Nice tribute to Phyllis Diller on this anniversary of her death, as is Robin’s book, “Beyond the Spotlight: On the Road with Phyllis Diller,” a delightful tribute to her life and doors she opened for other women to enter the then male-dominated world of stand-up comedy.
http://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Spotlight-Road-Phyllis-Diller/dp/0985972882
As I was thinking about Phyllis Diller — today is the one year anniversary of her death — something funny occurred to me. No, not one of her jokes, I mean something odd about working for her.
I learned about it one day shortly after soon after I went to work for her. I did something unexpected and Karen — Phyllis’s wardrobe mistress — said, “that’s worth an attaboy.” “Huh?” “An attaboy.” “What are you talking about?” I asked with just a hint of exasperation.
“When you do something good, you get an ‘attaboy.’ When you do something bad, you get a ‘dumb shit.’ ”
“That sounds weird. Who keeps track of these?” I asked as I watched her continuing to sort through Phyllis’s array of wigs.
“Nobody actually keeps track of them. It’s just something we do. But let me tell you,” she said turning a wig inside out and checking…
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Polishing Your Prose 