Phyllis Diller

Further, a screenplay about Diller's early years in showbiz is in preproduction and actress Patricia Clarkson is slated to play Diller, for a film due in 2006. Glenda Farrell has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her contribution to Motion Pictures, at 6524 Hollywood Boulevard. In an appearance on CNN's Larry King Live talk show in December of 2004, Diller announced that an authorized biography of her life is in the works. She died from lung cancer and was interred in the West Point US Military Academy Post Cemetery, West Point, New York. She has since officially retired from standup performance. She remained with the show until ill health forced her departure in November 1970. Most recently, Diller has suffered serious medical problems which culminated in her being pronounced clinically dead for three minutes. She was appearing on Broadway in a production of Forty Carats in 1969 when she was diagnosed with cancer.

Diller is a proud grandmother several times over. Farrell went out of vogue in the 1940s but made a comeback later in life, winning an Emmy Award in 1963, for her work in the television series Ben Casey. She has several children from her marriage to her first husband, on whom "Fang" was based. In this role Farrell was promoted as being able to speak 400 words in 40 seconds. She was divorced twice and widowed once. She became one of Warner Brothers most prolific actresses of the 1930s, solidifying her success with her own film series, as Torchy Blane "Girl Reporter". Phyllis Diller has been married three times. Her brassy persona was used to great effect in Little Caesar (1930) opposite James Cagney, in I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932) opposite Paul Muni, in Havana Widows (1933) with Blondell, and in Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933) opposite Fay Wray.

Diller's efforts have drawn numerous awards and acknowledgments from plastic surgeons and medical organizations. Signed to Warner Brothers, she came to personify the wise-cracking, hard-boiled, and somewhat dizzy blonde of the early talkies, along with fellow Warner Brothers contractee Joan Blondell, with whom she would be frequently paired. Diller has publicly discussed her plastic surgery, which changed her persona from being deliberately ugly to being chic and attractive for her age. Born in Enid, Oklahoma, Farrell came to Hollywood towards the end of the silent era, after establishing herself on Broadway. She is an accomplished pianist as well as a painter. Glenda Farrell (June 30, 1904 – May 1, 1971) was an American film actress. Diller, a longtime resident of Brentwood, credits much of her success to the late Bob Hope, and keeps a framed portrait of Hope above her grand piano in the living room of her home.

In 1998, Diller parlayed her unique cackle into the vocals for "The Queen" in Disney/Pixar's animated move, A Bug's Life. Diller also starred in two short-lived television series: The Pruitts of Southampton on ABC in 1966 and the variety show The Beautiful Phyllis Diller Show on NBC in 1968. Diller also appeared in more than a dozen, generally low-budget movies, including as herself in the children's animated cult classic from 1968, The Monster Mash, co-starring Boris Karloff. Diller's film appearances include a scene-stealing cameo appearance as a wisecracking lounge act emcee in the 1961 Hollywood production of Splendor in the Grass, starring Natalie Wood and Warren Beatty.

Her main claim to fame is her stand-up comedy act. In her heydey, Diller achieved a record that still stands today in the Guinness Book of World Records for delivering 12 punchlines per minute, which is typical of her often outrageous, stacatto style of comedy. It is here that Diller honed her act. Later in the decade, her career took off after selling out 87 straight weeks at San Francisco's legendary Purple Onion nightclub.

A housewife, mother and advertising copywriter, she first came to public attention as a contestant on Groucho Marx's quiz show You Bet Your Life in the mid-1950s. Phyllis Diller (born July 17, 1917) is an American comedian who created the stage character of a wild-haired, oddly-dressed housewife who was ugly but didn't realize it, and who spent her time cackling and waving a long cigarette holder while making jokes about a husband named "Fang." She is generally considered one of the pioneers of female stand-up comedy.