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Groundbreaking comic Phyllis Diller dies at 95

It’s a cosmic coincidence that legendary comic Phyllis Diller died on the same day that the Augusta National Golf Club – home of the Masters Tournament – finally admitted two female members.

In the early 80s, Diller famously dressed as a man in order to get into the Sid Caesar roast at the Friars Club, at the time an all-male bastion that women couldn’t enter. Then a successful comedian, she understood exactly where women stand in the entertainment world.

Joan Rivers, who says Diller was a great influence, got it right when she commented, “She was the last from an era that insisted a woman had to look funny in order to be funny.”

Diller didn’t get into comedy until her later 30s and didn’t achieve success until her 40s. At the time, the 1960s, there were almost no female comics. You couldn’t break through looking too dishy – too threatening – and audiences weren’t prepared to accept a stand-up if she was the slightest bit raunchy.

Diller solved the problem by playing the corner-cutting housewife, married to Fang and dressing outrageously in a frumpy housecoat, with her hair looking as if she’d been electrocuted. She specialized in self-deprecating humour – especially about her looks – knowing that even guys would find it funny.

And she paid attention. Check out this quickie bit on wanting to be a Spice Girl.

Eventually she had more than 15 cosmetic surgeries on her face – and joked about that, too.

On one level, her artistic strategies were a little sad, but she broke the ground. Without her, there’s no Roseanne Barr, no Ellen DeGeneres, no Sarah Silverman.

I call that getting the last laugh.

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