Phyllis Diller: Boy Did I Get a Wrong Number
Today is the birthday of the late, lamented Phyllis Diller (1917-2012). Having started in nightclubs, radio and television in the 1950s, she was still making public appearances in the months before she died at the age of 95. in a career that lasted 60 years.
Diller was primarily a stand-up comedian, and her act was hilarious. In essence, her routine that she was a nightmarish housewife, a caricature taken to downright clown-like, grotesque levels. As a kid I associated her with Witchie-poo from H.R. Puffenstuff. She was that scary. But she was also a hilarious joke-writer, and her act, from soup to nuts was impeccable. She would have been perfect for vaudeville.
Not really an actress, she did appear in a few films. She played Texas Guinan in Splendor in the Grass. She plays “Camille Salamander” in one of my favorite movies The Fat Spy, which I wrote about here on the occasion of her death. And she is in several Bob Hope movies — providing the comic relief (ha!).
In fact, Diller provides the one saving grace in the otherwise tedious (and implausible) Bob Hope comedy Boy, Did I get a Wrong Number (1966). Anyone who remembers the film at all knows the scene I’m talking about, when Diller, playing Hope’s housemaid, saves the day — on motorcycle! That image of Diller, in a pink housecoat and black sunglasses, her frizzy hair flying behind her in the wind, as she comes to the rescue on her hog (slightly sped up) is indelible, surreal — the stuff dreams are made of. Here it is!
To find out more about the history of show business, consult No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous, available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and wherever nutty books are sold.
And check out my new book: Chain of Fools: Silent Comedy and Its Legacies from Nickelodeons to Youtube, just released by Bear Manor Media, also available from amazon.com etc etc etc
July 19, 2013 at 3:49 pm
She trotted her standup around the Package Stock circuit in the late 1970s, and I ran followspot from the balcony of the Ivoryton Playhouse for her one-week booking there (1978??). She was a delight, and changed it up a bit every night except for her staging: so tight to the mic for the entire set (an hour? there was an opener, I think) that I could lock off the Supertrouper and read a magazine. She tipped me $100 when she closed — a personal CHECK, which it broke my heart to cash (but I HAD to because I was 19 and my SALARY was $75 a week… )
July 19, 2013 at 7:55 pm
so cool!