Phyllis Diller

Phyllis Diller made her stand-up debut at San Francisco's Purple Onion on 7 March 1955, a few months short of her 38th birthday, and was held over for well over a year. Her weapon was the self-mocking one-liner fired at speed: the fright wig, the cackle and the long-suffering husband she called Fang turned domestic misery into a headline act, and showed that a woman could carry a club bill on volume of jokes alone. Recommended recording: Wet Toe in a Hot Socket!, her 1959 debut, recorded live at New York's Bon Soir and now mostly found on second-hand vinyl. For something easier to hear, her 1969 Ed Sullivan Show set has been issued digitally as Stand-up About Her Looks.