DILLER CLAIMS PIONEER LABEL

Who was America’s first funny girl?

“I was. I was absolutely the first woman to do stand-up comedy,” Phyllis Diller said in an interview from Los Angeles. “When I started in 1955, there were no women stand-up comics.

“And I guess I was the first women’s libber too--although there wasn’t any such thing as a women’ movement at the time. But I was always bitching about housework then, and telling women to forget about it.

“I was ahead of my time on the hairdos, and the boots too. The whole thing (bizarre, mismatched clothes and porcupine hair) is in now.

“When I wore those weird outfits, I was making fun of fashion-- haute couture . You know the real couture look is exaggerated and ugly. The minute a fashion is no longer ugly, it’s no longer in.” The offstage Diller is a far cry from the unkempt caricature people have laughed at on stage and television for more than 30 years. And she’s quick to admit, “I really like to look chic. I’ve always loved to wear fashionable clothes.”

The 68-year-old comedienne had just returned from London the night before, but she was already gearing up for another full schedule of performing. This time, it would be an eight-concert run at the Fiesta Dinner Theatre, which began Wednesday and continues nonstop through Sunday--with shows at 7 and 10 p.m. today and Saturday, and a 2 p.m. matinee and 7 p.m. performance Sunday.

Diller’s famous battle cry for the harried housewife is no longer part of her repertoire, but she’ll rattle off the routine with a little prodding.

“I’m 18 years behind in my ironing, and I’ve run out of space to put it. First I refrigerated it. Then I froze it. Then I buried it in the backyard. Now I put it in a capsule and send it out to outer space,” said Diller, breaking into the hearty laugh that has become her trademark.

“I don’t use those kind of jokes now,” she said. “Now we have wash and wear. Anyway, wrinkles are in. That’s the way you can tell it’s real fabric. Nobody irons any more. It’s boring.”

What’s funny to Phyllis Diller these days?

“I go through periods. Now I’m in my white Tina Turner period. I’ve always loved wigs, so I wear a wild white wig. I stay current, and I keep changing my act. But all I work for is laughs. No message. I just get a lot of laughs.”

Fang, the brunt of Diller’s funniest jokes over the years, is still taking it on the chin today--and audiences can’t get enough of him.

“Everyone loves Fang,” she said. “The women love him because they can relate to him, and the men love him because he makes them all look good. Fang is a loser. We’re talking real losers here,” she stressed, punctuating the point with another guffaw.

Although Diller refers to Fang as her husband in those cockeyed monologues, he’s really a fictional character that just sprang to life in a moment of inspiration.

“I was reaching one night--trying to get new material--and Fang was born while I was just sort of improvising. I had two real husbands, and some of them are in Fang, but he’s really not any particular person.”

Although Diller doesn’t write all the material she uses in her act, she does contribute about 60% of what she delivers on stage. And she maintains a frenetic pace between her concert and cable television work.

“People don’t realize how often I’m on television because it’s so hard to keep up with all the cable television,” she said. “But now prime-time variety shows are coming back. Merv Griffin is getting ready to do a variety show, and I’m sure I’ll be doing more of that kind of thing. I think it’s a cycle, and it’s ready to come around again.”

She has a loyal following in San Diego.

“I did the Circus of the Stars at Sea World maybe two years ago, and I worked at Fiesta (last year). I did the final night of the Old Globe’s week of comedy,” she said. That was the San Diego Comedy Festival in 1983.

“That was a perfect thing to do,” Diller said. “All the comics came down here for that. I even did an hour video for a group of doctors and plastic surgeons in San Diego.”

Commenting on her part in the video, Diller, who has had two face lifts, quipped, “I’m not just a satisfied customer, I’m a walking billboard.”

Stand-up comedy is only one of this zany lady’s strengths. She has written books, including “Phyllis Diller’s Housekeeping Hints” (with tongue planted firmly in cheek). And she has appeared as piano soloist with 100 symphony orchestras around the country, including the Pittsburgh and the San Francisco symphonies. Diller was billed as Dame Illya Dillya for her symphony engagements, but she insists that her keyboard antics were serious. (Diller played piano and clowned around during those concerts--but never simultaneously.)

What’s next? Perhaps a stint as a TV talk show host like the one Joan Rivers just hatched?

“Could be,” she answered coyly. “We’re having meetings about that right now. Maybe my day will come.”