Phyllis Ada (Driver) Diller (1917 - 2012)

Born 17 Jul 1917 in Lima, Allen, Ohio, United States

Ancestors

Wife of Ward D. (Tatum) Donovan — married 7 Oct 1965 (to 1975) in Los Angeles County, California, USA

Died 20 Aug 2012 at age 95 in Los Angeles, California, United States

Problems/Questions Profile manager: Glenn Davis [send private message]

Biography

Phyllis (Driver) Diller is Notable.

Phyllis Diller was an American comedienne know for her sassy, screeching, rapid-fire stand-up comedy. She helped open the door for generations of funny women.^[1]

Phyllis Ada Driver was born on July 17, 1917, in Lima, Ohio, the daughter of Perry Driver, an insurance executive, and the former Frances Ada Romshe. As a child she was interested in classical music, writing, and theater.^[1]

After briefly attending the Sherwood Conservatory of Music in Chicago, she entered Bluffton College in Bluffton, Ohio, near Lima, with thoughts of becoming a music teacher. She met Sherwood Anderson Diller in her senior year in college, and they were married in 1939.^[1]

The Dillers moved to California, where he was an inspector at a Navy air station and later held various other jobs — none, by Ms. Diller’s account, for very long. They struggled financially, even with Ms. Diller working. She wrote a shopping column for a newspaper in San Leandro and advertising copy for a department store in Oakland, then moved on to writing and promotion jobs at radio stations in Oakland and San Francisco.^[1]

Inspired by other women she met who were poor and unhappy, Phyllis started her comedy career at age 37, after entertaining those same women in the laundromat and and at parties. She became famous for telling jokes that mocked her odd looks, her aversion to housekeeping and a husband she called Fang, was far from the first woman to do stand-up comedy. But she was one of the most influential. There were precious few women before her, if any, who could dispense one-liners with such machine-gun precision or overpower an audience with such an outrageous personality.^[1]

Phyllis divorced Sherwood Diller in 1965. His mother and sister sued Phyllis after the divorce for defamation of character to try to prevent her from using them as inspiration in her acts. They eventually settled out of court after Phyllis' insistence that they material was all fictional.^[1]

She soon married Warde Donovan, an actor. That marriage, too, ended in divorce.

Although Phyllis used writers to help create her act, she estimated that she wrote 75 percent of the jokes herself. Her approach to humor was methodical. “My material was geared towards everyone of all ages and from different backgrounds, and I wanted to hit them right in the middle,” she explained in her autobiography, “Like a Lampshade in a Whorehouse: My Life in Comedy” (2005), written with Richard Buskin. “I didn’t want giggles — I could get those with my looks — I wanted boffs, and I wanted people to get the joke at the same moment and laugh together. That way I could leave everything to my timing.” She liked jokes that piled on the laughs in rapid succession.^[1]

Phyllis was one of the first celebrities not just to have plastic surgery (she had a great figure but was worried about aging) but also to acknowledge and even publicize that fact. By the 1990s she had had more than a dozen operations, including two nose jobs, three face-lifts, a chemical peel, a breast reduction, cheek implants, an eyeliner tattoo and bonded teeth.^[1]

Although Ms. Diller was a frequent guest on other people’s variety shows, her own network television ventures — “The Pruitts of Southampton” (1966-67), a sitcom, and “The Beautiful Phyllis Diller Show” (1968), a variety hour — were both short-lived. Late in life she had a recurring role on the soap opera “The Bold and the Beautiful” and did voice-over work on “Family Guy” and other cartoon shows.^[1]

Phyllis first love was music. Between 1971 and 1981 she appeared as a piano soloist with around 100 symphony orchestras across the country under the pseudonym Dame Illya Dillya. Although her performances were spiced with humor, she took the music seriously.^[1]

She also appeared on Broadway, stepping into the lead role in “Hello, Dolly!” for three months in late 1969 and early 1970.^[1]

Phyllis wrote a number of books, including “Phyllis Diller’s Housekeeping Hints,” “The Joys of Aging and How to Avoid Them” and her autobiography.^[1]

After her divorce from Wade, Phyllis never remarried. She was the companion of Robert Hastings, a lawyer, from the mid-1980s until his death in 1996.^[1]

Phyllis died on Monday, August 20, 2012 at her home in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles. She was 95. Phyllis was cremated, with her ashes scattered in the Pacific Ocean.^[2]

Sources

1. ↑ ^{1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 1.12} The New York Times, Aug 20, 2012, "Phyllis Diller, Sassy Comedian, Dies at 95" by RICHARD SEVERO and PETER KEEPNEWS http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/21/arts/television/phyllis-diller-sassy-comedian-dies-at-95.html
2. ↑ Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/95668054/phyllis-diller: accessed 18 December 2023), memorial page for Phyllis Diller (17 Jul 1917–20 Aug 2012), Find a Grave Memorial ID 95668054; Cremated, Ashes scattered at sea, Pacific Ocean; Maintained by Find a Grave.

• Wikipedia contributors, 'Phyllis Diller', Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 27 November 2023, 01:25 UTC, <https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Phyllis_Diller&oldid=1187033565> [accessed 18 December 2023]
• IMDB profile for Phyllis Diller
• "United States Census, 1940," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:KWD6-C6N : 15 March 2018), Phyllis D Diller in household of Maude E Diller, Bluffton Village, Richland Township, Allen, Ohio, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) 2-59, sheet 20B, line 70, family 492, Sixteenth Census of the United States, 1940, NARA digital publication T627. Records of the Bureau of the Census, 1790 - 2007, RG 29. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 2012, roll 3021.
• "California Marriage Index, 1960-1985," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:V66L-G4V : 27 November 2014), Warde D Tatum and Phyllis Diller, 07 Oct 1965; from "California, Marriage Index, 1960-1985," database and images, Ancestry (http://www.ancestry.com : 2007); citing Los Angeles, California, Center of Health Statistics, California Department of Health Services, Sacramento.
• "United States, GenealogyBank Obituaries, 1980-2014," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QKT3-8DDT : accessed 18 December 2018), Phyllis Diller in entry for John J Diller, Fort Wayne, Indiana, United States, 12 Jun 1998; from "Recent Newspaper Obituaries (1977 - Today)," database, GenealogyBank.com (http://www.genealogybank.com : 2014); citing Journal Gazette, The, born-digital text.
• "United States, GenealogyBank Obituaries, 1980-2014," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QVT9-7Y6R : accessed 18 December 2018), Phyllis Ada Driver Diller, Little Rock, Arkansas, United States, 21 Aug 2012; from "Recent Newspaper Obituaries (1977 - Today)," database, GenealogyBank.com (http://www.genealogybank.com : 2014); citing Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, born-digital text.