Bad news, everyone: Phyllis Diller, one of the first ladies of comedy and a woman with one of the most distinct laughs in the world, died today at the age of 95.
If you don’t know who Phyllis Diller is by now . . . for god’s sake, go look her up on YouTube! The woman is a legend; how do you not know who she is? Diller opened doors and blazed trails for women in comedy everywhere, and she did it with class. If it wasn’t for Phyllis Diller, we wouldn’t have luminary female comedians like Sarah Silverman, Amy Schumer or Tig Notaro. Hell, without Phyllis Diller, Chelsea Handler wouldn’t have made millions of dollars by turning three paragraphs about her vagina into a 200-page book.
So long, Phyllis Diller. Your humour, your grace and that cigarette you were always holding but never smoked will all be missed.
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