Phyllis Diller dies at 95

Phyllis Diller, the cackling comedian with electric-shock hair who built an influential career in film and nightclubs, died Aug. 20 at her home in Brentwood, Calif.

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Aug. 27, 2003

Diller reminiscences at “The Bob Hope Memorial Tribute” at the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences headquarters in Los Angeles. Diller’s comedic cadence — a series of staccato one-liners — was strategically crafted, and followed in the groove of Hope, her mentor. She starred in several films with him, including 1966’s “Boy, Did I Get a Wrong Number!” and 1968’s “The Private Navy of Sgt. O’Farrell.”

Michael Blake / AP

Sept. 3, 1963

Diller portrays a Keystone Kop as she in New York. She built an influential career in film and nightclubs with stand-up routines that mocked irascible husbands, domestic drudgery and her extensive plastic surgery.

/ AP

May 20, 1966

Diller, in a multi-patterned coat, inspects the “staff” in a scene from the ABC sitcom “The Pruitts of Southampton” (which was quickly renamed “The Phyllis Diller Show”). From 1966 to 1967, she starred as Phyllis Pruitt, mistress of an old-line Long Island family that has no money.

/ AP

Jan. 6, 1967

Diller gives a performance during Bob Hope’s show for American troops at Can Ranh Bay, South Vietnam. “Comedy is aggressive,” Ms. Diller once explained. “That’s why men used to hate women comics. That’s why there weren’t any. . . . Women are not supposed to be bright, and there’s no such thing as a dumb comic.”

Horst Faas / AP

Nov. 22, 1967

Diller, with her friend Tom, prepare for Thanksgiving Day at the Empire Room at Waldorf Astoria in New York.

/ AP

April 17, 1967

Phyllis Diller protesting the protesters outside the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York. The “pickets” were students at a school for hairdressers and beauticians, professing to be fearful that Diller’s hairstyles may set a trend toward unkempt hair with little need for their services.

/ AP

June 6, 1967

Diller poses on the jazzed up car that she drove in a race.

David F. Smith / AP

July 16, 1968

Diller hefts a huge saw to cut her birthday cake at a backstage party given to her by more than 100 cast and crew members of the 1968 NBC sitcom “The Beautiful Phyllis Diller Show.” Diller’s stage appearance was highly calculated. Operating under the belief that attractive women could not be taken seriously in comedy, she wore shapeless, short dresses, allowing her to poke fun at her flat chest (she claimed to be the only woman in America with two backs) and her toothpick “bird legs.”

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Sept. 1, 1976

Diller, center, shows jazz singer and rock star Dusty Springfield how to handle a wicket on the front lawn of the Bel-Air hotel in Beverly Hills, Calif. A crowd of more than 200 turned out to watch.

/ AP

Jan. 24, 1980

Diller meets actress Lillian Gish backstage at Les Mouches in New York following Diller's performance at the Manhattan cabaret. In addition to her stand-up, Diller continued to play the piano and harpsichord throughout her life and appeared in more than 100 concerts with symphony orchestras, combining humor with serious music.

Ray Stubblebine / AP

July 13, 1982

Diller watches over the paperwork after applying for Medicare in advance of her 65th birthday in Los Angeles.

Lennox McLendon / AP

Jan. 29, 1987

Diller is “carried away” by, from left, Billy Hufsey, Meatloaf and Luis Cardenas at a party in Los Angeles. Diller made her first music video appearance in Cardenas’s “Hungry for your Love.”

/ AP

July 4, 1987

Diller reacts to her birthday cake, lit with sparklers, during a party in Miami aboard the cruise ship S.S. Norway.

Ray Fairall / AP

Sept. 3, 1988

Diller and Bob Hope pause during a break in taping of ”Stand by for HNN (The Hope (Funny) News Network).” Diller portrayed a 131-year-old woman, the oldest person in the world.

Bob Galbraith / AP

Aug. 29, 1994

Diller attends a taping of NBC’s second annual “Comedy Hall of Fame” in Beverly Hills, Calif.

Reed Saxon / AP

May 18, 1995

Diller and Johnny Grant, honorary mayor of Hollywood, hold up replica Hollywood signs in Los Angeles. Diller lived for more than 40 years in a lavish 22-room home in Los Angeles, furnished with an elaborate kitchen, musical instruments and a painting studio. Her paintings were shown in major art galleries and often sold for thousands of dollars.

Nick UT / AP

March 4, 2004

Diller and actor Jack Wagner perform at the Alzheimer's Association’s 12th Annual “A Night at Sardi's” Grease-themed celebrity fundraiser at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, Calif.

Frazer Harrison / Getty

June 5, 2010

Diller attends the Ninth Annual Butterfly Ball in Los Angeles.

Jason Merritt / Getty Images

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