"It is a great loss today," Wostbrock told NBC. "She was a true pioneer and the first lady of standup. She paved the way for Chelsea Handler, Roseanne Barr, Joan Rivers and Ellen DeGeneres. She was the best. The first female standup to play Vegas. She was on Broadway, she made movies, she did it all."
A housewife turned advertising copywriter turned internationally renowned performer, Diller's career stretched from live stand-up to televion and movie appearances. She often candidly discussed her plastic surgery, using herself as the butt of her jokes.
Born Phyllis Ada Driver on July 17, 1917 in Lima, OH, Diller received her break in 1955, when at the age of 37, she took a substitute stand-up spot at San Francisco's now-defunct Purple Onion nightclub. “When I went on, the room went totally quiet and I knew that I had this magnetic thing that you had to be born with,” Diller told EW in 2005. “You can’t buy it or even learn it.”
DIller passed away at her Los Angeles home at 9.30 a.m. Monday morning, her manager Milt Suchin told E!, adding: "She passed away in her sleep. She passed away peacefully. Her son Perry found her." Diller is also survived by two daughters.
