Phyllis the Fraud

Phyllis Diller is a fraud.

How many times can it be said?

Well, twice by United Press International in stories by two different columnists two years apart.

The first article was written soon after her completely overhauled The Pruitts of Southampton was cancelled. I liked the original show. Mind you, I was nine when it debuted in 1966, but it was fun seeing Phyllis prance around in her ridiculous outfits, cackling away. Unfortunately, she didn’t use any of the material from her nightclub/TV talk show stand-ups. All that was left were broad and somewhat ridiculous plots. By January, the whole thing was started over from scratch and I tuned out.

I dispute columnist Vernon Scott’s characterisation that Diller worked in “fleabag clubs.” She started in San Francisco at the Purple Onion and the hungry i, and worked the Blue Angel in New York, all before 1958. They were hardly “fleabag.” This story appeared starting around May 2, 1967.

Phyllis Diller Not Really What Most People See
By VERNON SCOTT
UPI Hollywood Correspondent
HOLLYWOOD (UPI) – Phyllis Diller is a fraud.
She's been passing herself off as a shapeless scarecrow with a maniacal laugh and a frightwig hairdo to become the top comedienne in the movie and television business. And you can throw in nightclubs, too.
Phyllis heightens her fraudulent image with outrageous clothes. She doesn’t appear to be something the cat dragged in for good reason that no respectable cat would get near one of her costumes.
She is more London after the blitz, or Johnstown when the waters raged through the place.
Her outfits make Twiggy seem a burlesque queen. Phyllis would have the world believe her measurements are 18-18-18.
But beneath the fuss and feathers, the phony patina of nothingness is a warm-blooded pretty, well-rounded female who keeps her curves a secret.
THE OTHER DAY she climbed out of a horrible red gown and hat on the set of her new movie, “Did You Hear the One About the Traveling Saleslady?” and into a snug fitting white blouse and capris.
The transformation was eye-popping. It was as if Don Knotts donned a bathing suit and came out a Rock Hudson.
“Ah haaa, haaa, haaa,” Phyllis roared. “Didn't recognize me did you, baby? This is the real me in all my glory. Kind of grabs you doesn't it?”
She slapped her leg and bellowed her laugh again.
“Can't say that I like to have too many people see me in this condition. It could ruin me.
“You know what my real measurements are? Well, I'm 38-30-38, and that ain't bad considering what I've been through.”
More recently Phyllis was through a television series, "The Pruitts of Southampton." The ratings didn't even measure up to Phyllis' measurements and was cancelled.
“I don’t miss the series at all,” Phyllis said. “It was wrong from the start and I knew it from the first day shooting the pilot. But you learn from failure and it really gives you more confidence in yourself.”
Television wasn’t her goal, anyhow. Since working in flea-bag clubs years ago, Phyllis has always dreamed of starring in movies.
She's co-starred with Bob Hope in a couple of comedies (most recently “Eight on the Lam”), but always in a supporting role. Now she is top billed and thrilled out of her mind.
“This is it, baby,” she cried. “This is what I've been shooting for all these years. And I'm doing another one with Hope after this. We're becoming a sort of road company Taylor and Burton.”

“Movie star” Phyllis? Um, not quite. In 1968, she was headlining on TV again in a comedy/variety show which died quickly (Rip Taylor was in the cast; apparently Phyllis herself wasn’t campy enough). This next United Press International story comes from pretty close to the time she was starring in “Hello, Dolly” on Broadway. It appeared in papers around November 2, 1969.

Comedy Star Really Attractive, Good Housewife
By PATRICIA E. DAVIS
NEW YORK (UPI) – Phyllis Diller is a fraud.
Offstage, comedy’s most famous raucous, incompetent housewife is a soft-spoken, attractive middle-aged woman who is, she admits, “rather elegant.”
And, to add to the cracking Diller myth, her husband, singer Warde Donovan, brags she is a “marvelous” housekeeper and a “superb” cook.
“I have convinced the public through the tube that I’m a monster,” Miss Diller said in an interview. “They don’t believe I’m elegant until they see me in person. Then their first reaction is, ‘My God, she’s pretty.”
And as for housekeeping — “I’m persnickety — precise — about the way my house is run,” Miss Diller said, adding that becasue her house is a 22-room mansion she has a staff of eight to help run it.
Donovan, whom Miss Diller insists is not the Fang of her comedy routines — “Fang is fictional” — claimed that his wife is a “superb gourmet cook.”
“I’m great with eggs,” Donovan said, “So I cook breakfast and serve it to Phyllis in bed. But after that, it’s her show.
“She loves to cook so she crowds everybody out of the kitchen. They become choppers and slaves,” he added.
“But Warde’s a great chopper,” Miss Diller interrupted. “We stand there for hours cooking together.”

Miss Diller and Donovan were married four years ago, the second marriage for each. The Donovan household includes seven children, three living at home, as well as one harpsichord, seven pianos, three pump organs, three sets of drums, a xylophone, three saxophones and a melodion. “We’re rather musical,” Miss Diller, who once studied to be a serious singer, noted wryly.
Miss Diller had swept into the interview in a white Maribou bathrobe and bare feet. “Excuse me while I get put together — my Americana Hotel late show doesn’t let me get to bed til 3 a.m. I’m still asleep,” she apologized, disappearing to change outfits.
Returning in a pink quilted robe with matching shoes, she flashed an enormous cocktail ring and noted with a straight face that the main purpose of the compartmentalized jewel was as “a receptacle for storing my front tooth caps in during meals. If I put ’em on the table the waiters sweep them away,” she explained, demonstrating the storage process.
The ring is one of the few remaining pieces in her jewelry collection, practically wiped out by two burglaries. The most recent, in Cleveland, netted the burglars $100,000 worth of gems, “pieces it took years to collect; one-of-a-kind things we can’t replace,” she said woefully.
About the only off-stage trace of the on-stage Phyllis Diller is her raucous “aw-ha ha-haaaa” laugh, which she insisted is “natural; it comes with the package.”
But the laugh is carefully nurtured — its an important part of her act.
“Great comedy,” she explained, “is a combination of material, delivery and attitude. You must have all three.”
Just as the laugh is important, so are the blond “fright wigs,” teased to look as if the wearer had her finger in an electric socket, and the wardrobe crafted by “Omar of Omaha.” Omar (actually a woman named Gloria Johnson) has come up with such gems as a turkey feather dress for Thanksgiving performances and a “spring outfit” covered with paper flowers.
“I couldn’t get near the impact with conventional clothes,” Miss Diller said. “I’ve tried it at benefits where I was dressed to the teeth and, my dear, I laid such bombs you couldn’t believe it. Hot dang! ”

Phyllis may have spent a lot of time reading cue cards with Bob Hope on television, but she kept working almost until the end. She appeared on the soap The Bold and the Beautiful only months before her death in August 2012. She was 95.