Female stand-up comics aren’t such a big deal these days. It wasn’t always thus.
Phyllis Diller was a stand-up comic who came to the profession by need, she said. She was a homeless family of seven. With the help of Jack Paar in the ’50s, she became one of the first female stand-up comics.
She died today at 95.
Bob Collins retired from Minnesota Public Radio in 2019 after 12 years of writing NewsCut and pointing out to complainants that posts weren’t news stories. A son of Massachusetts, he was a news editor 1992-1998, created the MPR News regional website in 1999, invented the popular Select A Candidate, started several blogs, and every day lamented that his Minnesota Fantasy Legislature project never caught on.
Bob Collins