Joan Alexandra Rosenberg (born
Molinsky; 8 June 1933 – 4 September 2014), known by her stage name
Joan Rivers,
was an American actress, comedian, writer, producer and television
host, best known for her stand-up comedy, for co-hosting the
E! celebrity fashion show
Fashion Police, and for starring in the reality series
Joan & Melissa: Joan Knows Best? alongside her daughter
Melissa Rivers.
Rivers first came to prominence in 1965 as a guest on
The Tonight Show, a pioneering late-night program with interviews and comedy, hosted by
Johnny Carson,
whom she acknowledges as her mentor. The show established her
particular comic style, poking fun at celebrities, but also at herself,
often joking about her extensive plastic surgery. When she launched a
rival program,
The Late Show, he never spoke to her again. She went on to host a successful daytime slot,
The Joan Rivers Show, which won her a
Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Talk Show Host. Her
satirical
style of humor, however, by focusing on the personal lives of
celebrities and public figures, was sometimes criticized. She was also
the author of 12 best-selling
memoir and humor books, as well as providing comic material for stage and television.
On September 4, 2014, Rivers died following serious complications—including
cardiac arrest—that arose during throat surgery at a clinic in
Yorkville on the
Upper East Side of
Manhattan.
Early life and education
Rivers was born Joan Alexandra Molinsky in
Brooklyn, New York in 1933, the daughter of
Russian Jewish
immigrants Beatrice (née Grushman; January 6, 1906 – October 1975) and
Meyer C. Molinsky (December 7, 1900 – January 1985). Her older sister
Barbara died on June 3, 2013, aged 82. She was raised in
Brooklyn, New York, and her family later moved to
Larchmont, in
Westchester County, New York. She attended
Connecticut College between 1950 and 1952 and graduated Phi Beta Kappa from
Barnard College in 1954 with a
Bachelor of Arts degree in English literature
and
anthropology. Before entering show business, Rivers worked at various jobs such as a tour guide at
Rockefeller Center, a writer/proofreader at an advertising agency
and a fashion consultant at
Bond Clothing Stores.During this period, agent Tony Rivers advised her to change her name, so she chose Joan Rivers as her
stage name.
Career
Jim Connell, Jake Holmes and Joan Rivers when they worked as the team: "Jim, Jake & Joan"
1950s–1960s
During the late 1950s, Rivers appeared in a short-run play,
Driftwood, playing a
lesbian with a crush on a character played by a then-unknown
Barbra Streisand. The play ran for six weeks.Rivers performed in numerous comedy clubs in the
Greenwich Village area of New York City in the early 1960s, including
The Bitter End and
The Gaslight Cafe, before making her first appearances as a guest on the TV program
The Tonight Show originating from
New York, hosted at the time by
Jack Paar.
By 1965, Rivers had a stint on
Candid Camera
as a gag writer and participant; she was "the bait" to lure people into
ridiculous situations for the show. She also made her first appearance
on
The Tonight Show with new host
Johnny Carson, on February 17, 1965. During the same decade, Rivers made other appearances on
The Tonight Show as well as
The Ed Sullivan Show, while hosting the first of several talk shows. She wrote material for the puppet
Topo Gigio. She had a brief role in
The Swimmer (1968), starring
Burt Lancaster.
A year later, she had a short-lived syndicated daytime talk show, That
Show with Joan Rivers; Johnny Carson was her first guest. In the middle of the 1960s, she released at least two comedy albums,
The Next to Last Joan Rivers Album and
Rivers Presents Mr. Phyllis & Other Funny Stories.
1970s
By the 1970s, Rivers was appearing on various television comedy and variety shows, including
The Carol Burnett Show and a semi-regular stint on
Hollywood Squares. From 1972 to 1976, she narrated
The Adventures of Letterman, an animated segment for
The Electric Company. In 1973, Rivers wrote the TV movie
The Girl Most Likely to..., a black comedy starring
Stockard Channing. In 1978, Rivers wrote and directed the film
Rabbit Test, starring her friend
Billy Crystal. During the same decade, she was the opening act for singers
Helen Reddy,
Robert Goulet,
Mac Davis and
Sergio Franchi on the
Las Vegas Strip.
1980s–1990s
Rivers spoke of her primary
Tonight Show life as having been
Johnny Carson's daughter, a reference to his longtime mentoring of her
and, during the 1980s, establishing her as his regular guest host by
August 1983. She also hosted an episode of
Saturday Night Live, on April 9, 1983. In the same period, she released a best-selling comedy album on
Geffen Records,
What Becomes a Semi-Legend Most? The album reached No. 22 on the U.S.
Billboard 200 and was nominated for a
Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album.
During the 1980s she continued doing stand-up shows along with
appearing on various television shows. In February 1983, she became the
first female comedian to ever perform at
Carnegie Hall.
Later that year, she did stand-up on the United Kingdom's TV show
An Audience With Joan Rivers.
Rivers in 1967
In 1984, Rivers published a best-selling humor book,
The Life and Hard Times of Heidi Abramowitz, a mock memoir of her brassy, loose comedy character. A television special based on the character, a mock tribute called
Joan Rivers and Friends Salute Heidi Abramowitz, was not successful with the public.
The decade was controversial for Rivers. She sued
female impersonator Frank Marino
for $5,000,000 in 1986, after discovering he was using her real
stand-up material in the impersonation of her that he included in his
popular Las Vegas act. The two comics reconciled, even appearing
together on television in later years.
Also in 1986 came the move that cost Rivers her longtime friendship with Carson, who had first hired her as a
Tonight Show writer. The soon-to-launch
Fox Television Network announced that it was giving her a late night talk show,
The Late Show Starring Joan Rivers, making Rivers the first woman to have her own talk show.
The new network planned to broadcast the show 11:00 p.m. to 12:00 a.m.
Eastern Time, making her a Carson competitor. Carson learned of the show from Fox and not from Rivers herself. In the documentary
Johnny Carson: King of Late Night,
Rivers said she only called Carson to discuss the matter after learning
he may have already heard about it, and that he immediately hung up on
her. In the same interview, she said that she later came to believe that
maybe she should have asked for his blessing before taking the job.
Rivers was banned from appearing on the
Tonight Show, a decision respected by Carson's first two successors
Jay Leno and
Conan O'Brien.
After the release of his 2013 biography on Johnny Carson, Carson's
manager Harry Bushkin revealed that he never received a call from
Rivers's husband Edgar concerning the move to Fox, against Rivers's
prior knowledge.
Rivers did not appear on the
Tonight Show again until February 17, 2014, when she made a brief appearance on new host
Jimmy Fallon's first episode. On March 27, 2014, Rivers returned for an interview.
Shortly after Carson's death in 2005, Rivers said that he never spoke to her again. In 2008, during an interview with Dr.
Pamela Connolly on television's
Shrink Rap, Rivers claimed she did call Carson, but he hung up on her at once and repeated the gesture when she called again.
The Late Show Starring Joan Rivers turned out to be flecked by tragedy. When Rivers challenged Fox executives, who wanted to fire her husband
Edgar Rosenberg
as the show's producer, the network fired them both. On May 15, 1987,
three months later, Rosenberg committed suicide in Philadelphia; Rivers
blamed the tragedy on his "humiliation" by Fox. Fox attempted to continue the show with a new name (
The Late Show) and rotating guest hosts. A year after the
Late Show debacle, Rivers was a guest on TV's
Pee-wee's Playhouse Christmas Special. By 1989, she tried another daytime TV talk show,
The Joan Rivers Show,
which ran for five years and won her an
Daytime Emmy in 1990 for Outstanding Talk Show Host. In 1994, Rivers and daughter
Melissa first hosted the
E! Entertainment Television pre-awards show for the
Golden Globe Awards. Beginning in 1995, they hosted the annual
E! Entertainment Television pre-awards show for the
Academy Awards.
Beginning in 1997, Rivers hosted her own radio show on
WOR in
New York City. Rivers also appeared as one of the center square occupants on the 1986–89 version of
The Hollywood Squares, hosted by John Davidson.
In 1994, Rivers—who was influenced by the "dirty comedy" of
Lenny Bruce—co-wrote and starred in a play about Bruce's mother
Sally Marr, who was also a
stand-up comic
and influenced her son's development as a comic. After 27 previews,
"Sally Marr...and Her Escorts," a play "suggested by the life of Sally
Marr" ran on Broadway for 50 performances in May and June 1994. Rivers was nominated for a
Drama Desk Award as Outstanding Actress in a Play and a
Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for playing Sally Marr.
2000s–2010s
By 2003, Rivers had left her
E! red-carpet show for a three-year contract (valued at $6–8 million) to cover award shows' red carpet events for the
TV Guide Channel
Rivers appeared in three episodes of the TV show
Nip/Tuck during its
second,
third and
seventh season playing herself. Rivers appears regularly on television's
The Shopping Channel (in Canada) and
QVC
(in both the United States and the UK), promoting her own line of
jewelry under brand name "The Joan Rivers Collection". She was also a
guest speaker at the opening of the American Operating Room Nurses' 2000
San Francisco Conference. Both Joan and Melissa Rivers are frequent
guests on
Howard Stern's radio show, and Joan Rivers often appears as a guest on UK panel show
8 Out of 10 Cats.
Rivers was one of only four Americans invited to the
Wedding of Charles, Prince of Wales, and Camilla Parker Bowles on April 9, 2005.
On August 16, 2007, Rivers began a two-week workshop of her new play,
with the working title "The Joan Rivers Theatre Project", at The Magic
Theatre in
San Francisco.
[39] On December 3, 2007, Rivers performed in the Royal Variety Show 2007 at the
Liverpool Empire Theatre, England, with
Queen Elizabeth II and
Prince Philip present.
In January 2008, Rivers became one of 20 hijackers to take control of the
Big Brother house in the UK for one day in spin-off TV show
Big Brother: Celebrity Hijack. On June 24, 2008, Rivers appeared on NBC-TV’s show
Celebrity Family Feud and competed with her daughter against
Ice-T and
Coco.
Rivers and daughter Melissa were contestants in 2009 on the second
Celebrity Apprentice. Throughout the season, each celebrity raised money for a charity of his or her choice; Rivers selected God's Love We Deliver. After a
falling out with poker player
Annie Duke, following Melissa's on-air firing (elimination) by Donald Trump, Rivers left the
green room telling
Clint Black and
Jesse James
that she would not be in the next morning. Rivers later returned to the
show and on May 3, 2009, she became a finalist in the series. The other
finalist was Duke. On the season finale, which aired live on May 10, Rivers was announced
the winner and hired to be the 2009 Celebrity Apprentice.
Rivers was featured on the show
Z Rock as herself and was also a special so-called pink-carpet presenter for the 2009 broadcast of the
Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras parade. She was also
roasted in a
Comedy Central special, taped on July 26, 2009, and aired on August 9, 2009. From August 2009, Rivers began starring in the new reality TV series
How'd You Get So Rich? on
TV Land. A
documentary film about Rivers,
Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work, premiered at the
San Francisco International Film Festival at the
Castro Theatre on May 6, 2010. In 2011, Rivers appeared in a commercial for
Go Daddy, which debuted during the broadcast of
Super Bowl XLV. She made two appearances on Live at the Apollo, once as a comedian and once as a guest host.
Rivers performing at a London
Udderbelly event in May 2009
Joan and her daughter Melissa Rivers premiered the new show
Joan & Melissa: Joan Knows Best? on
WE tv.
The series follows Joan moving to California to be closer to her
family. She moves in with daughter Melissa while searching for a home of
her own. WE tv then ordered a new season consisting of 10 episodes,
which premiered in January 2012. In 2011, Rivers was featured as herself
in Season 2 of
Louis C.K.'s self-titled show
Louie, where she performed on-stage. From September 10, 2010, Rivers co-hosted the
E! show
Fashion Police, along with
Giuliana Rancic,
Kelly Osbourne and
George Kotsiopoulos
commenting on the dos and don'ts of celebrity fashion. The show started
as a half-hour program, but expanded to one hour on March 9, 2012. On
August 7, 2012, Rivers showed up in
Burbank, California to protest that the warehouse-club
Costco would not sell her
New York Times best-selling book,
I Hate Everyone ... Starting with Me. She handcuffed herself to a person's shopping cart and shouted through a
megaphone. The police were called to the scene and she left without incident and no arrests were made.
On March 5, 2013, Joan launched a new online talk show called
In Bed with Joan
through YouTube, in which each week she had a different celebrity guest
that "came out of the closet" and they talked about various topics. The
show took place in Joan's bedroom, in Melissa's house in
Malibu, California.
On August 26, 2014, Rivers hosted a taping of
Fashion Police with
Kelly Osbourne,
Giuliana Rancic, and
George Kotsiopoulos about the
66th Primetime Emmy Awards and the
2014 MTV Movie Awards which would be her last television appearance before her incident.
The day before her throat surgery, she released her most recent podcast of
In Bed with Joan with
LeAnn Rimes and
Eddie Cibrian.
Her style of humor, which often relied on making jokes about her own life and
satirizing the lives of celebrities and public figures, was sometimes criticized for being insensitive. Her jokes about
Elizabeth Taylor's and
Adele's weight, for instance, were often commented on, although she would never apologize for her humor.
Rivers, who is Jewish, was also criticized for making jokes about the
Holocaust,
and later explained, "This is the way I remind people about the
Holocaust. I do it through humor," adding, "my husband lost his entire
family in the Holocaust." Her joke about the victims of the
Ariel Castro kidnappings, similarly came under criticism, but she again refused to apologize, stating, "I know what those girls went through. It was a little stupid joke."
Rivers accepts such criticism as part of her using social
satire
as a form of humor: "I've learned to have absolutely no regrets about
any jokes I've ever done. . . You can tune me out, you can click me off,
it's OK. I am not going to bow to
political correctness. But you do have to learn, if you want to be a satirist, you can't be part of the party."
Personal life
Rivers was a member of the Reform synagogue
Temple Emanu-El in New York, and stated publicly that she "love[d] Israel".
Rivers's first marriage was in 1955 to James Sanger,
the son of a
Bond Clothing Stores merchandise manager. The marriage lasted six months
and was annulled on the basis that Sanger did not want children and had not informed Rivers before the wedding. Her second marriage was on July 15, 1965,
to
Edgar Rosenberg, who committed suicide in 1987. Their only child, Melissa Warburg Rosenberg (now known as
Melissa Rivers), was born on January 20, 1968. She had one grandson, Melissa's son Cooper (born Edgar Cooper Endicott in 2000) who is featured with his mother and grandmother in the
WE tv series
Joan & Melissa: Joan Knows Best?
In her book,
Bouncing Back (1997), she described how she developed
bulimia and contemplated suicide. Eventually, she recovered with counseling and the support of her family. In 2002, Rivers told the
Montreal Mirror that she was a
Republican. However, on a 2013 episode of
Celebrity Wife Swap, Rivers stated that she was a
Democrat. Then on January 28, 2014, during a conversation with Reza Farahan she announced that she was in fact a Republican.
In a June 5, 2012, interview with
Howard Stern,
Rivers said she had several extramarital affairs when married to
Rosenberg. According to Rivers, she had a one-night sexual encounter
with actor
Robert Mitchum in the 1960s after an appearance together on
The Tonight Show. She also had an extended affair with actor
Gabriel Dell during the out-of-town and Broadway productions of her play,
Fun City, in 1971, for which Rivers told Stern she "left Edgar over" for several weeks.
Rivers was open about her multiple cosmetic surgeries, and was a patient of plastic surgeon
Steven Hoefflin beginning in 1983. Her first procedure, an
eye lift, was performed in 1965 as an attempt to further her career.
Death
On August 28, 2014, Rivers experienced serious complications—including stopping breathing—during throat surgery at a clinic in
Yorkville, Manhattan.She was taken to
Mount Sinai Hospital and was put into a
medically induced coma after reportedly entering
cardiac arrest. On August 29, her daughter, Melissa, publicly stated that she was "resting comfortably" in the hospital.
On August 30, it was reported Rivers had been put on
life support.
Reports initially stated that Rivers' family might face ending her life support if her condition did not improve.
However, on September 1, 2014, an unnamed source told
Entertainment Tonight that Rivers' physicians at Mount Sinai Hospital had started the process of trying to bring her out of the coma on August 31.
Prior to that, there had been no further medical updates beyond her
daughter's statement. On September 3, Melissa Rivers issued a brief
statement that Rivers had been moved from Mount Sinai Hospital's
ICU into a private room, without any comment concerning Rivers's condition or
prognosis.
The following day, September 4, 2014, Melissa announced via another statement that Rivers had died at the age of 81 at 1:17 p.m.
