(Newser)
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Iconic funnywoman Phyllis Diller has died in her Los Angeles home at the age of 95, reports TMZ. The trailblazing comedienne who rose to fame alongside Bob Hope had been in hospice care following a recent fall in which she injured her wrist and hip. “Phyllis Diller passed away peacefully in her sleep at 9:30am PT," her manager tells CNN. "Her son, Perry, found her with a smile on her face.”
“She was a true pioneer,” Diller’s agent tells Entertainment Weekly. “She was the first lady of stand up comedy. She paved the way for everybody." Diller mastered the art of self-deprecation, poking fun at her looks (“I love to go to the doctor. Where else would a man look at me and say, ‘Take off your clothes'?”) or her housekeeping prowess ("The only thing domestic about me is that I was born in this country"). But for a generation of female comics, she was it: “To a lot of us she was better than Bob Hope,” says Roseanne Barr.
