Birth of Phyllis Diller

On July 17, 1917, Phyllis Ada Driver was born in Lima, Ohio, a future entertainer whose work would reshape American stand-up comedy for women. She grew up in a period when women’s public voices were still sharply constrained, and that context makes her later success especially significant. Diller would transform domestic frustrations, aging, marriage, and appearance into material that audiences recognized as both sharply funny and socially revealing.

Her birth is historically important because it marks the arrival of a performer who became widely recognized as one of the first women to establish a national career as a solo stand-up comic. Smithsonian and Britannica both identify July 17, 1917 as her birth date, and later tributes emphasize her role in opening a male-dominated form to women. Her early life in Ohio, and the experience of growing up in a conventional middle-American setting, later informed the suburban persona that became central to her act.

Diller’s legacy rests not simply on celebrity but on barrier-breaking visibility: she turned self-parody into a professional strategy at a time when women comedians were expected to be decorative, supportive, or rare exceptions. Her birth therefore stands at the start of a career that altered expectations for women in entertainment.