View full sizeNick Ut, AP filePhyllis Diller, shown in 1999, died Monday at the age of 95.
A lifetime of laughs.
What a legacy.
Phyllis Diller was the Queen of Comedy when there were only kings. When she took to the stage in the late 1950′s, female standup comedians were rare. She broke ground for Joan Rivers, Ellen, Rosie, Whoopi, Roseanne, Wanda Sykes and Kathy Griffin.
Phyllis Diller died on Monday. She was 95.
We grew up laughing over the “housewife from hell” who became the “Queen of the one-liners.” Every time she showed up on TV, it looked like she was dressed for Halloween in a fright wig that exploded in frizz. She wore a stiff, straight dress that gave no indication she had a figure underneath. Her legs were so skinny she looked like a toothpick in a grocery bag.
That’s the line kids used to tease me. Phyllis Diller took the sting out of it. To a girl with thick glasses, hairy arms, skinny legs, knobby knees and a flat chest, Phyllis Diller was a hero.
She made you feel good about yourself because she looked worse. She used the spotlight to show us how to laugh at ourselves and to laugh louder than anyone else. Once you can laugh at yourself, it doesn’t matter who else laughs at you.
Who could forget that cackle?
The girl from Lima, Ohio, helped women everywhere lighten up. She took the bar that so many of us set too high and she set it as low as she could. Then she danced around it, picked it up and sent it flying.
Because of her, women didn’t have to be beautiful:
“I once wore a peek-a-boo blouse. People would peek, then they would boo. . . . Burt Reynolds once asked me out. I was in his room. . . . You know what keeps me humble? Mirrors!”
Women didn’t have to have the perfect home:
“Housework won’t kill you, but then again, why take the chance? . . . If your house is really a mess and a stranger comes to the door, greet them with, ‘Who could have done this? We have no enemies.’. . . I’ve actually learned to enjoy housework. I hire a cleaning woman and watch her do it.”
Women didn’t have to be perfect wives:
“We had a civil ceremony – his mother couldn’t come. . . . Never go to bed mad. Stay up and fight. . . . I do dinner in three phases; serve the food, clear the table, bury the dead.”
Women didn’t have to be perfect parents:
“I want my children to have all the things I couldn’t afford. Then I want to move in with them. . . . Always be nice to your children because they are the ones who will choose your rest home. . . . Most children threaten at times to run away from home. This is the only thing that keeps some parents going.”
Women didn’t have to age gracefully:
“Old age is when the liver spots show through your gloves. . . . Whatever you may look like, marry a man your own age–as your beauty fades, so will his eyesight. . . . I want to look 65 again, like I did when I was 30.”
My mom always swore that Phyllis Diller looked pretty underneath those wigs and all that makeup. It didn’t matter. Only the laughter did.
Phyllis once said, “A smile is a curve that sets everything straight.” She set us straight with hers.
Her agent said she died in her sleep with a smile on her face
There’s an old saying, “Dying is easy, comedy is hard.” Phyllis Diller made them both look easy.
Join Regina Brett at 3 p.m. Saturdays on WKSU FM/89.7 for “The Regina Brett Show.” This week: How to be funny with Mike Polk, Jr., Dave Schwensen and Ray Lesser from Funny Times.
Source:
http://halloween.firstorfast.com/2012/08/22/phyllis-diller-queen-of-comedy-broke-barriers-regina-brett/