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

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