Making us laugh - Five Women Who Pioneered Comedy

Kim Ramirez, Co-founder and CEO, FactSumo
Mar 30, 2018
6 min read

Undeniably ahead of their time, in an era when men like Bob Hope and Don Rickles dominated the world of comedy, Fanny Brice, Phyllis Diller, Lucille Ball and Joan Rivers were showing the world that women could be hilarious too. Yet even with all of their comical brilliance, the path to stardom would've been that much more difficult without the help of Moms Mabley, a female comedian who was owning the stage decades before her successors. While their styles are all wildly unique, each of the five women showcased below shared the willingness to not give a damn; delivering offensive or even scandalous jokes, wearing crazy outfits and not being afraid to fail have been indispensable tools on their paths to success.

Jackie "Moms" Mabley

Jackie "Moms" Mabley lived up to her nickname by paving the way for future female comedians of the 50s and 60s - she is considered the mother to and first lady of stand up comedy. At a time when racism still ran rampant throughout the nation, a gay African American women funny enough to be featured on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour was shocking to say the least. Mabley's 60 year career in comedy took off in the 20s and 30s while performing her famous "lesbian stand-up" routines. During that time, she also starred in the film The Emperor Jones. Adopting the stage character "Moms" proved to be a brilliant career move for Mabley, as the old, toothless woman with a gravelly voice and dirty mind could get away with saying nearly anything. Moms was so shameless that she probably made entire rooms blush. A few of her classic lines:

"LOVE is like Playing Checkers. You have to know which Man to MOVE."

"Ain't nothin' an ol' man can do but bring me a message from a young one."

"Anytime you see me with my arms around an old man, I'm holding him for the police."

[On being asked how it felt to be married to an old man:] "Honey. I don't know what to say. The best I can explain it, it's just like trying to push a car up a hill with a rope."

Fanny Brice

An initial start as a burlesque performer got Fanny noticed by the famous producer Florenz Ziegfeld Jr., who hired her to headline in his Ziegfeld Follies for nearly 20 years. Although she grew famous performing in the Follies, Brice is mainly remembered for her radio role as the rambunctious toddler Baby Snooks . Snooks and her "Daddy" performed as part of the Good News and Maxwell House Coffee Time shows until they were given their own show titled The Baby Snooks Show in 1948. Brice was said to become the Snooks character so completely that she refused to rehearse prior to air time; instead, she would snap into role with a passion that showed her genuine love of the child character. Brice is personally known for one liners:

"Love is like a card trick. After you know how it works, it's no fun anymore."

"I never liked the men I loved, and never loved the men I liked."

"You think beautiful girls are going to stay in style forever? I should say not! Any minute now they're going to be out! Finished! Then it'll be my turn!"

"I'm a bad woman, but I'm damn good company

Phyllis Diller

Although she didn't get her big break until 1955 at the age of 37, Phyllis Diller was said to make everyone around her laugh from the age of 12. Audiences loved her outlandish character which included ridiculous outfits and clown-like hairstyles; the look set her up to perfectly deliver self-deprecating jokes and share her edgy perspective on domestic life. After an initial stand up act in 1955 turned into 89 weeks of consecutive work, Diller expanded her career into the motion picture and television industries. She was also wildly successful as a voice actress, adding her cackling laugh to animated films such as A Bug's Life. Diller retired from stand-up at the age of 85 but remained active in the world of comedy until her death in 2012. She claimed to have no female role models of her own, yet her style of comedy inspired Joan Rivers, Roseanne Barr, Ellen DeGeneres and others. One could quote hundreds of hilarious Diller one liners, a sampling of which includes:

"I became a stand-up comedienne because I had a sit-down husband."

"You know you're old when someone compliments you on your alligator shoes, and you're barefoot."

"I love to go to the doctor. Where else would a man look at me and say, 'Take off your clothes'?"

"The reason women don't play football is because 11 of them would never wear the same outfit in public."

"Housework can't kill you, but why take a chance?"

Lucille Ball

Named by Time Magazine as one of the "100 Most Important People of the Century", Lucille Ball got her start as a model and continued to thrive in the entertainment world throughout her life. Ball won four Emmys, was voted by TV Guide as the "Greatest TV Star of All Time", and received additional prestigious awards including the Women in Film Crystal Award. Although she starred in a significant number of films, Ball is best known for her performances in the television series I Love Lucy, where she starred with her real life husband at the time. While filming the show in front of live audiences, Ball's performances created periods of laughter so lengthy that the soundtracks had to be edited to abbreviate the cackles. Beyond her incredible ability to make people laugh, Ball had a strikingly positive attitude and sharp business sense. These qualities helped her become the first woman to run a highly successful television studio (Desilu Productions) which was eventually sold to Paramount Pictures in 1967 for $17M (equivalent to $125M today). She is naturally remembered for countless hilarious quotes, yet some of her most famous sayings are uplifting rather than comical in nature. Ball has inspired and entertained for decades with one-liners such as:

"One of the things I learned the hard way was that it doesn't pay to get discouraged. Keeping busy and making optimism a way of life can restore your faith in yourself."

"The secret of staying young is to live honestly, eat slowly, and lie about your age."

"I would rather regret the things that I have done than the things that I have not."

"Now get the hell out of here and go change the world."

"A man who correctly guesses a woman`s age may be smart, but he's not very bright."

Joan Rivers

Joan Rivers lived by her own rules and was said to never regret a single joke she'd ever made. Rivers' style of comedy was gossipy, personal, and extremely satirical, but people loved the way she would "tell it like it is". She was known to joke about topics considered untouchable, from sexuality to the Holocaust and beyond. A guest appearance on The Tonight Show in 1965 transformed her into a star, and from that point forward her face was commonplace on American television. The Joan Rivers Show earned Rivers a Daytime Emmy Award and she received a Grammy for her humorous book Diary of a Mad Diva. In Rolling Stone magazine's list of "50 Best Stand-Up Comedians of All Time", Rivers was ranked sixth; she is also part of the Television Academy Hall of Fame. After her death in 2014, dozens of celebrities and even the political figures she frequently had mocked paid tribute to the significant impact her life had on the nation. Classic Rivers' one liners along with her catchphrase include:

"Can we talk?"

"I've learned to have absolutely no regrets about any jokes I've ever done."

"I've learned to appreciate landmark moments like the Emmy I won in 1990, one of the best moments of my career. Unfortunately, when I went to pawn it, it turned out not to be gold."

"People say that money is not the key to happiness, but I always figured if you have enough money, you can have a key made."

"I hate housework. You make the beds, you do the dishes, and six months later, you have to start all over again."

“The book I wish I’d never written is Joan Rivers’s Pop-Up Guide to Gynecology.”

Article written by Kim Ramirez, Co-founder and CEO, FactSumo.