Phyllis Diller
Phyllis Ada Driver
July 17, 1917
Lima, Ohio, U.S.
August 20, 2012 (aged 95)
Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Stand-up, film, television, books
1952–2012
American culture, self-deprecation, everyday life, religion, current events
Robert P. Hastings (c. 1985–1996; his death)[1]
6
Diller was one of the first female comics to become a household name in the U.S., credited as an influence by Joan Rivers, Roseanne Barr, and Ellen DeGeneres, among others.[2] She had a large gay following.[3] She was also one of the first celebrities to openly champion plastic surgery, for which she was recognized by the cosmetic surgery industry.[4]
Diller contributed to more than 40 films, beginning with 1961's Splendor in the Grass. She appeared in many television series, featuring in numerous cameos as well as her own short-lived sitcom and variety show. Some of her credits include Night Gallery, The Muppet Show, The Love Boat, Cybill, and Boston Legal, plus 11 seasons of The Bold and the Beautiful. Her voice-acting roles included the monster's wife in Mad Monster Party, the Queen in A Bug's Life, Granny Neutron in The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius, and Thelma Griffin in Family Guy.
Early life[edit]
Diller was born Phyllis Ada Driver in Lima, Ohio on July 17, 1917, the only child of Perry Marcus Driver,[5] an insurance agent, and Frances Ada (née Romshe).[5][6][7] She had German and Irish ancestry (the surname "Driver" had been changed from "Treiber" several generations earlier).[5] She was raised Methodist but was a lifelong atheist, even in childhood.[8][9][10] Her father and mother were older than most when she was born (55 and 36, respectively) and Diller attended several funerals while growing up. The exposure to death at a young age led her to an early appreciation for life and she later realized that her comedy was a form of therapy.[11]
She attended Lima's Central High School and discovered she had the gift of humor early on. Although she wasn't a class clown, calling herself a "quiet and dedicated" student, she enjoyed making people laugh once school was out.[12] Diller studied piano for three[13] years at the Sherwood Music Conservatory of Columbia College Chicago, but decided against a career in music after hearing her teachers and mentors play with much more skill than she thought that she would be able to achieve, and transferred to Bluffton College where she studied literature, history, psychology, and philosophy.
Career[edit]
1930s–1950s[edit]
In 1939, she met Sherwood Diller, the brother of a classmate at Bluffton,[13] and they eloped,[14] marrying Sherwood A. Diller in Bluffton, Ohio on 4 November 1939.[5] Diller did not finish school and was primarily a homemaker, taking care of their five children (a sixth child died in infancy).[5][15][16]
During World War II, Sherwood worked at the Willow Run B-24 Bomber Plant, in Ypsilanti Charter Township, Michigan.[14]
In 1945, Sherwood Diller was transferred to Naval Air Station Alameda[17] Alameda, California,[18] where he was an inspector.[19]
Diller began working as the women's editor at a small newspaper,[20] an advertising copywriter for an Oakland department store.[18]
In 1952, Diller began working in broadcasting at KROW radio in Oakland, California. In November of that year, she filmed several 15-minute episodes of Phyllis Dillis, the Homely Friendmaker—dressed in a housecoat to offer absurd "advice" to homemakers.[21] The 15-minute series was a Bay Area Radio-Television production, directed for television by ABC's Jim Baker.[22][21] Diller also worked as a copywriter, later, director of promotion and marketing,[14] at KSFO radio in San Francisco[23] and a vocalist for a music-review TV show called Pop Club, hosted by Don Sherwood.[24][25]
Personal life[edit]
Diller credited much of her success to a motivational book, The Magic of Believing[56] (1948) by Claude M. Bristol, which gave her confidence at the start of her career.[57][35][58] She was married and divorced twice. She had six children from her marriage with her first husband Sherwood Anderson Diller, and she outlived two of her grown children.[10]
Diller's second husband was actor Warde Donovan, whom she married on October 7, 1965. She filed for divorce three months later, having found him to be bisexual and alcoholic, though they reconciled on the day before the divorce was to become final. She divorced him in 1975.[10] Robert P. Hastings was her partner from 1985 until his death on May 23, 1996.[6] In a 2000 interview, she called him the love of her life, saying that he admired her for being an independent person.[59] The character of "Fang," the husband whom she frequently mentioned in her act, sprang from an appropriation of elements of the comic strip The Lockhorns.[60]
Diller portrayed herself as a horrible cook in her stand-up routines, but she was reputed to be an excellent cook. She licensed her recipe for chili and sold it nationally as "Phyllis Diller Chili".[61]
Diller candidly discussed her plastic surgery, a series of procedures first undertaken when she was 55, and she wrote that she had undergone 15 procedures.[10] Her numerous surgeries were the subject of a 20/20 segment on February 12, 1993.
Illness and death[edit]
By 1997, as she passed her 80th birthday, Diller began to suffer from various ailments. In 1999, her heart stopped during a hospital stay. She was fitted with a pacemaker but had a bad drug reaction and became paralyzed. Through physical therapy, she was able to walk again.[59] Approaching age 90, Diller retired from stand-up comedy appearances.
On July 11, 2007, USA Today reported that she had fractured her back and had to cancel an appearance on The Tonight Show, during which she had planned to celebrate her 90th birthday. On May 15, 2012, Diller conducted her final interview accepting the "Lifetime Achievement" award from her hometown of Lima, Ohio, as part of a panel of comedians.[62]
Diller died at home in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles on August 20, 2012, at age 95, from heart failure. She was cremated, and her ashes were scattered at sea.[63][64][65]