We recently had the opportunity to have an exclusive interview with D’yan Forest. We had the chance to discuss her life, career and some upcoming events. D’yan is an extremely versatile artist; she is an actress and comedian who has entertained all over the world, especially in New York and Paris. She is currently preparing for more upcoming shows in 2023. She has a unique style of comedy that is very entertaining on both the live stage and screen.
D’yan has developed her craft as a performer at all stages throughout her life. She started performing recitals in her living room in Boston at the age of four. She learned how to play instruments including the ukulele that she often incorporates into her comedy. She gained a lot of performance experience as a student at Cite Universitaire de Paris as she made appearances at cafes and clubs in France. Her work became an international act as she continued to make appearances both within the States and various European countries.
At the age of 88, D’yan holds the Guinness World Record for Oldest Female Comedian. She continues to share her comedy with the world and she is an inspiration to so many performers and audiences. She has two popular one-woman shows, I Married a Nun and Swinging on the Seine. She also published a memoir entitled I Did it My Ways.
Interview
Arts Tribune: You were recently recognized by the Guinness World Records as the oldest working female comedian in the world. What does this honor mean to you?
D’yan: When I was doing Joe’s Pub in July, my writer in Paris said we ought to join the Guinness Book of Records because I guess it’s a big thing in England and all that. I said, “Don’t bother.” But we went and did it. We had to put names, birth dates and -I’ve changed my name a couple of times-the history. And it was a big pain. And I said to him, “We’ll never get it.” I was going to be performing July 31st and I needed it for advertisement. And finally, finally they said, “Oh, we’re looking at it.” And then they said, “Oh, if you want it quickly, send us $600.” Can you believe it? So of course, I ran right down to HSBC, switched my money from one account to theirs, and within a week I got it. And I thought, “Hooray!” I have it framed. I bring it on stage after the shows and people are so impressed. And all I had to do was get old. That was all. I didn’t think it was going to mean a lot. You know, I don’t hear that much about it. But it impresses people. Well, it impresses me. I’m beginning to be impressed by myself. I’m doing the show in French tonight. I show it to people and they just love it. You know, the irony of it. They put my real name on it, which is Diana Shulman. So,it says “Diana Shulman” in the Guinness book reference. Can you believe it?
Arts Tribune: I can see how it can be. The whole process being surprising. It is something that is very impressive. I’m impressed as well. I remember being raised in the 90s and the Guinness Book of World Records was in all my classrooms as a kid. We used to just go through it to see who’s ranked for what. So it’s a big deal.
D’yan: Yeah, I had to do all this stuff and I had to look up old pictures of my parents and everything. So, it was work…where did you grow up? In my schools and my era, it was never mentioned.
Arts Tribune: I grew up in St. Louis, Missouri. In Saint Louis County, the middle of the country. And the Guinness Book of World Records was a big thing to us.
D’yan: No kidding. Well, now it’s a big thing to me. Yes, because I walk on stage and they all like it. And it helps the whole show, thank God.
Arts Tribune: What has inspired you to become a comedian? Was there someone or an event that you experienced that inspired you to go into comedy?
D’yan: Yeah, well, you know, I’m old and I would see Bob Hope and Jack Benny and I didn’t even know what comedy was because it was just on the television or radio. And so I was a singer. I was a French chanteuse. Everybody believed I was French, and I made a living as that. But what happened was 9/11 and I was still doing private parties and all that. I guess it was 20, 21 years ago. All us musicians were out of work. The golf clubs weren’t having pianist and vocalists and all that. And I didn’t know what to do. And I had a girlfriend who, when I played the piano at these clubs or anything, sometimes I dropped my cards, which were the cheating cards of the words from what anybody asked me to sing. And she said, “You’re like, Victor Borger.” I said, “What?” So, I listened to Victor Borger, and I said, “Yeah, I could do that.” And so after 9/11, I played golf with Caroline, who owns Caroline’s Comedy Club. I said, “How do I get into comedy?” Because I wanted to perform. And so she got me in touch with the production guy. And then I started learning and performing. And it’s all because of 9/11. And then I started looking at all these comedians from the old days and Joan Rivers. And I said, “Oh, my goodness, that’s what you’re doing.” Stand up. So it was a big surprise to me. A big surprise.
Arts Tribune: When it comes to your work in television, you’ve worked a little bit with SNL and Comedy Central. How did it feel brining comedy to television? Do you have a favorite comedic scene from your work in TV?
D’yan: With the work in TV, I just do a little schtick, a little part of the comedy. So, I can’t really say it. I’m aiming to be like Joan Rivers. I have her type and I try to bring that on TV, that type of comedy.
Arts Tribune: One person that really interests me in television, I’ve been obsessed with for 20 or 30 years now, is Lucille Ball. I was wondering if you liked her? I watched re-runs of I Love Lucy every night on Nick-at-Nite as a kid, and I loved it. I thought she was so funny.
D’yan: And I still watch it. But the problem is on TV she “overdid it.” And because I’ve been an actress, I overdo it. So, when I am on the TV or film they say, “calm down.” And that’s not my thing to just be calm, you know? She’s fantastic. And I still watch her and Jackie Gleason. I mean, they were crazy.
Arts Tribune: In preparation for today, I watched her interview with Johnny Carson on the Tonight Show because I’ve never seen it. I’m sure she’s appeared many times on that show but it’s all new to me. So, I was wondering if there was a connection-which there is, which is wonderful. Speaking of productions and shows, you’ve got a variety of things coming up including your first one-woman show, I Married a Nun?
D’yan: Yes, I started about eight years ago or so. I was doing stand up. But I have so much to tell. I just wanted to tell my story. So, in I Married a Nun, I was very upset that the nun had left me. So, that’s how we got the show together. And that was the theme of it. It was one of my best shows, believe it or not, because people are interested in that she was an ex-nun and her daughter married us one day in the bedroom. And this is before marriage was even thought of. So, that’s how it started and it was a huge success.
Arts Tribune: You also have a book entitled I Did it My Ways. I was curious about the writing process. Was it overwhelming? Was it something that was a good experience? And did it bring back some good experiences in your life and career?
D’yan: You asked the right question. To do my shtick in comedy, I have all these stories. Then you have to put a punchline in the stories. Some time I would have a comedy person help me to make the punchline, because that’s what makes comedy good. And I got a following in Paris when I was performing there because I do the funny songs on my ukulele. And to do that in French, you have to know French slang. And so I met this fellow at one of the comedy clubs who’s a writer, and he was able to translate my songs into French slang, and it worked. So, I worked with him for two years because I was living in Paris a couple of years ago. So, I have all these vignettes. I wanted to write a book because it seems to be interesting, when I talk to people. And he said, “Oh, I don’t have any time for that” because he’s a big writer. He’s Stephen Clarke in Britain and in Paris, he’s English, but he lives in Paris. I don’t have time. So, two years ago before COVID, there was a subway strike. And so it was always hard getting around in Paris. And I had asked him the week before, “Hey, you want to? I need somebody to help me write. I have the stories. I don’t know how to put them together.” So, finally we were meeting the day before going home. He said, “All right, I’ll help you write your book.” I said, What?” “Oh, but it’s going to cost you a lot of money” he added. Well, compared to American writers, it was nothing. So, I said, “Sure.” Then I started sending vignettes and COVID happened. And so then I had to go from New York City out to Southampton, and every day I’d play a little golf and then I would write a vignette and this is how I got it done and send it to him because of COVID. I was all alone in my little condo going crazy after golf and that I had to do it. What else was I going to do? And it worked. And even in the summertime, when I was up in Maine, he said, “I have to hear about your parents deaths.” I said, “I’m in Maine playing golf. I’m having fun.” So, that was an example. Here in the middle of the summer, I had to write about my parents and their deaths and then to bring up all this stuff with marrying the nun and et cetera and all the heartbreaks. It was very, very hard. But I did it because what have I got to lose, you know, with being open about my life? Maybe it’s interesting to people. So, I did the audio book last year. And I’m reading this stuff that I had read, let’s say, for six months, and I said, “Oh my God, I wrote that.” I was shocked. But you see it in the middle of COVID. I just let it go and wrote everything. So, it was a very hard process. And then when my writer put it together, it was 75 pages. I said, “Stephen, that’s a pamphlet, not a book.”
Arts Tribune: Very true.
D’yan: So, a friend of mine who has written books put me in touch with a woman in Oregon, and I sent it to her and I said, “Can you help me make this a little better?” Because, of course, friends thought it was great, but I didn’t know. So in two weeks, she came back with 20 pages for only 200 bucks and a 20-page review of the book. I couldn’t believe it. And so she said, “You have to have lots of more conversation in it and you have to have lots of more emotion in it.” So, I was afraid to tell Stephen that I’d had somebody else look at the book and I waited two weeks because he’s sort of, you know, a diva. And so finally I got the guts up to call him. He’s in Paris. And I told him somebody said that we could have more conversation. He loved it. He said, “Oh, I’ll get right away.” And so he put a lot of conversation in the book. And what was amazing is I talked to him for two years, going to shows with him or whatever and tell him about my parents and my life. And when he added the conversation in the book he caught-he never knew my parents-I mean, they’re dead 30 years. He caught their style of talking. He caught all the people’s personalities. I mean, he helped make the book into 165 pages. So, it was very hard for me because I know nothing about writing books. So, thank God I had him. I want to write another book but I don’t know what to do.
Arts Tribune: You will be performing live at the Gotham Comedy Club on January 18th, 20th, 23rd and 30th?
D’yan: Yes, and then I have five dates in February to March at the Kraine Theatre for the FRIGID New York Fringe Festival (Feb. 18th at 6:40pm, Feb. 22nd at 7:10pm, Feb. 26th at 3:20pm, March 1st at 7:10pm and March 5th at 5:00pm).
Arts Tribune: You’ll be performing Swinging on the Seine, which is another one-woman show?
D’yan: That’s the one-woman show I did at Joe’s Pub. But besides Paris, Joe’s Pub was the only time I did the whole show. So, the people in the summer came, but now I’m going to do it again and I’ve cut it down and added to it to do it at the Kraine Theatre, a lot of people never got to see it because they were on vacation. Plus, with all your advertising, of course, a lot of people will come.
Arts Tribune: Do you know what comes after that? Like, are you are you booked for the rest of the year or is it like, okay, I’ll do the festival and then I’ll take my time and I’ll come up a with new routine?
D’yan: May 2nd, Joe’s pub has asked me back. And I’m doing a whole new show, and I’m going to call it I Did it My Ways. In other words, it’s going to be a lot more of what I said in the book. The Swinging on the Seine is about having fun and Paris, etc. but the book has a lot more and I’m going to put it in the show. And also I just came back from Berlin. Besides being a comedian, I’m very interested in the Holocaust because all my family in Riga, Latvia were decimated during the time. I don’t have any cousins in Europe, so I’ve been very interested. I’ve been to 10 concentration camps. I’m going to put-I don’t know how to do it-in the show, but we’re going to do it where it’s going to be a little serious. And because I just came back from Berlin and I saw a memorial just 10 minutes from that big city of Berlin where all the Jews were put in the cattle cars and shipped to Auschwitz-10 minutes from the center of Berlin. To me it’s mind blowing and I feel I’m not going to be sad about this, but just a little of it will be in the show.
Arts Tribune: The new show sounds great. Is it completely written yet or are you still writing it?
D’yan: I’m writing it now and choosing what will be best from the book. Even when in Paris, people say, “Oh, that’s funny, that’s funny. You know, do it, you know?” So that’s how I learn what is interesting to people.
Arts Tribune:I find this new show interesting. I love the fact that you’re doing comedy based on the book and you’re going to have a dose of reality in it as well. I mean, I think there’s been a lot of people who have been in the public eye who’ve been anti-Semitic lately. There’s been a lot of that. And I think that comedy could be a way to help educate people who come to see it about the seriousness of it and how significant it is and was.
D’yan: Joan Rivers put it in.
Arts Tribune: Her comedy. That’s so true.
D’yan: And I would get shocked about what she would say. But the guy I’m working with in Paris, he puts his in comedy in French now. So maybe this is what’s coming to be in the forefront. Thank you for agreeing, because a lot of people are a little shocked. But I feel the world should know.
Arts Tribune: I do, too. And just having a little bit of that in there, like you said, I think it’s going to make a big difference.