Phyllis Diller was bigger than life, all the way to the end.

To call Phyllis Diller a latecomer to the comedy world is an understatement.  Diller spent the first 37 years of her life as a mother of five kids and housewife in Lima, Ohio.  She discovered her talent for being funny at PTA meetings while spending her time as a publicist, newspaper columnist, and radio writer.  At the urging of her then-husband Sherwood Diller, she took to comedy and made her stage debut at San Francisco’s Purple Onion in 1955.  She would go on to develop a stage persona based on her braying laugh, crazy clothes, big hair, and a cavalcade of fictional characters created for her stage show.  Trailblazing comedienne Phyllis Diller is dead at age 95, having stayed active to the very end.

“The only tragedy is that Phyllis Diller was the last from an era that insisted a woman had to look funny in order to be funny,” said Joan Rivers, one of the comedy figures directly inspired by Diller.

This has been a very rough year for comedy figures.  From Nora Ephron’s death a month ago to Gallagher’s ongoing health problems, it’s not a good time to be a noteworthy figure in the comedy world.  Still, living to age 95 and having the role of Peter Griffin’s mother on Family Guy as recently as 2007 is a pretty impressive resume.

Tags: phyllis diller dead at 95, phyllis diller, comedians, hollywood, celebrities, obituaries, phyllis diller dead, phyllis diller obiutary, joan rivers, female comedians, trailblazers, pioneers, lima, ohio, sherwood diller, san fransicso, purple onion, stand-up comedy

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