Diller was born Phyllis Ada Driver in Lima, Ohio on July 17, 1917, the only child of Perry Marcus Driver, an insurance … See more

In 1939, she met Sherwood Diller, the brother of a classmate at Bluffton, and they eloped, marrying Sherwood A. Diller in Bluffton, Ohio on 4 November 1939. Diller did not finish school and was primarily a homemake… See more

Diller credited much of her success to a motivational book, The Magic of Believing (1948) by Claude M. Bristol, which gave her confidence at the start of her career. She was married and divorced twice. She had six childre… See more

By 1997, as she passed her 80th birthday, Diller began to suffer from various ailments. In 1999, her heart stopped during a hospital stay. She was fitted with a pacemaker but had a bad drug reaction and became paralyzed. … See more

Diller was one of the first solo female comedians in the U.S. to become a household name. She stated that making people laugh is a powerful art form. As a pioneering woman in the stand-up field, she inspired ma… See more