Comedy’s Self-Deprecating Pioneer Phyllis Diller Dies

A queen of comedy has died. Phyllis Diller had audiences in stitches for more than five decades with her outlandish get-ups and rapid-fire one-liners. She died at her home, where she had been in hospice care after a fall. She was 95.

Diller was glamorously outrageous — or at least the character she created was glamorously outrageous, the one who wore wigs that made her look like she had her finger in an electrical outlet, who wore gaudy sequined outfits. She was known for her laugh and those nasty jokes about her dimwitted husband, “Fang.”

“Everybody says, ‘Why do you call him Fang?’ He’s got this one tooth, it’s 2 inches long. I met him at a cocktail party; I kept trying to light it,” she told her audience. “About all he’s good for is opening beer cans.”