Need This Book

R.I.P. Phyllis Diller.

Article found in Titters: The First Collection of Humor by Women (1976).

From the back cover:

A BIT OF GROUCHIANA:

on being single:

As much as Father hates matrimony, he hates being single more. To him, being single represents phoning and dating girls he really has nothing in common with, plus a good deal of actual physical inconvenience, such as calling for them, having to talk to their relatives while waiting for them to finish dressing, and then, after the date, returning them to their homes — provided he can’t persuade them to return to his home.

Hot off the Playboy Press…

From the inside cover:

Honey was Lenny Bruce’s “Shady Lady,” played by Valerie Perrine in the film Lenny. Lenny claimed that out of the 1000 women he had known carnally, she stood apart. She was the only one he would ever admit he loved, and when she left him at the zenith of his career, he was shattered and spent the rest of his life torching for her, struggling to win her back.

What was Honey like? Blindingly, achingly beautiful, she had a long mane of waist-length auburn hair, buttermilk skin, the face of an angel and a luscious, breathtaking body.

And she was a little wild.

At age 17 she was busted for ripping off a gas station and sentenced to a year and a day in Florida State Prison. Released, she crisscrossed North America, working the carnival circuit. Then she became a nightclub singer, then Miami’s No. 1 strip queen, performing under the name “Hot Honey” - and definitely the sizzlingest act in  town.

She was 24 when Lenny met her and tumbled madly in love. Lenny and his “red-haired shiksa goddess” lived in a world of glitter and flash, drugs and sex, of glamor and decadence. And after nine years of it, she split and left Lenny broken and torn.

By the time Lenny died, Honey had her own life. She had gone into boutiques, painting, jewelry design - and deeply into drugs. Beginning a new life at the age of 40, clean of drugs, she has written what is possibly the most shockingly intimate and most frankly erotic woman’s story of even our liberated time.

Speaking of high anxiety…