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Speaker 1: This Day in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio, Hello,

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Speaker 1: and Welcome to This Day in History Class, a show

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Speaker 1: that raises the curtain on everyday history and lets it

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Speaker 1: take about I'm Gabe Bluesier and today we're looking back

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Speaker 1: at Phillis Diller's big break into stand up comedy and

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Speaker 1: how it paved the way for generations of women to

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Speaker 1: follow her leave. The day was March seventh, nineteen fifty five.

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Speaker 1: American comedian Phyllis Diller made her professional debut at the

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Speaker 1: Purple Onion Nightclub in San Francisco as a thirty seven

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Speaker 1: year old mother of five. She was a late comer

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Speaker 1: to the comedy scene and an outlier among the mostly

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Speaker 1: male comics who dominated the field, but Diller quickly earned

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Speaker 1: her place on the stage thanks to an endless supply

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Speaker 1: of witty w Oneliner's perfect comic timing, and, of course,

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Speaker 1: her iconic cackling laugh. Phyllis Diller was born Phyllis Ada

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Speaker 1: Driver in Lima, Ohio, on July seventeenth, nineteen seventeen. She

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Speaker 1: was an only child and took an interest in music

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Speaker 1: and singing at an early age. She also discovered she

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Speaker 1: had a knack for making people laugh, a talent she

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Speaker 1: would come to rely on during her awkward teenage years.

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Speaker 1: As she later explained, quote, when I realized I looked

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Speaker 1: like olive oil and wanted to look like Gene Harlowe,

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Speaker 1: I knew something had to be done. From twelve on,

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Speaker 1: the only way to handle the terror of social situations

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Speaker 1: was comedy. Break the ice, make everybody laugh. I did

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Speaker 1: it to make people feel more relaxed, including myself. After

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Speaker 1: graduating from high school, Diller studied music and voice at

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Speaker 1: a conservatory in Chicago. She eventually transferred to Bluffton College

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Speaker 1: in Bluffton, Ohio, where she met her future husband, Sherwood Diller.

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Speaker 1: The couple eloped in nineteen thirty nine, and Diller dropped

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Speaker 1: out of college not long after. The couple settled in

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Speaker 1: Bluffton and started a family, but during World War Two,

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Speaker 1: they moved to Michigan, where Sherwood worked at a B

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Speaker 1: twenty four bomber plant. Then in nineteen forty five, he

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Speaker 1: was transferred to Alameda, California, just across the Bay from

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Speaker 1: San Francisco. Over the next decade, the couple struggled to

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Speaker 1: make ends meet, with Sherwood working any job he could find.

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Speaker 1: While Diller stayed home to raise their five children. Things

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Speaker 1: got so tough that Diller eventually had to take an

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Speaker 1: outside job as well. First she worked as the women's

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Speaker 1: editor at a small local newspaper. Then she worked as

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Speaker 1: an advertising copywriter for a department store, and later for

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Speaker 1: an Oakland radio station. From there, she became the director

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Speaker 1: of promotion and marketing at a top radio station in

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Speaker 1: San Francis. Meanwhile, Diller continued making people laugh in her

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Speaker 1: spare time, telling jokes at parties about the ups and

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Speaker 1: downs of motherhood, marriage, and housework. In nineteen fifty two,

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Speaker 1: she started displaying her talent more widely by appearing in

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Speaker 1: local TV segments called Phyllis Dillis the Homely Friendmaker. Dressed

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Speaker 1: in a housecoat, she would dispense tongue in cheek advice

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Speaker 1: to homemakers and early prelude to the costumed alter ego

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Speaker 1: she would adopt for her stand up routines. Around that time,

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Speaker 1: Sherwood Diller began encouraging his wife to pursue a career

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Speaker 1: as a professional comic. It took two years of prodding

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Speaker 1: for her to finally take the leap, and when she did,

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Speaker 1: her first unpaid gig wasn't what you'd call a success.

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Speaker 1: After calling the Red Cross and offering her services as

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Speaker 1: an entertainer, she was sent to a veterans hospital at

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Speaker 1: the Presidio in San Francisco. I pushed a piano into

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Speaker 1: a room that had I had four guys in it,

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Speaker 1: she later recounted. I played, sang and told jokes while

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Speaker 1: they yelled leave us alone, were already in pain. Spurred

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Speaker 1: on by her husband, Diller pushed forward and spent the

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Speaker 1: next year refining her act. She worked with a drama

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Speaker 1: coach to develop skits and perfect her delivery, and every

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Speaker 1: night she would practice in front of a full length

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Speaker 1: mirror with a tape recorder in hand. Finally, in the

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Speaker 1: spring of nineteen fifty five, Phyllis Diller felt ready to

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Speaker 1: make her big debut. She quit her job at the

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Speaker 1: radio station and requested an audition at the Purple Onion,

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Speaker 1: a legendary basement comedy club in San Francisco. Her timing

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Speaker 1: couldn't have been better, as the club's resident comedian was

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Speaker 1: away in New York filming a TV show, and they

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Speaker 1: needed someone to fill his spot right away. Diller was

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Speaker 1: hired as his substitute and on the evening of March seventh,

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Speaker 1: nineteen fifty five, she took to the stage for the

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Speaker 1: very first time. For her early PF performances, Diller relied

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Speaker 1: heavily on her musical background. She played piano, clowned around

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Speaker 1: with a zither, and sang parody song, including a spoof

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Speaker 1: of earth A Kit's song Monotonous, which Diller renamed ridiculous.

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Speaker 1: She told jokes as well, but the humor was topical,

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Speaker 1: pulled from newspaper items rather than from her own lived experience.

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Speaker 1: The audience at the Purple Onion applauded politely, but Diller

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Speaker 1: could tell that her act wasn't strong enough. Luckily, she

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Speaker 1: had two weeks until the club's regular comedian returned, so

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Speaker 1: each night she took the stage again, testing new material

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Speaker 1: to see what garnered the biggest laughs. She progressed so

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Speaker 1: quickly that by the time the Onion's regular comic came back,

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Speaker 1: the club manager had already invited her back for more shows.

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Speaker 1: She proved a fast favorite with audiences and soon moved

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Speaker 1: up to top billing. All told, Phyllis Diller played the

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Speaker 1: Purple Onion for eighty seven consecutive weeks. Her act and

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Speaker 1: her appearance changed dramatically during that record long run. The

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Speaker 1: comedian later reflected on that formative period, saying that when

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Speaker 1: she first started, she quote looked like the woman next door.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I was just anybody, and on stage that

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Speaker 1: just doesn't work. My opening night, I wore a cotton dress.

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Speaker 1: I had brown hair pull lease. So little by little

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Speaker 1: I learned comics must find a persona one immediately understood

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Speaker 1: by the audience. The quicker the better. With that in mind,

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Speaker 1: Diller started wearing outrageous costume elements the challenged society's conceptions

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Speaker 1: of female beauty. This included wrist length gloves, cloth covered

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Speaker 1: ankle boots, and a bleached blonde fright wig with hair

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Speaker 1: sticking up in all directions. Her other fashion mainstay was

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Speaker 1: a bejeweled cigarette holder with a wooden cigarette, because the

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Speaker 1: real Philis Dillar never smoked. The final touch on Diller's

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Speaker 1: zany raucous person za was her signature laugh. She employed

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Speaker 1: it to underscore her punchlines and to elicit a bigger

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Speaker 1: response from the audience, a technique she called priming the pump.

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Speaker 1: Take a listen, and I traveled downtown yesterday and got

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Speaker 1: into a terrible mess. A cop asked me to pull

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Speaker 1: over to the curb. How did I know which one?

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Speaker 1: He meant there two? I was lucky though there were

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Speaker 1: only twelve cars involved. Phyllis Diller wasn't the first woman comedian,

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Speaker 1: but she was the first to stand shoulder to shoulder

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Speaker 1: with her male counterparts at popular venues. Known for her

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Speaker 1: carefully structured jokes and rapid fire delivery, Diller prided herself

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Speaker 1: on her ability to rattle off as many as a

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Speaker 1: dozen punchlines per minute, and that finally honed skill was

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Speaker 1: a major reason for her acceptance into the boy's club

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Speaker 1: comedy scene. The real secret to her appeal, though, was

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Speaker 1: her willingness to satirize her own domestic experiences as a

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Speaker 1: wife and mother faith middle age. Her routine often included

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Speaker 1: self deprecating humor about her ineptitude as a mother, her

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Speaker 1: fictitious husband fang, and her own physical appearance, which she

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Speaker 1: purposely exaggerated for theatrical effect. It was a perspective that

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Speaker 1: hadn't been seen before on a nightclub stage, but one

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Speaker 1: that felt perfectly in step with the burgeoning feminist movement

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Speaker 1: of the nineteen fifties and sixties. As a result, her

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Speaker 1: act struck a chord with many modern American women, a

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Speaker 1: segment of the audience that wasn't usually catered to by

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Speaker 1: male comics. Diller later remarked on the instant rapport she

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Speaker 1: had with female fans, saying, quote, when I open my mouth,

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Speaker 1: they know I'm one of them, and from that second,

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Speaker 1: we both can feel that two way radar going between us.

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Speaker 1: We girls are compatriots with ten thousand things in common.

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Speaker 1: I'm just the one on stage talking for us. By

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Speaker 1: breaking into the male dominated field of stand up comedy

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Speaker 1: and thriving, Diller blazed a trail for future women comics

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Speaker 1: to follow. In the decades to come, she would be

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Speaker 1: cited as an influence by comedians as diverse as Roseanne Barr,

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Speaker 1: Lily Tomlin, Whoopee Goldberg, and Margaret Choe. As for her

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Speaker 1: own career. After her landmark run at the Purple Onion,

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Speaker 1: Diller took her act on the road, performing in clubs

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Speaker 1: across the country. She also climbed the showbiz ladder, landing

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Speaker 1: her first TV appearance as a contestant on Groucho Marx's

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Speaker 1: popular quiz show You Bet Your Life in nineteen fifty eight.

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Speaker 1: That same year, she also made the first of many

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Speaker 1: appearances on The Tonight Show with Jack Parr, a performance

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Speaker 1: that quickly made her a favored guest on numerous other

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Speaker 1: talk shows and variety series. In the early nineteen sixties,

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Speaker 1: Phyllis Diller released her first comedy album, Wet Toe in

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Speaker 1: a Hot Socket, and throughout the decade she would find

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Speaker 1: even more platforms for her humor, including TV specials, feature films,

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Speaker 1: and a widely hailed series of USO tours with her

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Speaker 1: mentor Bob Hope. Diller's eccentric on stage persona became so

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Speaker 1: popular that she even made the leap to animation. In

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Speaker 1: nineteen sixty seven, she lent her voice and her likeness

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Speaker 1: to rankin Bass's stop motion film Mad Monster Part, where

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Speaker 1: she played the role of the bride of Frankenstein's Monster,

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Speaker 1: and in nineteen seventy two, she voiced herself in an

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Speaker 1: episode of the new Scooby Doo Movies. Here's a clip.

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Speaker 1: I can't wait to talk to the ghost of good

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Speaker 1: old Wilburt. There was a man Lucas. He was the

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Speaker 1: one who gave me all my diamonds. I used to

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Speaker 1: call him Rocky For the next several decades, Diller continued

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Speaker 1: to perform stand up for sold out crowds at nightclubs

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Speaker 1: and concert halls, and while most of her early routines

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Speaker 1: focused on making fun of herself, she later took aim

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Speaker 1: at other targets, including societal issues like the housing crisis

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Speaker 1: and racism. One joke she penned in nineteen sixty eight

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Speaker 1: even took on both of those problems simultaneously. It's really wild,

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Speaker 1: she wrote. All over the country people can't sell their

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Speaker 1: homes because of tight mortgage money, and in Chicago they

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Speaker 1: won't sell their homes because of color. Now you know

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Speaker 1: where the word bigot comes from. It's a contraction of

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Speaker 1: two words, big idiot. Younger generations may not be familiar

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Speaker 1: with Diller's work from her heyday in the nineteen sixties

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Speaker 1: and seventies, but they may have heard her distinctive voice

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Speaker 1: and signature cackle and some early two thousands animation. She

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Speaker 1: voiced Granny Neutron in the Adventures of Jimmy Neutron Boy

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Speaker 1: Genius from two thousand and two to two thousand and four,

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Speaker 1: and she voiced Peter Griffin's mother in early episodes of

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Speaker 1: Family Guy. Diller retired from live performances in two thousand

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Speaker 1: and two, but she continued to do voice over work

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Speaker 1: and act occasionally until her death in twenty twelve at

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Speaker 1: the end age of ninety five. Gone but not forgotten,

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Speaker 1: Dillar's barrier breaking legacy ensured that her influence and her

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Speaker 1: laugh will echo through the ages. I'm Gabeluesia and hopefully

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Speaker 1: you now know a little more about history today than

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Speaker 1: you did yesterday. Consider keeping up with the show on Twitter, Facebook,

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Speaker 1: and Instagram, where you can find us at TDI HC Show.

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Speaker 1: You can also rate and review the show on Apple Podcast,

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Speaker 1: or you can get in touch directly by writing to

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Speaker 1: This Day at iHeartMedia dot com. Thanks to Chandler Mays

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Speaker 1: for producing the show, and thank you for listening. I'll

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Speaker 1: see you back here again tomorrow for another day in

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Speaker 1: History Class