B00C4I7LJE EBOK (3 page)

“These are street clothes,” Karen said, turning to the other side of the room.

Really? Had me fooled.
Some were normal clothes, such as dresses, blouses, and slacks, but some were flowing, flowering caftans and sparkly dresses that surely Phyllis could’ve worn onstage. There were also hangers with the white-on-white outfits Phyllis wore around the house. Sometimes when she wanted to go out shopping or make some other quick trip, she would add a white hood that covered her hair, and large sunglasses. She considered this a disguise, but it actually drew more attention than if she’d just looked like herself. And, of course, there was no way to disguise the laugh. And Phyllis liked to laugh!

As we went through the wardrobe, Karen straightened a dress here, rearranged a drawer there, and switched some of the shoes and boots around to her satisfaction. Sometimes after Phyllis had been rummaging for something to wear, Karen would spend thirty minutes putting everything back the way it should be.

Finally, Karen motioned to the back of the room. “Here are her evening clothes.”

Oh my gosh. I stood and stared. Long gowns and short cocktail dresses, beaded and plain, elegant and kitschy covered the entire back wall. In addition, Phyllis had an array of wraps—coats and shawls—and finally a rack that held her many fur coats, from short car coats to dress-length mink coats in several shades, and a floor-length white ermine and an elegant gray chinchilla. The chinchilla fur was so thick and soft that touching it made me feel as though I had a handful of whipped cream. Phyllis had a lot of beautiful clothes. Everything smelled faintly of her special perfume. The wardrobe room had plenty of light and was quite large, but even so it seemed oppressive and I was glad to leave.

Karen flipped off the banks of lights, and we proceeded down the hallway toward the front of the house past Val’s office. Val ran the household and saw to all the shopping, cleaning, and everything else that needed to be done, as I already knew. I found Val a bit odd. She always seemed a little nervous. As I came to know everyone, I realized she was the only one in the house who really got along with Warde.

Karen relied on Val to get the clothes to the cleaners when we got back from a trip, and Karen always checked to make sure everything was clean and ready to go for the next time. Karen herself did any mending of costumes, replacing missing buttons, sequins, or alterations that Phyllis requested. She put the gloves back in the right drawer, arranged by color, and made sure that any that had gotten soiled were cleaned before they were put away. Same for all the costumes, shoes, and other accessories.

After Val’s office, Karen showed me the long, screened-in Calvin Coolidge Porch, which ran along the single-story side of the house by the master bedroom. Phyllis loved to sit out there on pleasant days and often did her work—studying scripts, writing material, reviewing letters and contracts—in that somewhat remote and quiet setting that overlooked the wide, green lawn.

The front of the house had the huge living room, which was filled with vases of red roses—her favorite. The day of my interview, I’d gone over to smell them. I was startled to find they were artificial. They were so perfectly crafted that they really, truly, looked real. The living room had a high ceiling and stained- and leaded-glass windows, and a cozy alcove with two small settees. It was rather old-fashioned and sweet.

We passed through the dining room and billiards room and ended up in the bright-red kitchen. Karen poured us each a cup of coffee and we settled in the small dinette where we had our breaks.

“So, what do you think?”

“It’s a gorgeous house,” I said. It was very open, with lots of windows and decorated in an eclectic style—lots of antiques but also the occasional strange little doodad that had no doubt struck Phyllis’s fancy and she’d put on display. I had seen nothing cheap or jarring, however, and somehow it all came together.

“This is going to sound odd,” I said as I poured cream into my coffee, “but there is something a little spooky back there.”

“You mean the wardrobe room?”

I nodded.

“It’s haunted.”

I stared at Karen for a moment to see if she was laughing. She wasn’t.

“I don’t believe in ghosts,” I said perhaps a little more forcefully than I needed to.

She shrugged.

“I don’t, either,” she said, “but everybody knows there’s something strange with that room.”

From that time on, I avoided it as much as possible. I told myself it was only because of the massive racks of clothes, with the hats on the shelf above, that made it look almost like there were people in there. Of course, there weren’t. Not people and not ghosts, either. Still, I always quickened my pace as I walked past it.

4

T
he next day I began working with Phyllis, glad to learn that Warde had stopped in New York on his way back from London. At least I didn’t have to get used to both of them at the same time.

Shortly before noon, which was shortly after she got up, Phyllis buzzed me on the intercom. “Come down and bring your note pad,” she instructed. I took the back stairway just outside the office into the anteroom off the master bedroom. There was no door between the anteroom and the bedroom, and I hesitated.

“Come in,” Phyllis called. She was seated on the edge of the bed wearing her “uniform”—a white, short-sleeved shirt, white slacks, and white ballet slippers. Stacks of paper, letters, notes, and pictures were scattered about the room. It would have been a beautiful bedroom if it weren’t so cluttered. Windows looked out on the garden, and in an alcove stood a harpsichord.

Hardly ever see those anymore
, I thought. Karen told me that Phyllis had studied to be a concert pianist. I sat in the small chair Phyllis indicated.

“You’ve met everyone,” Phyllis said. It was half question and half statement.

I nodded.

“Here’s my schedule. Maria keeps it up-to-date.” She reached down and plucked a paper off the closest pile. “Now, let’s see. This is a little out-of-date. We just got back from London . . .” She crossed off the top item on the schedule “. . . and Saturday we leave for Pittsburgh. I play the Holiday House there for a week. Tomorrow I’m taping at ABC. This date in Dallas has been canceled.” She crossed out another portion of the schedule and handed it to me. “Ask Maria for a new one.”

I then spent an hour trailing her around the house trying to remember the mixture of instructions, some to do with work, some to do with family.

“My son, Perry, lives with me, as well as Warde’s two boys, Shane and Todd. My daughter, Susie, lives here, too. She has the Abraham Lincoln Suite.”

Phyllis had named many of the rooms. She’d christened the living room the Bob Hope Salon, obviously because of the huge portrait; the screened-in sun porch was the Calvin Coolidge Porch because she had furnished it with cool, white wicker; a hall closet that Phyllis had converted into a private phone booth she had dubbed the John Wilkes Booth; and at the back of the house was a sort of rumpus room all done in red-and-white stripes and sporting a soda fountain—the Doris Day Room.

Phyllis rattled off a list of people I would be dealing with: her agent, Fred; her publicist, Frank; her attorney, Mr. B (whom I’d already “met” over the phone); her travel agent, Jimmy; and the names of her designer, decorator, children who weren’t living there, and a dozen others. I scribbled frantically. She also confirmed something Karen had told me: “If Warde tells you to do anything, you check with me first. He sometimes likes to think he’s my manager, but he’s not.”

I nodded, perhaps too enthusiastically.

“There is one other thing,” she said as she sat down and motioned me to do likewise. “He often does things that are annoying, and he may try to interfere with your work. If he does, you come tell me. But if it comes to a showdown between the two of you, I’ll side with him. You are my secretary, but Warde is my husband.”

At least I knew where I stood and was glad that she had laid it out in the open. I realized that he was in a difficult position. Not many men like to live off of a woman, but she wanted a husband who would travel with her, so it was impossible for him to have a “regular” job. I suppose that throwing his weight around made him feel important. At that moment, however, I was glad he wasn’t around. He was going to meet us in Pittsburgh.

By the end of the first week, I had a hazy picture of what Phyllis Diller was really like. She was smart and focused. She was exacting but not unreasonable, nor did she have a temper. I figured that someone who had made it to the top of that strange business and could keep her humanity, her perspective, and her dignity had earned every right to be demanding. I had no problem with that.

She was also something of a paradox. Although she seemed determined to establish a definite employer-employee relationship, at break time she often came into the kitchen and told jokes until we were all in stitches. She particularly liked jokes about food. My favorite was: “My idea of the perfect hostess is one who can convince her dinner guests that caraway seeds have legs!” Then she would laugh that full-throated, raucous laugh, and how could we help but all laugh with her? However, I had the impression of someone who, in spite of her fame and her wealth, was perhaps a little lonely.

5

P
hyllis liked to get her work done in the morning. Usually, sometime around 10:30 or 11:00, she’d summon me by saying, “Come down and bring your notebook.” From the beginning, she delegated the routine correspondence, and it wasn’t long before she would simply hand me a contract and say, “Make the arrangements.”

Some things Maria took care of, but I personally talked to the people we’d be dealing with. I wanted to confirm rehearsals and publicity appearances and nail down details. The first person I’d call was Phyllis’s agent to find out anything that might not be obvious.

“Hey,” he told me one time, “that promoter is going to try to get Phyllis to do some personal appearances. That’s not in the contract. Tell him no.” Or, “There’s a radio station that does promos for the theater and Phyllis has agreed to record something for them. Give them a call when you get settled and Phyllis can do that over the phone.”

While Maria talked to the travel agent making airline and hotel reservations, I’d call the limo company both in L.A. and at our destination. In New York and Chicago, Phyllis not only used a particular limo service but had a favorite driver that I learned to ask for. Phyllis told me that small cities and towns often did not have limousine companies, so I should contact the local mortuary—they had limos for funerals and were perfectly happy to rent them out.

“Be sure not to book the hearse!” Phyllis once said, then erupted into laughter.

My first trip with her would be to Philadelphia. While Maria talked to the travel agent, I called the limo company in L.A. and asked what time they should pick us up to get to the airport on time.

Phyllis had come up to the office for some reason—something she almost never did.

“No! You don’t ask them. You tell them when to be here.”

I was flummoxed because I had no idea how long it would take to drive from Phyllis’s house to the airport. This was her regular limo company, so I figured they would know. Thank goodness the dispatcher on the other end of the line heard Phyllis’s voice and quietly said to me, “Eight A.M. You need to leave the house at eight.”

“We need to leave the house at eight in the morning. Have the limo here at seven forty-five,” I said, repeating it back to her.

Phyllis nodded approvingly as she left the room. Maria looked across the desk at me with an encouraging smile. Maria adored Phyllis but also knew that occasionally, very seldom but once in a long while, Phyllis actually could be wrong.

In spite of that aberration when she expected me to tell someone something I couldn’t have known, it was obvious that Phyllis had a sharp mind, a good business sense, and a phenomenal memory. Sometimes on the road a person would come up to her and say, “Do you remember me?” She would look at him for a moment, then say, “Magic Circle Theater, Sacramento. You were the sound man.”

On days when she was home, she often met friends for lunch. Phyllis had many friends; she went out to lunch a lot.

6

T
he first week Phyllis was back, she had a television taping at ABC. Karen drove the Rolls Royce, and we were barely out of the driveway when Phyllis handed me a contract. She pointed to her signature.

“I want you to learn to write my name,” she said. “I don’t have time to sign everything. I want you to do it for me.”

“Contracts?” I asked.

“Everything.”

I got busy tracing her name, then opened my shorthand notebook to a clean page and started writing “Phyllis Diller.” By the time we got to the studio, I had two pages full. I showed my forgeries to Phyllis.

“Not bad,” she said, “but the
h
doesn’t have a loop and there’s no tail on the
s
. Make the
l
’s a little closer together.”

The guard waved us through and Karen let us off at the back entrance. We hurried through hallways with Phyllis occasionally waving to someone. I was amazed that someone four inches shorter than I could walk so much faster. A quick scurry was her usual pace. Fortunately, Phyllis knew where she was going and in a few minutes we were in her dressing room. I thought I had a good sense of direction, but I was totally turned around. Karen had obviously done this before, since she turned up a few minutes later.

While Karen arranged the costumes and Phyllis got ready for makeup, I realized there was nothing for me to do there.

“Why don’t you go out front and watch?” Phyllis said.

I slipped out onto the set. The mélange of cameras and lights, “grips” (the stagehands who moved the equipment), electricians, script girls, directors, and “gofers” fascinated me. I couldn’t imagine anything coherent emerging from that mayhem.