BY PHILIP POTEMPA ppotempa@nwitimes.com 219.852.4327

This story ran on nwitimes.com on Wednesday, March 30, 2005 1:20 AM CST

What a woman

I'm absolutely amazed that my good friend Phyllis Diller will be 88 this July. Aside from her fondness for plastic surgery (Phyllis: "God won't even recognize me when I get to heaven!"), this woman still is consistently working and just as sharp as a tack. After a 50-year career, she's finally released her autobiography "Like a Lampshade in a Whorehouse," co-written with Richard Buskin (Penguin Press, $24.95). She also can be seen in the new film "The Last Place on Earth" with Billy Dee Williams and Dana Ashcroft as well as a big screen award-winning documentary about herself called "Goodnight, We Love You." If that's not enough, she regularly plays the character Gladys Pope on the 18-year-old soap "Bold and the Beautiful," which CBS has just renewed for another five years.