“Joan Rivers paid $10 a joke.” I was speaking to a writer’s group in Summerlin which was sort of intimidating since many of them were highly accomplished people in many different fields, including a joke writer. He had sold material to Joan Rivers. When I worked for her, Phyllis paid $5 a joke, back in the early 70s. Five dollars would fill your gas tank and still leave you enough to buy a sandwich at the deli. (According to the Consumer Price Index, $5 had the buying power of just under $30 in today’s economy.) After I had finished my talk and we were socializing, I had a chance to question him a bit about his writing. I asked him to tell me one of the jokes he’d written for her and it had to do with her being so frigid that her gynecologist had to use an ice pick. I’m not sure… Read More »
The Phyllis Diller royalty check
“How about an April 1 publication date?” Larry, my editor/publisher, said referring to my book: “Beyond the Spotlight: On the Road with Phyllis Diller.” “Sure,” I said, not realizing the significance of that day. It’s been just over a year since my book came out and whether the April Fool referred to me or Phyllis, I’m still not sure, but looking at my latest royalty check, I’m thinking it might be me. This check combined with the money I earned pouring wine last Saturday will just about cover the cost of my new shoes. Granted, they are Cole Hahn, so pricey, but still by now I expected that I would have made enough money to buy new shoes every week! (Where are Simon & Schuster when you need them?) “It’s not a big house publisher you need,” Shawn told me when I was lamenting this a few weeks back, “it’s… Read More »
Phyllis ‘n Roses (not a gun in sight …)
“Here, let me show you a trick,” Phyllis said as she took the flagging rosebuds from my hand. This was only a few weeks after I’d started working for her and we were backstage in her dressing room at the Riviera Hotel in Las Vegas. The room was filled, as usual, with vases of red roses. Phyllis loved roses and everytime she opened an engagement of more than a night or two, she would be flooded with bouquets of flowers — mostly red roses — from her business manager, her publicist, her agent and several friends. (I always sort of wondered who was paying for those roses her business manager sent — was he really footing the bill or did it come out of her own account? But I’m a skeptic.) As you know if you’ve ever received a delivery of flowers, roses in particular, they don’t always open the way they should. This particular evening I… Read More »
Looking for Phyllis Diller
“… and she did some other movies, too,” I told the class at UNLV. “It wasn’t just the Bob Hope movies, although that’s what everyone thinks of.” (Now I have an admission to make — I have never seen any of the Phyllis Diller/Bob Hope movies: “Boy, Did I get a Wrong Number,” or “Eight on the Lam,” or “Did you Hear the One about the Traveling Saleslady?” Really, there’s no excuse except that I’m not a movie-goer. If I see more than two movies a year, that’s a lot.) “Like what?” the instructor asked. “She made called ‘The Adding Machine.’” “Who knows what an adding machine is?” he asked the class. Nearly all of them raised their hands, this being a class of mostly retired people. I wonder what the response would be from a regular college class. Probably not much! The plot, as I recall, was that Phyllis… Read More »
That’s Not FAIR!!
Anybody who has children, works around children or has encountered children somewhere in everyday life has heard that plaintive cry: “That’s not fair!” It seems we were born with that already in our minds. But on Saturday I had to bite my lip to stop myself saying it out loud even though it was pounding itself against my brain. And it wasn’t fair. Really — it wasn’t! Saturday was the “Local Author Collection Launch Party” at Paseo Verde Library in Henderson. The library had been planning this for months — they had contacted 40 local, Las Vegas authors and asked if they would like to (1) donate a copy of their book to the library and (2) participate in a book-signing/fair. Being a new author — hey, my book hasn’t even been out a year — I was delighted to be included. What a fun idea, I thought. So on… Read More »
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