Active as an entertainer since the 1950s, Joan Rivers is one of the longest lasting stand-up comedians who has come to be known for her loud New York accent and her various cosmetic surgeries. With her self-deprecating humor and her knack for poking fun at other celebrities, she spent the 1960s and 1970s on the stand up circuit, making frequent appearances on television shows such as The Tonight Show and The Ed Sullivan Show. In the mid 1980s she became a competitor of her longtime mentor Johnny Carson when she received her own late night talk show. Though the show was a flop that ended in a great personal tragedy for Rivers, she rebounded by returning to television, this time with her daughter Melissa for the E! Entertainment Golden Globes pre-show. Her raspy New Yorker voice has since become her trade mark on various red carpet fashion critique shows.