Phyllis Diller was born in 1917 in Lima, Ohio and died in Los Angeles in 2012 at the age of 95.
She was best known as a stand-up comedienne, but she was also an actress, and voice artist. Her stage persona was eccentric with her image of wild hair and outlandish clothes.
Phyllis Diller excelled at stand-up comedy, as you can see from the one-liners our LifeDaily team has chosen.
Diller actually started in the entertainment business relatively late in life, after having spent the first dozen years after her first marriage being a housewife, mother, and advertising copywriter. She began her show business career working at KROW radio in Oakland, California in 1952.
Although she eventually worked as a comedienne, Diller had studied the piano for many years. She decided against a career in music because she didn’t think she was good enough.
Apart from comedy, she also did quite a lot of voice acting, featuring in such movies as A Bug’s Life, The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius, and Robot Chicken.
However, it’s Phyllis Diller’s stand-up comedy that most people remember. These one-liners will remind you:
- Housework can’t kill you, but why take a chance?
- Always be nice to your children because they are the ones who will choose your rest home.
- We spend the first twelve months of our children’s lives teaching them to walk and talk and the next twelve telling them to sit down and shut up.
- You know you’re old when someone compliments you on your alligator shoes, and you’re barefoot.
- A bachelor is a guy who never made the same mistake once.
- Whatever you may look like, marry a man your own age – as your beauty fades, so will his eyesight.
- I admit, I have a tremendous sex drive. My boyfriend lives forty miles away.
- Burt Reynolds once asked me out. I was in his room.
- Never go to bed mad. Stay up and fight.
- You know you’re old if your walker has an airbag.
- I asked the waiter, ‘Is this milk fresh?’ He said, ‘Lady, three hours ago it was grass.’
- You know you’re old if they have discontinued your blood type.
- I want my children to have all the things I couldn’t afford. Then I want to move in with them.
- Old age is when the liver spots show through your gloves.
- Tranquilizers work only if you follow the advice on the bottle – keep away from children.
The essence of Phyllis Diller is in these one-liners.
She was married twice and had six children; this may have provided the basis for some of her material.
Did you ever see or hear Phyllis Diller in action? How do you rate her against other comediens?
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