on NBC in 1968. More recent television appearances for Diller included at least three episodes between 1999 and 2003[12] on the long-running family drama 7th Heaven, in one of which she got drunk while cooking dinner for the household, and a 2002 episode of The Drew Carey Show,[12] as Mimi Bobek's grandmother. She posed for Playboy, but the photos were never run in the magazine.[13] Her voice can be heard in several animated TV shows, including The New Scooby-Doo Movies (1972)[12] as herself, Hey Arnold! as Arnold's grandpa's sister Mitzi, The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius (2002)[12] as Jimmy's grandmother, and on Family Guy in 2006[12] as Peter Griffin's mother, Thelma Griffin.
Diller in 1973

Beginning December 26, 1969,[14] she had a three-month run[15] on Broadway in Hello, Dolly! (opposite Richard Deacon)[16] 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.[17][18]

In 1993, she was inducted into the St. Louis Walk of Fame.

In 1998, Diller provided the vocals for the Queen in Disney/Pixar's animated movie A Bug's Life. In 2005, Diller was featured as one of many contemporary comics in a documentary film, 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.

In 2000, she was awarded the Women in Film Lucy Award in recognition of her excellence and innovation in her creative works that have enhanced the perception of women through the medium of television[19]

In 2003, after hearing of the donation of Archie Bunker's chair to the Smithsonian Institution, Diller opened her doors to the National Museum of American History and offered up some of her most iconic costume pieces and her gag file, a steel cabinet with 48 file-drawers containing more than 50,000 jokes and gags typewritten on index cards by Diller during her career. From August 12 to October 28, 2011, the Albert H. Small Documents Gallery at the National Museum of American History displayed Diller's gag file and some of the objects that became synonymous with her comedic persona-an unkempt wig, wrist-length gloves, cloth-covered ankle boots and a bejeweled cigarette holder.[20]

On January 24, 2007, she appeared on The Tonight Show and performed stand-up, before chatting with Jay Leno.

Diller had a cameo appearance in an episode of ABC's Boston Legal on April 10, 2007. She appeared as herself, confronting William Shatner's character Denny Crane, alleging to have had a torrid love affair with him. They seemed to have enjoyed a romantic moment in a foxhole during World War II.
Phyllis Diller arrives at Korat Air Base, Thailand for the Bob Hope Christmas show in 1966.

Diller was a member of the Society of Singers, which supports singers in need. In June 2001 at the request of fellow Society member and producer Scott Sherman, she appeared at Kansas City and Philadelphia Pride events. The mayor of Philadelphia officially proclaimed June 8, 2001, as "Phyllis Diller Day." She was presented an official proclamation onstage to a standing ovation. In 2006, Mayor of San Francisco Gavin Newsom proclaimed February 5, 2006, "Phyllis Diller Day in San Francisco", which she accepted by phone.

She also recorded at least five comedy LP records, one of which was Born To Sing, released as Columbia CS 9523.

Although known for decades for smoking from long cigarette holders in her comedy act, Diller was a lifelong nonsmoker, and the cigarette holders were stage props that she had specially constructed.[citation needed]

On August 10, 2011, she appeared in an episode of her friend Roseanne Barr's reality show, Roseanne's Nuts.
Personal life

Diller, a longtime resident of the Brentwood area of Los Angeles, California, credited much of her success to Bob Hope, in large part because he included her in many of his films and his Vietnam USO shows. She was an accomplished pianist as well as a painter.
Family

Diller was married and divorced twice. She also dated Earl "Madman" Muntz, a pioneer in oddball TV and radio ads.

She had six[21] children from her marriage to her first husband, Sherwood Anderson Diller. Her first child was Peter (b. 1940;[22] d. 1998 of cancer).[23] Her second child Sally, born in 1944,[21] has suffered from schizophrenia most of her life.[24] Her third child, a son, lived for only two weeks in an incubator.[25] A daughter, Suzanne, was born in 1946,[26] followed by another daughter Stephanie (b. 1948[27] d. 2002 of a stroke)[28] and a son Perry (b. 1950).[29]

Diller's second husband was actor Warde Donovan (born Warde Tatum), whom she married on 7 October 1965 and divorced the following year; they apparently re-married and divorced for a second time in 1974.[30]

She was the partner of Robert P. Hastings from 1985 until his death in 1996.[2]

Her youngest son Perry, now 62, oversaw her affairs until her death.[citation needed]

Diller was not the mother of actress Susan Lucci, nor TV personality Dorothy Lucey, despite urban legends to that effect, frequently passed through viral emails under trivia headings such as "Did You Know...?"[31]

The husband frequently mentioned in her act, "Fang", was entirely fictional, and not based on any of her actual husbands.
�The time is now near at hand which must probably determine, whether Americans are to be, Freemen, or Slaves.� G Washington July 2, 1776