Like a Lampshade in a Whorehou

"From housewife to humorist, Phyllis Diller has been making millions laugh for five decades with her groundbreaking comedy, blazing a trail for comediennes during the fifties and sixties. She achieved this by poking fun at her own looks and frustrating life as a bored, ignored, and inept housewife. Yet while the routine broke new ground and opened the doors to subsequent generations of female standups, it also served as a form of self-therapy amid a life steeped in tragedy and turmoil." "Like a Lampshade in a Whorehouse is Phyllis Diller's own story about the struggle and the pain behind the comedy and the success: her Depression-era adolescence; her marriage to a chronically unemployed first husband; the desperate attempts to stave off poverty as a professional comic while raising five children; the disastrous club engagements that coincided with homelessness and separation from her young family; and the problems that clouded her stage and screen success when a second marriage unraveled because of her new spouse's alcoholism and inner demons." Diller also describes her separate careers as an artist and as a piano soloist with symphony orchestras; her failed attempts to become a Playboy centerfold; and her outspoken attitude toward her extensive plastic surgery that earned her a special award from the American Academy of Cosmetic Surgery.