Stage performer and actress Barbara Perry died Sunday from natural causes in Hollywood. She appeared in several films and TV shows including Samuel Fuller’s Shock Corridor (1963) and The Naked Kiss (1964) as well as The Dick Van Dyke Show and most recently, Baskets as well She was 97.
Born in Norfolk, Va. on June 22, 1921, Perry was a performer at a young age when she was a member of-of the children’s ballet of the Met’s corps de ballet, making her big stage debut in Madame Butterfly. She went on to study dance — with a specialty in tap — and performed at the Hollywood Bowl in the 1930s. Her talent for dancing was later on showcased at a variety of nightclubs including the Hotel Nacional de Cuba, the Chez Paris in Chicago, the Cocoanut Grove in Los Angeles and the Café de Paris in London. She also had the honor of opening...
Born in Norfolk, Va. on June 22, 1921, Perry was a performer at a young age when she was a member of-of the children’s ballet of the Met’s corps de ballet, making her big stage debut in Madame Butterfly. She went on to study dance — with a specialty in tap — and performed at the Hollywood Bowl in the 1930s. Her talent for dancing was later on showcased at a variety of nightclubs including the Hotel Nacional de Cuba, the Chez Paris in Chicago, the Cocoanut Grove in Los Angeles and the Café de Paris in London. She also had the honor of opening...
- 5/5/2019
- by Dino-Ray Ramos
- Deadline Film + TV
Standup built her career on persona of a corner-cutting housewife and was an influential figure for women in comedy
Phyllis Diller, the pioneering Us comedian who aimed some of her sharpest barbs at herself, has died aged 95.
Diller, who broke into comedy in the 1950s, created an indelible persona with her distinctive braying laugh, cigarette holder, teased hair, outlandish costumes and a fictional lout of a husband nicknamed Fang.
A friend and fellow comic, Joan Rivers, said Diller cleared a path for a younger generation of female standup artists to trade on their jokes alone.
"The only tragedy is that Phyllis Diller was the last from an era that insisted a woman had to look funny in order to be funny," Rivers said on Twitter.
"If she had started today, Phyllis could have stood there in Dior and Harry Winston and become the major star that she was. I adored her!
Phyllis Diller, the pioneering Us comedian who aimed some of her sharpest barbs at herself, has died aged 95.
Diller, who broke into comedy in the 1950s, created an indelible persona with her distinctive braying laugh, cigarette holder, teased hair, outlandish costumes and a fictional lout of a husband nicknamed Fang.
A friend and fellow comic, Joan Rivers, said Diller cleared a path for a younger generation of female standup artists to trade on their jokes alone.
"The only tragedy is that Phyllis Diller was the last from an era that insisted a woman had to look funny in order to be funny," Rivers said on Twitter.
"If she had started today, Phyllis could have stood there in Dior and Harry Winston and become the major star that she was. I adored her!
- 8/21/2012
- by Ben Quinn
- The Guardian - Film News
Phyllis Diller, an actress and comedian best known for her stand-up comedy act, is dead at age 95. TMZ reports that the comedian passed away at her Los Angeles home Monday in the company of her family.
Diller, who was born in 1917 in Ohio, witnessed revolutionary change for female comedians in the latter half of the 20th century. Her close relationship with the English comedian Bob Hope spurred nearly two dozen co-starring television specials during the 1960s. Diller would also go on to star in two eponymous television series for network television: "The Phyllis Diller Show," from 1966 to 1967, and "The Beautiful Phyllis Diller Show," one year later.
Diller is survived by three children, Sally, Suzanne and Perry, from her first marriage to Sherwood Anderson Diller. She remarried actor Warde Donovan in 1965 and divorced him in 1974.
Diller, who was born in 1917 in Ohio, witnessed revolutionary change for female comedians in the latter half of the 20th century. Her close relationship with the English comedian Bob Hope spurred nearly two dozen co-starring television specials during the 1960s. Diller would also go on to star in two eponymous television series for network television: "The Phyllis Diller Show," from 1966 to 1967, and "The Beautiful Phyllis Diller Show," one year later.
Diller is survived by three children, Sally, Suzanne and Perry, from her first marriage to Sherwood Anderson Diller. She remarried actor Warde Donovan in 1965 and divorced him in 1974.
- 8/20/2012
- by Youyoung Lee
- Huffington Post
Phyllis Diller, the wild-haired, eccentrically-dressed performer credited with opening the doors of stand-up comedy to women, passed away at her home in Los Angeles. She was 95 years old.
She was born Phyllis Ada Driver on July 17, 1917 in Lima, Ohio to Perry Marcus and Frances Ada (Romshe) Driver. After graduating from Central High School, she headed to Chicago's Sherwood Music Conservatory, where she continued to study piano, with dreams of one day becoming a concert pianist. From the Conservatory, she transferred to Bluffton College in Ohio, where she became the school's newspaper editor and oversaw the publication of humor pieces.
In November 1939, at the age of 22, she married Sherwood Anderson Diller and gave birth to a son, Peter, in 1940. She would have five more children: Sally (1944), a son who died two weeks after being born (1945), Suzanne (1946), Stephanie (1948), and Perry (1950). Perry would later manage his mother's business affairs. Contrary to popular belief, she is no relation to Susan Lucci.
During WWII, the fledgling Diller clan moved to Michigan, where she began to mine her home-making experiences for jokes. She also worked as an advertising copywriter at this time. After the war, the Dillers moved to San Francisco, where she found work as a secretary at the radio station KROW. Later that year, she was in front of the camera for the first time with a program titled "Phyllis Dillis, the Homely Friendmaker" for Bay Area Radio-Television. She continued working in Bay Area television, this time at KGO-TV, where she was invited to participate in the station's show "Belfast Pop Club", co-hosted by Willard Anderson and Don Sherwood.
Both Anderson and Sherwood encouraged her to pursue her stand-up comedy ambitions, and in 1955, she landed a two-week gig at the venerable San Francisco nightclub, The Purple Onion, where her self-deprecating wit and unique laugh kept her on the stage for the better part of two years. The buzz created by her act reached Hollywood, and she made her first rounds on talk and variety shows with the likes of Jack Benny and Red Skelton.
Her appearance on "The Tonight Show" with Jack Parr was her breakthrough, and led to recurring gigs as a contestant on "You Bet Your Life" with host Groucho Marx, "What's My Line?", "I've Got a Secret", and "Hollywood Squares". She appeared on the silver screen as well, making her debut in William Inge's drama, Splendor in the Grass. In 1961, she made her stage debut in The Dark at the Top of the Stairs. Appearances in films with Bob Hope -- Boy, Did I Get a Wrong Number!, The Private Navy of Sgt. O'Farrell, and Eight on the Lam -- began a lifelong bond between the two performers, who would co-star in numerous TV specials; in fact, Diller would be featured in every Bob Hope Christmas Special from 1965 through 1994. At the height of the Vietnam war in 1966, Diller joined Hope's USO troupe overseas.
As her star rose, husband Sherwood managed her career, though the relationship broke down and the couple divorced in 1965. By this point, however, Sherwood had become a staple of her act, as she made jokes about a husband named "Fang," while she smoked from a exaggerated cigarette holder -- which would become the comedienne's signature prop, paried with her increasingly outlandish wardrobe and hairstyles. Soon after her divorce, she married Ward Donovan, whom she met while appearing on stage in "Wonderful Town". Worth noting is the fact that Joan Rivers was one of her writers at this period in her career.
In the late 1960s, she starred in a pair of short-lived series, "The Pruitts of Southampton" and variety show "The Beautiful Phyllis Diller Show", though she found her greatest success elsewhere, from her continued guest appearances on talk, variety, and game shows. Toward the end of the decade, she began a successful string of guest spots on "Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In". Harkening back to her film debut, she gained notices for her work in the drama The Adding Machine with Milo O'Shea.
For three months, at the start of the 1970s, she appeared on Broadway in "Hello, Dolly!", stepping in for Carol Channing. On TV, she frequented on Dean Martin's celebrity roast specials and "the Mike Douglas Show". She cut hit comedy records, published her first books, and continued working the stand-up circuit. A new source of laughs -- her own plastic surgery -- stood in humorous contrast with other Hollywood performers.
Her on-screen career began to wane in late in the decade and into the 1980s, with guest appearances on "The Love Boat", "Celebrity Hot Potato", and a revamped version of "Hollywood Squares".
In the 1990s, roles in B movies Dr. Hackenstein and Silence of the Hams were minor cultural blips, but in 1998 she regained the spotlight for her voice role as the Queen ant in the second Pixar movie, A Bug's Life. She also had a recurring role on "The Bold and the Beautiful". A year later, she suffered a heart attack and was fitted with a pacemaker.
By 2002 she mostly retired from the stage and screen, though she appeared in the 2005 documentary The Aristocrats, notable because Diller, who steered clear of graphic material, did not recite the content of the famous dirty joke. An autobiography, Like a Lampshade in a Whorehouse, was published that same year; in 2006, a DVD version of the project was released, and she voiced several roles for "Robot Chicken" and, later, "Family Guy". She cameoed in 2007 on "Boston Legal" as a supposed lover of William Shatner's Denny Crane. A planned appearance later in the year for her 90th birthday on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" was canceled when she fractured her back.
Diller was a long-time member of the Society of Singers, a non-profit organization dedicated to helping singers in need. Two cities proclaimed "Phyllis Diller Day"s: Philadelphia (2001) and San Francisco (2006).
She is survived by daughters Sally and Suzanne and son Perry.
She was born Phyllis Ada Driver on July 17, 1917 in Lima, Ohio to Perry Marcus and Frances Ada (Romshe) Driver. After graduating from Central High School, she headed to Chicago's Sherwood Music Conservatory, where she continued to study piano, with dreams of one day becoming a concert pianist. From the Conservatory, she transferred to Bluffton College in Ohio, where she became the school's newspaper editor and oversaw the publication of humor pieces.
In November 1939, at the age of 22, she married Sherwood Anderson Diller and gave birth to a son, Peter, in 1940. She would have five more children: Sally (1944), a son who died two weeks after being born (1945), Suzanne (1946), Stephanie (1948), and Perry (1950). Perry would later manage his mother's business affairs. Contrary to popular belief, she is no relation to Susan Lucci.
During WWII, the fledgling Diller clan moved to Michigan, where she began to mine her home-making experiences for jokes. She also worked as an advertising copywriter at this time. After the war, the Dillers moved to San Francisco, where she found work as a secretary at the radio station KROW. Later that year, she was in front of the camera for the first time with a program titled "Phyllis Dillis, the Homely Friendmaker" for Bay Area Radio-Television. She continued working in Bay Area television, this time at KGO-TV, where she was invited to participate in the station's show "Belfast Pop Club", co-hosted by Willard Anderson and Don Sherwood.
Both Anderson and Sherwood encouraged her to pursue her stand-up comedy ambitions, and in 1955, she landed a two-week gig at the venerable San Francisco nightclub, The Purple Onion, where her self-deprecating wit and unique laugh kept her on the stage for the better part of two years. The buzz created by her act reached Hollywood, and she made her first rounds on talk and variety shows with the likes of Jack Benny and Red Skelton.
Her appearance on "The Tonight Show" with Jack Parr was her breakthrough, and led to recurring gigs as a contestant on "You Bet Your Life" with host Groucho Marx, "What's My Line?", "I've Got a Secret", and "Hollywood Squares". She appeared on the silver screen as well, making her debut in William Inge's drama, Splendor in the Grass. In 1961, she made her stage debut in The Dark at the Top of the Stairs. Appearances in films with Bob Hope -- Boy, Did I Get a Wrong Number!, The Private Navy of Sgt. O'Farrell, and Eight on the Lam -- began a lifelong bond between the two performers, who would co-star in numerous TV specials; in fact, Diller would be featured in every Bob Hope Christmas Special from 1965 through 1994. At the height of the Vietnam war in 1966, Diller joined Hope's USO troupe overseas.
As her star rose, husband Sherwood managed her career, though the relationship broke down and the couple divorced in 1965. By this point, however, Sherwood had become a staple of her act, as she made jokes about a husband named "Fang," while she smoked from a exaggerated cigarette holder -- which would become the comedienne's signature prop, paried with her increasingly outlandish wardrobe and hairstyles. Soon after her divorce, she married Ward Donovan, whom she met while appearing on stage in "Wonderful Town". Worth noting is the fact that Joan Rivers was one of her writers at this period in her career.
In the late 1960s, she starred in a pair of short-lived series, "The Pruitts of Southampton" and variety show "The Beautiful Phyllis Diller Show", though she found her greatest success elsewhere, from her continued guest appearances on talk, variety, and game shows. Toward the end of the decade, she began a successful string of guest spots on "Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In". Harkening back to her film debut, she gained notices for her work in the drama The Adding Machine with Milo O'Shea.
For three months, at the start of the 1970s, she appeared on Broadway in "Hello, Dolly!", stepping in for Carol Channing. On TV, she frequented on Dean Martin's celebrity roast specials and "the Mike Douglas Show". She cut hit comedy records, published her first books, and continued working the stand-up circuit. A new source of laughs -- her own plastic surgery -- stood in humorous contrast with other Hollywood performers.
Her on-screen career began to wane in late in the decade and into the 1980s, with guest appearances on "The Love Boat", "Celebrity Hot Potato", and a revamped version of "Hollywood Squares".
In the 1990s, roles in B movies Dr. Hackenstein and Silence of the Hams were minor cultural blips, but in 1998 she regained the spotlight for her voice role as the Queen ant in the second Pixar movie, A Bug's Life. She also had a recurring role on "The Bold and the Beautiful". A year later, she suffered a heart attack and was fitted with a pacemaker.
By 2002 she mostly retired from the stage and screen, though she appeared in the 2005 documentary The Aristocrats, notable because Diller, who steered clear of graphic material, did not recite the content of the famous dirty joke. An autobiography, Like a Lampshade in a Whorehouse, was published that same year; in 2006, a DVD version of the project was released, and she voiced several roles for "Robot Chicken" and, later, "Family Guy". She cameoed in 2007 on "Boston Legal" as a supposed lover of William Shatner's Denny Crane. A planned appearance later in the year for her 90th birthday on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" was canceled when she fractured her back.
Diller was a long-time member of the Society of Singers, a non-profit organization dedicated to helping singers in need. Two cities proclaimed "Phyllis Diller Day"s: Philadelphia (2001) and San Francisco (2006).
She is survived by daughters Sally and Suzanne and son Perry.
- 8/20/2012
- by Arno Kazarian
- IMDb News
Phyllis Diller, the legendary wild-haired, self-deprecating queen of comedy, died Monday at her Los Angeles home. She was 95. Suffering heart problems in recent years and reportedly in declining health from a fall, she died peacefully in her sleep surrounded by her family. "She was a true pioneer," Diller's longtime agent Fred Wostbrock tells Entertainment Weekly. "She was the first lady of stand-up comedy. She paved the way for everybody. And she conquered television, movies, Broadway, record albums, nightclubs, books, and radio. She did it all. A true pioneer." Diller - born Phyllis Driver, in Ohio - started her career n the 1950s,...
- 8/20/2012
- by Stephen M. Silverman
- PEOPLE.com
Let's start with the writers this time.
Jane Espenson wrote an article about Torchwood for BBC.co.uk that provides some info about the creative process behind Miracle Day. You can read it here.
Mark Verheiden tweets that he is back in the Falling Skies writers' room. Caprica co-creator & new Fs showrunner Remi Aubuchon confirms that Verheiden will be on staff for season two as a consulting producer. (Yes, Remi Aubuchon has joined Twitter.)
Race Bending has a fantastic new interview with Carmen Moore. She talks about Blackstone, playing Fidelia in Caprica, how she got cast in Battlestar Galactica: Blood and Chrome (she will likely be a regular if B&C gets picked up) and some of her other projects, both old (Andromeda) and more recent (Two Indians Talking).
You can read the partial transcript here or listen to the whole interview below.
Carmen Moore is a veteran Canadian television and film actress from Burnbay,...
Jane Espenson wrote an article about Torchwood for BBC.co.uk that provides some info about the creative process behind Miracle Day. You can read it here.
Mark Verheiden tweets that he is back in the Falling Skies writers' room. Caprica co-creator & new Fs showrunner Remi Aubuchon confirms that Verheiden will be on staff for season two as a consulting producer. (Yes, Remi Aubuchon has joined Twitter.)
Race Bending has a fantastic new interview with Carmen Moore. She talks about Blackstone, playing Fidelia in Caprica, how she got cast in Battlestar Galactica: Blood and Chrome (she will likely be a regular if B&C gets picked up) and some of her other projects, both old (Andromeda) and more recent (Two Indians Talking).
You can read the partial transcript here or listen to the whole interview below.
Carmen Moore is a veteran Canadian television and film actress from Burnbay,...
- 8/27/2011
- by fanshawe
- CapricaTV
Do you have nothing to do on Saturday at around 9 Pm? Well, then look no further than the latest creature feature from the Syfy Channel, Killer Mountain, for a good-bad movie.
Located in Bhutan, Gangkhar Puensum (“Killer Mountain”) is the highest unclimbed mountain in the world. According to local legend, 6000 meters is the abode of the Gods, and trespassing is strictly prohibited as a matter of religious law. But when a research expedition is lost, billionaire Walter Burton (Andrew Airlee) hires Ward Donovan (Aaron Douglas), the best climber in the business, to lead a rescue mission. Ward initially resists until he learns that Burton had hired his ex-girlfriend Kate (Emmanuelle Vaugier) to lead the missing group. Soon Ward and his team find themselves on a flight to Bhutan. Upon arriving at base camp, they hear Kate and her team’s frantic final message for help. It sounds like there was something else up there,...
Located in Bhutan, Gangkhar Puensum (“Killer Mountain”) is the highest unclimbed mountain in the world. According to local legend, 6000 meters is the abode of the Gods, and trespassing is strictly prohibited as a matter of religious law. But when a research expedition is lost, billionaire Walter Burton (Andrew Airlee) hires Ward Donovan (Aaron Douglas), the best climber in the business, to lead a rescue mission. Ward initially resists until he learns that Burton had hired his ex-girlfriend Kate (Emmanuelle Vaugier) to lead the missing group. Soon Ward and his team find themselves on a flight to Bhutan. Upon arriving at base camp, they hear Kate and her team’s frantic final message for help. It sounds like there was something else up there,...
- 8/26/2011
- by Jason Bene
- Killer Films
Thank goodness for the Killer Mountain ads on the front page of the website, or even I might have forgotten there is a new Syfy creature feature premiering this weekend. As you can already ascertain, it has something to do with a mountain where people get killed.
Aaron Douglas (“Battlestar Galactica”), Emmanuelle Vaugier (Far Cry), and Crystal Lowe (Wrong Turn 2: Dead End) star in this weekend's Syfy premiere of Killer Mountain from director Sheldon Wilson (Screamers: The Hunting) and writer Peter Sullivan (The Dog Who Saved Christmas Vacation).
Though the title Killer Mountain probably sounds as generic as humanly possible, as you’ll read in this plot synopsis, there is a good explanation as to its meaning.
Located in Bhutan, Gangkhar Puensum ("Killer Mountain") is the highest unclimbed mountain in the world. According to local legend, 6000 meters is the abode of the Gods, and trespassing is strictly prohibited as a matter of religious law.
Aaron Douglas (“Battlestar Galactica”), Emmanuelle Vaugier (Far Cry), and Crystal Lowe (Wrong Turn 2: Dead End) star in this weekend's Syfy premiere of Killer Mountain from director Sheldon Wilson (Screamers: The Hunting) and writer Peter Sullivan (The Dog Who Saved Christmas Vacation).
Though the title Killer Mountain probably sounds as generic as humanly possible, as you’ll read in this plot synopsis, there is a good explanation as to its meaning.
Located in Bhutan, Gangkhar Puensum ("Killer Mountain") is the highest unclimbed mountain in the world. According to local legend, 6000 meters is the abode of the Gods, and trespassing is strictly prohibited as a matter of religious law.
- 8/26/2011
- by Foywonder
- DreadCentral.com
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