Received her first national exposure as a contestant on the Groucho Marx show "You Bet Your Life" (1950). She appeared on 30 January 1958 (Season 7, Episode 19).
Received the Women's International Center (WIC) Living Legacy Award in 1990.
Retired from stand-up routine in 2002, due to ill health: She was 84 at the time! Continued to lend her voice to animated characters in movies.
She describes her comedy as "tragedy revisited."
She had a total of six children, though only three are still living as at July 2006, including youngest son Perry Diller who has appeared in at least two TV documentaries on his mother.
Studied at Chicago's Sherwood Music Conservatory for three years before eloping with Sherwood Anderson Diller in 1939.
The cigarette with holder that she was famous for using in her stand-up routines in the 1960s and 1970s was only a prop for the act. She is a life-long non-smoker.
Was a housewife in San Francisco suburb with five children and an under-employed husband who eventually convinced her to make money with the talent she regularly displayed in PTA skits.
Was a participant in many of Dean Martin's "Celebrity Roasts".
Worked as a copywriter before becoming a comedian.