Pint-sized Phyllis Ada Driver, born in 1917 in Lima, Ohio, made a career out of big hair and an even bigger personality. It could be like fingernails on chalkboard to some, but it set her apart from the crowd. Her affect has been described as "a scrawny, witchy-faced, flyaway haired, outlandishly costumed, cigarette-holding, magpie-cackling version of Auntie Mame.
Younger readers would probably recognize Diller’s trademark rasp as the voice of Peter Griffin’s termagant mother, Thelma, in the animated series Family Guy. (Although a cigarette holder was a standard Diller prop, she never actually smoked. Bet you didn’t know she played the harpsichord, too.) Those of you with long memories might recall that Diller made her film debut in 1961’s Splendor in the Grass, under the direction of none less than Elia Kazan (On the Waterfront), although she’s more likely to be thought of as cracking wise opposite Bob Hope in three movies and umpteen TV specials.
(Typical Hope-Diller exchange: "How would you like your eggs?" "Scrambled, like your head.")
An alumnus of Bluffon College, Diller’s stage name was a relic of her first marriage, to Sherwood Anderson Diller, which ended in 1965. They had six children, most of whom she outlived. She was subsequently married twice to actor Warde Donovan. Small wonder that she characterized "Fang," the fictional husband in her standup act, as permanent and her real-life husbands as temporary. Due to the hardscrabble nature of her first husband’s career, Diller supplemented the family income by applying her native wit to ad copywriting and radio marketing. (No fewer than 50,000 Diller-penned jokes are on file in the National Museum of American History.) She joked about her foibles when hanging around the Laundromat, generating favorable word of mouth that made her a regular entertainer at PTA meetings.
When the Diller family moved to the Bay Area, Phyllis took a job at an Oakland radio station and landed a local, 15-minute TV series, Phyllis Diller, the Homely Friendmaker. She eventually became marketing director for San Francisco’s leading radio outlet, KSFO. At the dewy young age of 37, prodded by her husband, she landed a fortuitous engagement at San Francisco’s Purple Onion comedy club. What was to have been a brief stint turned into a run of almost 22 months. From there, it was a steady march up the road to comedy clubs, network TV and Hollywood.
"Diller’s flamboyant style, signature laugh and sharp barbs about her husband and home life set her apart, captivating the staid audiences of the Eisenhower era and inspiring a new generation of funny ladies," declared her Los Angeles Times obituary. She later moonlighted as a concert pianist, under the guise of Dame Illya Dillya, although her playing is said to have been anything but farcical.
Always ahead of her time, Diller was a precursor of the American craze for plastic surgery, having the first of 15 procedures done at age 55. Naturally, this became a staple of her act. Diller’s looks ("the Elizabeth Taylor of The Twilight Zone), her wigs, her marriages, and her habits all were fair game, resulting in zingers like, "Homework can’t kill you but why take the chance?" Eulogized the New York Times, "Her success proved that female comedians could be as aggressive or unconventional as their male counterparts, and leave an audience just as devastated."
Diller’s willfully outrageous persona (sort of a butch Liberace), over-the-top affectations and frequent appearances opposite actors like Richard Deacon and Paul Lynde inevitably made her a gay icon and she was featured in sundry Pride events. As though to compensate for lost time, Diller didn’t take it easy, breezing past nominal retirement age. Even after a 1999 heart attack, she still gritted out dozens of TV episodes, including an arc on soap opera The Bold and the Beautiful. Her "retirement" was honored more in the breach than the observance, although her last Vegas standup gig, in 2002, is preserved in the film Goodnight, We Love You.
Having given up the comedy stage, she made what seems to have been her final Strip appearance in 2003, as a tribute to Wayne Newton at the long-gone Stardust. Talk-show visits, including one on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, petered out after a 2007 spinal fracture, but documentary filmmakers continued to seek Diller as an interview subject right to the end. She died at her home in Los Angeles on last August 20. According to manager Milt Suchin, Diller passed away in her sleep and "with a smile on her face." Perhaps she was thinking of her cosmetic surgery-inspired wisecrack, "When I die, God Himself won’t know me."
