Are you planning a holiday party this year? If so, it’ll be hard to top what San Quentin State Prison did in the late 1960s. According to San Quentin, Established 1852: 150th Anniversary Commemorative Book, the prison asked the late comedienne Phyllis Diller to entertain at their annual New Year’s Show. And, as this photo attests, attired in her trademark dress and boots, Diller gave a show that had inmates rolling in laughter. Then on June 4, 1969, singer Johnny Cash not only performed at the Marin institution, but had his performance recorded and the album Johnny Cash Live at San Quentin quickly replaced Johnny Cash at Folsom State Prison at the top of Billboard’s album chart. And yes, that’s where his song, “A Boy Named Sue,” pardon the pun, brought down the house.
Over the years, according to sources, such notables as Muhammad Ali, Clint Eastwood, Mother Teresa, Rev. Billy Graham and the crew of 60 Minutes appeared within San Quentin’s guarded gates. The notoriously self-deprecating Diller started her career in the Bay Area in 1952 with a television show called Phyllis Diller, the Homely Friendmaker. According to her obituary, she passed away peacefully in her sleep at age 95 in Los Angeles on Aug. 20, 2012, “with a smile on her face.” Singer/songwriter Cash died from complications of diabetes on Sept. 12, 2003. He was 71 and was buried in Nashville, Tennessee, in a grave next to his wife June Carter Cash who’d died four months earlier.
San Quentin, the oldest prison in California, is a minimum to maximum security prison with capacity for 3,082 inmates (often exceeded). The prison has its own newspaper, a drama department and several vocational training programs.
