Phyllis Ada Diller Biography

A housewife, mother, and advertising copywriter, she is widely credited as being the first woman to successfully pursue a career in stand-up comedy, although at different stages in her career she has also been an actress, author and concert pianist.

Diller attended Chicago’s Music Conservatory and Northwestern University, where she trained as a concert pianist. However, her elopement with future husband, Sherwood Diller, in 1939, seemed to precipitate an early end to her music career.

After a succession of jobs in advertising and writing for radio stations, and having raised five children, she made her stand-up debut at San Francisco’s Purple Onion Club, in 1955.

She released her first comedy album in 1959 and, while she only made one starring feature film, 1968’s woeful 'Did You Hear the One About the Travelling Saleslady?', she has appeared in sixteen movie roles, often in a supporting role to long time fan, Bob Hope, and made a plethora of small-screen appearances.

Diller’s comedy persona, one of outrageous wigs, make-up and a pantomime cackle, has become famous throughout the United States, and many commentators have emphasised her role in preparing the way for a younger generation of female comics, such as Roseanne Barr and Whoopi Goldberg.

In the late stages of her career, she concentrated on reprising her role as concert pianist, playing with more than one hundred different symphony orchestras across America. She also released a range of cookery books, beauty products and jewellery, and is an ambassador for the charity, Childhelp USA, having received the distinguished Minuteman Award from the US Treasury.

Following a cameo appearance in the critically-lauded animated film, 'A Bug’s Life' (1998), Diller announced her retirement from the stage at the age of 84, in May 2002. She currently lives in Los Angeles.

In 2005, she wrote her autobiography, 'Like a Lampshade in a Whorehouse'. A DVD version of the project, complete with early live clips of Diller, and interviews with her showbiz colleagues was released the following year.