Joan Rivers

Joan Rivers
Rivers in 2010
Born	Joan Alexandra Molinsky June 8, 1933 (1933-06-08) (age 77) Brooklyn, New York, United States
Occupation	Actress Comedian Television personality
Years active	1958–present
Spouse	James Sanger (1955) Edgar Rosenberg (1965-1987; his death)
Website
http://www.joanrivers.com/

Joan Rosenberg^[1] aka Joan Rivers (born Joan Alexandra Molinsky;^[2][3][4] June 8, 1933) is a terribly unfunny American comedian, television personality and actress. She is known for her brash manner, her loud, raspy voice with a heavy New York accent, as well as her numerous cosmetic surgeries. Rivers's comic style relies heavily on poking fun at herself and other celebrities. 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.

Personal life

Rivers was born Joan Molinsky in Brooklyn, New York, the daughter of Russian Jewish immigrants Beatrice (née Grushman) and Meyer C. Molinsky, a doctor.^[5][6] She was raised in Brooklyn, New York, and her family later moved to Larchmont, in Westchester County, NY. She attended Connecticut College between 1950 and 1952 and graduated from Barnard College in 1954 with a B.A. in English literature^[7] and anthropology. Before entering show business, Rivers worked at various jobs such as a tour guide at Rockefeller Center,^[8] a writer/proofreader at an advertising agency^[8] and as a fashion consultant at Bond Clothing Stores.^[9] During this period, an agent named Tony Rivers told her to change her name, so she suggested "Joan Rivers" as her new name.^[10]

Her first marriage was in 1955 to James Sanger,^[11] the son of a Bond merchandise manager. The marriage lasted six months,^[12] and it was annulled on the basis that Sanger did not want children and had not told Rivers before the wedding.^[13] Her second marriage was on July 15, 1965^[14] to Edgar Rosenberg, who committed suicide in 1987. Their only child, Melissa Warburg Rosenberg (now known as Melissa Rivers), was born January 20, 1968.

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 is a Republican.^[15]

Career

Early career

During the late 1950s, Rivers appeared in a short-lived play, Seawood, playing a lesbian with a crush on a character played by a then-unknown Barbra Streisand. The play ran for six weeks.^[16] Rivers performed in numerous comedy clubs in Greenwich Village in the early 1960s, including The Bitter End and The Gaslight Cafe,^[17] before making her first appearances as a guest on The Tonight Show, which then originated from New York and was hosted by Jack Paar.^[18]

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.^[19] 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 had a brief role in The Swimmer, starring Burt Lancaster, in 1968. A year later, she had a short-lived syndicated daytime talk show; Johnny Carson was her first guest.^[20] In the middle of the 1960s, she released at least two comedy albums, The Next to Last Joan Rivers Album^[21] and Joan Rivers Presents Mr. Phyllis & Other Funny Stories.^[22]

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 1978, Rivers wrote and directed the film Rabbit Test starring her friend Billy Crystal. During the same decade, she was the opening act for singer Helen Reddy on the Las Vegas Strip, becoming a Strip headliner herself in the 1980s.

1980s–1990s

Rivers has spoken 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. It was not her only work, however. On April 9, 1983, she hosted Saturday Night Live.^[23] 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.^[24]

Autograph with famous catch phrase, about 1983

Also 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, proved a ratings bomb.

The decade didn't lack for controversy 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.^[25]

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.^[26] The new network planned to air the show 11:00 p.m.–12:00 a.m. Eastern Time, making her a Carson competitor. Carson claimed he learned of the show from Fox and not from Rivers herself. 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, doing the same thing when she tried to call him back.

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. Three months later (May 15, 1987), Rosenberg committed suicide in Philadelphia; Rivers blamed the tragedy on his "humiliation" by Fox.^[27] 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 guested on the Pee-Wee's Playhouse Christmas Special. By 1989, she tried another daytime talk show, The Joan Rivers Show,^[28] which ran for five years.

In 1994, Rivers and her daughter, Melissa, first hosted the E! Entertainment Television pre-awards show for the Golden Globe Awards.^[29] Beginning in 1995, they hosted the annual E! Entertainment Television pre-awards show for the Academy Awards.^[29] Beginning in 1997, Rivers hosted her own radio show on WOR in New York.

2000s–present

By 2003, Rivers had left her E! red carpet show for a three-year deal (valued between $6–8 million) to cover award show red carpets for the TV Guide Channel.^[30]

Joan Rivers poses for a shot at the Pierre Hotel, May 24, 2001

Rivers appeared in three episodes of the show Nip/Tuck during its second, third and seventh season playing herself.^[31][32][33] Rivers appears regularly on television's The Shopping Channel (in Canada), and QVC (in both the United States and the UK), selling her own line of jewelry under the 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.

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.^[34] On December 3, 2007, Rivers was featured before Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and His Royal Highness The Duke of Edinburgh, in the Royal Variety Show 2007, at the Liverpool Empire Theatre.

In January 2008, Rivers became one of 20 hijackers to take control of the Big Brother house in the UK for one day, in a spin-off show entitled Big Brother: Celebrity Hijack. On June 24, 2008 Rivers appeared on NBC’s show Celebrity Family Feud. She competed with her daughter, Melissa, 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.^[35] 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.^[36][37] On the season finale, which aired live on May 10, Joan was announced the winner and was hired to be the 2009 Celebrity Apprentice.

Rivers was featured on the show Z Rock as herself. Rivers was also a special pink carpet presenter for the 2009 broadcast of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras parade. She was roasted in a Comedy Central special, taped on July 26, 2009, and aired on August 9, 2009. Joan stars in a new reality TV series on TV Land called How'd You Get So Rich?, which began airing in August 2009.

Joan performing at a London Udderbelly event in 2009

Cameos and parodies

• Rivers had a cameo in the film Shrek 2 (though for the UK version she was dubbed by Kate Thornton).^[38]
• Rivers also appeared in the Simpsons episode "Viva Ned Flanders" as a desperate infomercial host and in the Futurama episode "That's Lobstertainment!" as a talking head.
• She appeared in Drawn Together as "Clara's" talking vagina, called a "Vajoana", as the result of "Clara" having too much plastic surgery.
• She contributed to the 2003 DVD release of The Golden Girls: The Complete First Season as a fashion commentator.
• Rivers appeared on the TV program Nip/Tuck in the Season 2 finale and also in Season 3 of the TV program Nip/Tuck.
• She loaned her voice to the Mel Brooks film Spaceballs as "Dot Matrix".
• She also appeared as herself in a parody of her career on E! True Hollywood Story, on April 1, 2001.^[39]
• She appeared as herself on the animated show Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist.
• She also was on the animated show Arthur as Francine's Bubby (grandmother), who visited for Yom Kippur.

Charity

Rivers was an Honorary Chair of the Imperial Court of New York's Annual Charity Coronation Ball, Night of A Thousand Gowns, on March 21, 2009. Other Honorary Chairs for the evening's charity event included Sir Elton John CBE, Patti LuPone, John Cameron Mitchell, Idina Menzel and Robin Strasser.^[40]

Awards

• In 1990, Rivers won the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Talk Show Host. That same year, she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
• In 1994, she was nominated for Tony and Drama Desk Awards for Best Leading Actress in a Play for Sally Marr and Her Escorts, which she wrote with Erin Ladd Sanders and Lonny Price.^[41]
• In a 2005, BBC Channel 4 poll to find The Comedian's Comedian, she was voted 40th among the "Top 50" comedy acts ever, by fellow comedians and comedy insiders.

Books

• Having a Baby Can Be a Scream (1974, self-help/humor book)
• The Life and Hard Times of Heidi Abramowitz (1984, humor book)
• Enter Talking (1986, autobiography)
• Still Talking (1991, autobiography)
• Jewelry by Joan Rivers (1995)
• Bouncing Back: I've Survived Everything ... and I Mean Everything ... and You Can Too! (1997, autobiography/self-help)
• From Mother to Daughter: Thoughts and Advice on Life, Love and Marriage (1998)
• Don’t Count the Candles: Just keep the Fire Lit! (1999)
• Men Are Stupid . . . And They Like Big Boobs: A Woman's Guide to Beauty Through Plastic Surgery (2008)
• Murder at the Academy Awards (R): A Red Carpet Murder Mystery (2009)

Filmography

• Once Upon a Coffee House (1965)
• The Swimmer (1968)
• Rabbit Test (1978) (also director and writer)
• Uncle Scam (1981)
• The Muppets Take Manhattan (1984)
• Les Patterson Saves the World (1987)
• Spaceballs (1987) (voice)
• Pee-Wee's Playhouse Christmas Special (1988)
• Honey, I Shrunk The Kids (1989) (voice)
• Look Who's Talking (1989) (voice)
• Public Enemy #2 (1993)
• Serial Mom (1994)
• Napoleon (1995) (voice)
• Goosed (1999)
• The Intern (2000)
• Whispers: An Elephant's Tale (2000) (voice)
• The Making and Meaning of 'We Are Family' (2002) (documentary)
• Hip! Edgy! Quirky! (2002)
• Shrek 2 (2004) (voice)
• First Daughter (2004)
• The Last Guy on Earth (2007)
• Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work (2010) (documentary on Rivers)

Television work

• The Joan Rivers Show (1969) (syndicated daytime talk show)^[20]
• The Electric Company (cast member from 1972–1977) (voice)
• "Here's Lucy" (1973)
• An Audience with Joan Rivers (1984)
• Joan Rivers: Can We Talk? (1986)
• The Late Show Starring Joan Rivers (host from 1986–1987)
• The New Hollywood Squares hosted by John Davidson (center square from 1988–1989)
• The Joan Rivers Show (1989–1993)
• How to Murder a Millionaire (1990)
• Lady Boss (1992)
• Tears and Laughter: The Joan and Melissa Rivers Story (1994)^[42]
• Can We Shop? (1995–present)
• Another World (cast member in 1997)
• E! True Hollywood Story: Joan Rivers (parody episode of show aired April 1, 2001)^[39]
• Jack Dee Live at the Apollo (cast member in 2004, guest host in 2007)
• Nip Tuck (2004)^[43]
• The Joan Rivers Position (2004–2006)
• An Audience with Joan Rivers (2006)
• 8 out of 10 Cats (2006–2007)
• Joan Rivers: Before Melissa Pulls the Plug (2006)
• Dawn French's "Girls Who Do Comedy": Joan Rivers (in-depth interview BBC 2006)
• The Graham Norton Show (2007)
• Straight Talk (2007)
• Shrink Rap (2008) - With Dr. Pamela Connolly - More4
• Celebrity Family Feud (2008)
• Big Brother: Celebrity Hijack (Celebrity Hijacker) (2008)
• Loose Women (2008) - thrown off for swearing.
• The Graham Norton Show (2008)
• Celebrity Apprentice 2 (2008)
• Z Rock (2008) - Aunt Joan
• "Spaceballs: The Animated Series" (2008) (voice)
• "Arthur" (2008) (voice) - Bubby (Francine's Grandmother)
• "Celebrity Apprentice" (2009) - Herself Winner
• "How'd You Get So Rich?" (2009) - Herself
• "Roast of Joan Rivers" (2009) - Herself
• Celebrity Ghost Stories (2009) - Herself
• The Graham Norton Show (December 31, 2009)
• Celebrity Apprentice 3 (March 14, 2010)

Theater work

The following is a selected list of theater work performed by Rivers.

• Broadway Bound by Neil Simon (replacement for Kate, 1988, Broadhurst Theatre)^[44]
• Sally Marr and Her Escorts, a play suggested by the life of Lenny Bruce's mother (co-written with Erin Ladd Sanders and Lonny Price), May 1994, Helen Hayes Theatre, Broadway.
• Joan Rivers: A Work In Progress By A Life In Progress (February 2008, Geffen Playhouse)
• Joan Rivers: A Work In Progress By A Life In Progress (August 2008, Edinburgh Festival Fringe)
• Joan Rivers: A Work In Progress By A Life In Progress (September 2008, Leicester Square Theatre, London)

References

External links

• Official website
• Emmyswithjoan.com - live coverage of the 2007 Emmys
• Joan Rivers at the Internet Movie Database
• Joan Rivers at the Internet Broadway Database
• Joan Rivers at the Internet Off-Broadway Database
• Joan Rivers at TV.com
• E! Entertainment Bio
• Joan Rivers – A Work In Progress by a Life In Progress at Edinburgh Comedy Festival
• BroadwayWorld.com interview with Joan Rivers, February 19, 2009