Joan Rivers

At 81 years old, Joan Rivers has this physical status:

Joan Alexandra Molinsky (June 8, 1933 – September 4, 2014), also known as Joan Rivers, was an American comedian, writer, producer, and television presenter.

She was known for her often ambiguous comedic persona, both self-deprecating and acerbic, especially towards celebrities and politicians. As a guest on The Tonight Show, rivers came to prominence in 1965.

The show was hosted by her mentor, Johnny Carson, and established Rivers' comedic style.

Rivers, Joan Rivers, Rivers, 1986, when she had an affair with her own, became the first woman to host a late night television talk show.

She hosted The Joan Rivers Show (1989–1993), receiving a Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Talk Show Host.

She began earning acclaim from her comedic red carpet appearances, and in 2009, she was crowned the Celebrity Apprentice.

Rivers co-hosted the E!

Fashion Police from 2010 to 2014, a celebrity fashion show on television, Joan & Melissa: Joan Knows Best? Melissa Rivers, a daughter of 2011-2014, will be reunited with her daughter Melissa Rivers.

Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work (2010). Rivers wrote 12 best-selling books and three LP comedy albums under her own name, including Mr. Phyllis And Other Funny Tales (Buddah 1969), and What Makes A Semi-Legend The Next To Last Joan Rivers is a cable television show on the QVC shopping channel. (Geffen 1983)

She was nominated for a Grammy Award in 1984 for her album "What Becomes a Semi-Legend Most?" And was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play in 1994 for her role in Sally Marr and Her Escorts.

Rivers won a Grammy Award for her book, Diary of a Mad Diva, in 1968. Jack Gould, a New York Times television commentator, said, "quite possibly the most wittily funny woman alive."

Rolling Stone magazine named her sixth on its list of the top stand-up comedians of all time in 2017, and in October the same year, she was inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame.

Early life

Beatrice (née Grushman) and Meyer C. Molinsky, a doctor, were born in Brooklyn, New York, on June 8, 1933. Barbara Waxler, Barbara Waxler, was her elder sister. Rivers spent her youth in Prospect Heights and Crown Heights, Brooklyn, where she attended Brooklyn Ethical Culture School and Adelphi Academy of Brooklyn, a Brooklyn preparatory day school, where she served as co-chairman of her school due to her previous involvement in theater. She appeared in the School Cavalcades for two years, and in 1949, she was vice president of the Dramatic Club at the age of 16. She graduated from the Adelphi Academy of Brooklyn in 1951 at the age of 18. Rivers and her family were moved to Larchmont, north of New York City, in their adolescence. Rivers confessed to being overweight throughout her childhood and adolescence, and that it had a major effect on her body image, something she would deal with throughout her life.

She studied at Connecticut College for two years before transferring to Barnard College, where she earned a bachelor's degree in English literature and anthropology in 1954. She often said, and it was announced, that she had graduated summa cum lauded and as a member of Phi Beta Kappa; however, her biographer discovered that these were fabrications, as well as other details such as revealing a lesbian kiss in a play with Barbra Streisand (they did not both appear in a play named Driftwood but not on stage at the same time). Rivers worked at Rockefeller Center, a writer/proofreader at an advertising company, and a fashion consultant at Bond Clothing Stores before entering show business. Agent Tony Rivers urged her to change her name, so she chose Joan Rivers as her stage name during this time.

Personal life

On April 9, 2005, Rivers was one of only four Americans invited to Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles.

In New York City, rivers were allowed to carry a firearm. Following an altercation with a car rental clerk in 2002, she was threatened with the loss of her license.

In 1956, Rivers' first marriage was to James Sanger, the son of a Bond Clothing Stores merchandise manager. Sanger did not want children and had not informed the Rivers until the marriage, which was annulled.

Rivers married Edgar Rosenberg on July 15, 1965. Melissa Rivers, their only child, was born on January 20, 1968. Born in 2000, Joan Rivers had one grandson, Cooper, Cooper Cooper. Cooper, as well as his mother and grandmother, was included in the WE TV series Joan & Melissa: Joan Knows Best? Rivers was married to Rosenberg before his suicide in 1987, four days after she asked him for a divorce. She would later call her marriage to Rosenberg a "complete sham," and she'll be bitter about her husband's treatment during her 22-year marriage. Rivers said she had several extramarital affairs when married to Rosenberg, including a one-night match with actor Robert Mitchum in the 1960s and an affair with actor Gabriel Dell. She was in an eight-year friendship with the commissioner of the New York State Office of Parks and Recreation, as a disabled World War II soldier Orin Lehman of the Lehman family.

Rivers' book Bouncing Back, she chronicled how she developed bulimia nervosa after Rosenberg's 1987 suicide and the subsequent death of her psychologist, with whom she had developed a close personal relationship of an AIDS-related disease. In addition, Rivers' relationship with her daughter had been tense at the time, as Melissa blamed her for her father's death. The confluence of events led to her contemplating suicide in her California home, according to Rivers. In a 2008 interview, she recalled, "I got the gun out, the whole thing." "And [then] my dog came and sat in my lap," I said, and it was a big turning point in my life. A Yorkie, a small, stupid dog that I adored, came and sat on my lap. ...and he saved my life in the end. "I truly saved my life." Rivers later recovered with counseling and the help of her family.

Rivers reveals that she is the great niece (on her mother's side) of singer Happy Fanny Fields in a 2002 ITV biography. "(Fanny) was the star of the family," she claims; she came from the United States and married extremely wealthy and became very grand. But, No.l Coward was the one person he wanted to see when he landed in the United States," she said.

Rivers, a philanthropist, funded HIV/AIDS campaigns, and she appeared alongside Nichols and May at a Comic Relief Benefit for the new AIDS Medical Foundation in New York City, where tickets at the Shubert Theatre went for as much as $500. She donated to the Elton John AIDS Foundation and God's Love We Deliver, which delivers meals to HIV/AIDS patients in New York City. In 2008, she was praised by the City of San Diego, California, for her philanthropic work on behalf of HIV/AIDS, where the HIV/AIDS community referred to her as the "Joan of Arc."

In addition, she served as an Honorary Director of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. Guide Dogs for the Blind, a non-profit group that provides guide dogs to blind people, was also supported by her. She has contributed to Jewish charities, animal rights campaigns, and suicide prevention campaigns. Theatre Kids, Habitat for Humanity, Human Rights Campaign, and Boy Scouts of America were among the other non-profit organizations she worked with.

Rivers was transparent about her multiple cosmetic procedures and that she had been a patient of plastic surgeon Steven Hoefflin since 1983. While still in college, she had her nose thinned; her next procedure, an eye lift, was done in 1965 (when she was in her 30s) as an attempt to advance her career. "I've had so much plastic surgery, and they like Big Boobs: A Woman's Guide to Plastic Surgery," she wrote in The New York Times magazine, "a comprehensive and mostly accurate guide to eye lifts, tummy tucks, and other aspects of plastic surgery."

Source

Career

Rivers appeared in a short Off-Broadway play, Driftwood, in which Barbra Streisand was also a cast member. According to an interview with Adweek, playwright Maurice Tei Dunn's apartment on 49th Street in New York lasted for six weeks. Rivers appeared in numerous comedy clubs in New York City's Greenwich Village neighborhood in the early 1960s, including The Bitter End, The Gaslight Cafe, and The Duplex. Rivers became friends with Woody Allen and George Carlin, a pair of Greenwich Village comedians, and she and them would often dined together. She also describes living in the Village with well-known musicians Bob Dylan, Barbra Streisand, Carly Simon, and Garfunkel. Rivers, along with Jim Connell and Jake Holmes, appeared on "Jim, Jake & Joan" from 1963 to 1964. The Bitter End was born in 1964, which was also Rivers' first big screen credit. Shortly thereafter, the group split up, with Holmes later recalling: "We were supposed to do this rally for Bobby Kennedy, who was running for New York senator in 1964." We were going to play at the rally. Joan was on hand with a [Republican Senate nominee Kenneth] Keating button on. And Jim, I'd argue against it. She said no, she was sticking to her political guns.

And Jim said, "Who needs you, anyway?"

"It's [of Jim, Jake, and Joan]" came to an end.

She also appeared as a guest on the television show The Tonight Show, which was produced in New York and starring Jack Paar at the time. 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 by 1965; she was "the bait" in this case. She made her first appearance on The Tonight Show with new host Johnny Carson on February 17, 1965, after seven auditions over a three-year period. Rivers praised this episode as her "you're gonna be a star," Carson said to her on the air. Following this appearance, she became a regular viewer on the show and a close friend of Carson.

As her fame soared in recent years, she began to make guest appearances in a number of well-known television shows, including The Ed Sullivan Exhibition, The Dick Cavett Show, and Girl Talk with Virginia Graham. Topo Gigio, the puppet mouse, was also written by her. She appeared in The Swimmer (1968), starring Burt Lancaster, and at the time, she appeared in That Show with Joan Rivers, a short-lived syndicated daytime talk show that premiered on September 16, 1968. Each episode had a theme, and Rivers hosted an opening monologue based on the day's theme, followed by celebrity interviews. Johnny Carson was her first visitor, as well as an expert on the subject and a celebrity guest. At least two comedy albums were released in the middle of the 1960s: The Next to Last Joan Rivers Album and Rivers Presents Mrs. Phyllis & Other Funny News

Rivers became a common fixture on television by the 1970s. She appeared in The Carol Burnett Show, as well as other late-night performers, and appeared in Here's Lucy. Rivers was her first Broadway appearance in the play Fun City, which opened on January 2, 1972, and co-starred Gabriel Dell, Rose Marie, and Paul Ford. In the midst of a hostile critical reception, it was only nine performances. Despite the fact that a New York Times reviewer blasted Rivers as "frenetic to the point of being frazzled," he praised the series as "a deft comedy writer" and "a very funny lady." She narrated The Adventures of Letterman, an animated segment for The Electric Company, from 1972 to 1976.

Rivers co-wrote The Girl Most Likely To..., a black comedy starring Stockard Channing as an ugly girl who looks fresh after plastic surgery, and revenge on those who had wronged her. The film, which was based on Rivers' tale, became a ratings hit and has been dubbed a "cult classic." She wrote a thrice-week column for The Chicago Tribune from 1973 to 1976, and then published her first book, Having a Baby Can Be a Scream, in 1974; she described it as a "catalogue of gynaecological anxieties." Rivers made her directorial debut with the comedy Rabbit Test, which she also wrote and directed in 1978, the world's first pregnant man. At the box office, the film was rejected by critics, who chastised it. "Miss Rivers has shifted to directing without giving much attention to whether a whole film made from one-liners is worth even more than the sum of its parts," Janet Maslin of The New York Times said. Helen Reddy, Robert Goulet, Paul Anka, Mac Davis, and Sergio Franchi were among the opening acts for singers on the Las Vegas Strip during the same decade.

Rivers found more success on stand-up and television during the 1980s and 1990s, but the decade followed her to be turbulent for her. 1983, in particular, was a success; she appeared at Carnegie Hall in February, produced the best-selling comedy album What Becomes a Semi-Legend Most?, which debuted at No. 57; she appeared on Sunday Night Live in March. On the United States, there are 22. Billboard 200 was nominated for the Best Comedy Album Award by a Grammy nominee. Carson became the first permanent guest host on The Tonight Show in August 1983. At the time, she referred to her primary Tonight Show life as having been "Johnny Carson's daughter," a reference to her longtime mentoring of her.

Rivers spent time on the National Student Film Institute's advisory board during the 1980s and 1990s. Rivers' cousin Nancy Reagan attended a state dinner in 1983 and later attended a luncheon at the 1984 Republican National Convention. Rivers released The Life and Hard Times of Heidi Abramowitz, a mock memoir of her brassy, loose comedy person, a form that would have been considered inappropriate in burlesque a decade ago. A television special based on the character named Joan Rivers and Friends, a mock tribute to the actor, was later shown on showtime. She later wrote Enter Talking, which was released in 1986, and it chronicled her ascension to fame and the evolution of her comedic personality.

Rivers' long-time friendship with Johnny Carson came to an end in 1986. Rivers was the first woman to be shown her own late-night talk show on a major network, with Fox Television Networks announcing that she would be getting The Late Show Starring Joan Rivers, a late night talk show on a major network. The show will be broadcast live on the new network from 11 p.m. to midnight Eastern Time, making her a Carson competitor. Carson found out that Fox News was on display, not from Rivers, and not from Rivers. Rivers said in the film Johnny Carson: King of Late Night, she was only called to discuss the issue after finding that she had already heard about it and that he had immediately hung up on her. She later came to the conclusion that maybe she should have asked for his permission before starting to work, which she said in the same interview. Rivers was refused to appear on The Tonight Show for the remainder of Carson's tenure and in the entire run of Carson's first two successors, Jay Leno and Conan O'Brien, out of respect for Carson. 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. Rivers returned to the show on March 27, 2014 for an interview.

Joan Rivers of the Late Show premiered on October 9, 1986, and the show was soon to be plagued with tragedy. On May 15, 1987, Rivers fired Fox executives who had been trying to fire Edgar Rosenberg as the show's producer.

During this period, a supposedly written by "Ben Hacker," a published interview with Rivers suggested that Rosenberg tried to make Rivers insane during his last illness. While calling her former Fox boss "Barry (expletive) Diller," Rivers was quoted as saying, "I think things are about finished with Edgar." Rosenberg committed suicide in Philadelphia on August 14, 1987; Rivers blamed the tragedy on Fox's "humiliation." The article will result in a lawsuit being brought against "Hacker" later this year. Nancy Reagan was praised by Rivers for her husband's suicide. Fox attempted to keep the show with a new name (The Late Show) and rotating guest hosts.

She appeared in Dot Matrix's science-fiction parody based (mainly) on Star Wars during the airing of her late-night show. Mel Brooks' film, directed and co-starring, was a critical and commercial success, later becoming a "cult classic." After the Fox scandal, her career went into hiatus. Rivers appeared on several television shows, including the Pee-wee's Playhouse Christmas Special in December 1989. On the 1986–89 version of The Hollywood Squares, hosted by John Davidson, she appeared as one of the center square occupants. The Joan Rivers Show, her daytime television show, premiered in broadcast syndication on September 5, 1989. The show, which lasted for five seasons, was a hit, and Rivers was named Outstanding Talk Show Host in 1990. "The Joan Rivers Show is a better showcase for her comedic edginess than her dooming 1988 Fox nighttime show," Entertainment Weekly wrote in a September 1990 article. Rivers' stream-of-consciousness chattiness is allowed to lead the show, and you'll never know where the conversation is going to go."

Rivers appeared in the made-for-television comedy How to Murder a Millionaire, which premiered on CBS in May 1990. In addition to winning the Emmy for The Joan Rivers Show, she also appeared in the made-for-television comedy How to Murder a Millionaire. She played Alex Rocco and Telma Hopkins in the film, co-starring Alex Rocco and Telma Hopkins, she played a Beverly Hills matron with the belief that her husband is attempting to murder her. She began designing jewelry, clothing, and beauty items for the shopping channel QVC in 1990. "In those days, only dead celebrities went on," Rivers said on this professional venture. [QVC] My time in education was over. I had bills to pay. ... "It's also enthralled me at the start." Rivers' revenues reached $1 billion in 2014, making her one of the network's top sellers. Still Talking, her first book, was released in 1991, which chronicled the demise of her late-night show and her husband's suicide. She received five additional Emmy Awards for her daytime talk show The Joan Rivers Show, two for Outstanding Writing – Special Class and three others for Outstanding Talk Show Host, two of which were unveiled.

Melissa Rivers and her daughter Melissa were the first to host the E! in 1994. The Golden Globe Awards' entertainment television show, as well as E! Entertainment Television's (E) began in 1995, and E! The pre-awards for the annual Academy Awards also appear. Rivers and her daughter were credited with revolutionizing the red carpet as a platform to showcase designers' work and celebrity interactions. "Joan and Melissa were the first people who came out and made it more of a true conversation between actor and reporter," E! Gary Snegaroff, the country's Senior Vice President of Production, remarked to Vanity Fair. "They wanted to know what [actresses] were wearing because that's what the newspapers would cover after the fact, and turned it into a candid chat on the carpet, where anything could happen." Both rivers and Melissa appeared in the made-for-television drama Tears and Laughter: The Joan and Melissa Rivers Story, which chronicled Rosenburg's aftermath. On May 15, 1994, it premiered on NBC. Joan Rivers wrote her book Jewelry next year.

Rivers co-wrote and starred in a play about Bruce's mother Sally Marr, who was also a comedian and influenced her son's growth as a comic, Influenced by Lenny Bruce's stand-up comedy. Sally Marr... and Her Escorts, a play "suggested by Sally Marr's life," performed on Broadway in May and June 1994. There were 27 previews. Critics generally lauded the production, but critics applauded her success. Rivers are "compelling" as an actor, according to the Chicago Sun Times, who wrote: "She is exuberant, afraid, and inexhaustible." You can't help but applaud her efforts as performers take risks. Rivers was nominated for a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actress in a Play and a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play, as well as a the Best Actress in a Play by Marr's Mary Marr. Rivers hosted her own radio show on WOR in New York City in 1997 and wrote three self-help books: I've Survived Everything and I Mean Everything — and You Should Too! In 1997, Mother to Daughter: Thoughts and Advice on Life, Love, and Marriage in 1998, Don't Count the Candles: Keep the Fire Lit!

Rivers spoke at the beginning of the American Operating Room Nurses' San Francisco Conference in 2000, and by the first part of the decade, she continued to host the E!'s red carpet. channel is a cable television network. Joan Rivers: Broke and Alone, a one-person comedy competition that was shown in the United Kingdom (Edinburgh and London) and in the United States (Los Angeles, and Boston), received mostly favorable reviews between 2002 and 2004. The Telegraph's opinion that her "hilarious assaults on fellow celebrities and a warning about the risks of ageing and plastic surgery are well worth the money," the Guardian said, while "Rivers returned triumphant, a victive heavyweight after a tough fight while still the champion."

Rivers left the network red-car show for a three-year deal (valued at $6–8 million) to fund award shows' red carpet events for the TV Guide Channel in 2003. Rivers also appeared in several television shows, including Curb Your Enthusiasm, Nip/Tuck, and Boston Legal, and she also appeared in a short scene in the 2004 animated fantasy film Shrek 2. When Ronald Reagan was residing in the United States Capitol in 2004, he was a member of the formal receiving party. Rivers performed at the 79th Royal Variety Show at the Liverpool Empire Theatre, England, on December 3, 2007, with Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip present. She wrote and appeared in the play Joan Rivers: A Work in Progress by a Life in Progress, directed by Sean Foley and delivered throughout Los Angeles, Edinburgh's Festival Fringe and the Leicester Square Theatre to a mixed critical audience.

Rivers was invited to participate in a comedy festival titled "We Are Most Amused" in honor of Prince Charles' 60th birthday. She was the only American with Robin Williams to attend the tournament. Other comedians included John Cleese, Eric Idle, Rowan Atkinson, and Bill Bailey. Prince Charles, Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, and Prince Harry were among those in attendance.

Rivers appeared on many television game shows, including 8 Out of 10 Cats, Big Brother: Celebrity Hijack, and Celebrity Family Feud, in which she competed with her daughter against Ice-T and Coco throughout the decade. On season eight of Celebrity Apprenticeship in 2009, Rivers and daughter Melissa were contestants. Each celebrity raised funds for a charity of his or her choice over the season, and the Rivers selected God's Love We Deliver. Rivers left the green room after Annie Duke's on-air fire (elimination) by Donald Trump, a black and Jesse James told Clint Black and Jesse James that she will not be in the next morning. Rivers later returned to the show, and she became a finalist in the series on May 3, 2009. Duke was the other finalist. Rivers was named the winner and invited to be the 2009 Celebrity Apprentice on the season finale, which aired live on May 10.

Rivers also appeared in a Comedy Central special in 2009, and her reality show, How Can You Get Richer? premiered on TV Land. Rivers spent two seasons in the United States interviewing self-made millionaires. She also wrote two books in 2009: Murder at the Academy Awards: Men Are Stupid... And They Like Big Boobs: A Woman's Guide to Beauty Through Plastic Surgery (with Valerie Frankel).

A piece of Work by Rivers, Joan Rivers: A Document Of Work premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 25, 2010. Rivers spent 14 months in the 76th year of her life, and the film explores the "struggles, sacrifices, and joy of living life as a ground breaking female performer." On June 11, 2010, the film was released in a limited way and was praised by analysts for giving "an honest, behind-the-scenes glimpse into [Rivers]'s career [and show business in general." The E! began on September 10, 2010, and Rivers co-hosted the E! Jeremy Rancic, Kelly Osbourne, and George Kotsiopoulos, all of whom are commenting on celebrity fashion, appear on show Fashion Police. The show began as a half-hour show, but it was extended to one hour on March 9, 2012. Fashion Police's August 26, 2014 episode about the 66th Primetime Emmy Awards and the 2014 MTV Movie Awards was her last television appearance before she died.

Rivers appeared in a Go Daddy commercial, which premiered during Super Bowl XLV's broadcasting of Super Bowl XLV, and was featured as herself in Louis C.K.'s season two episode. "Joan" is Louie's self-titled film, in which she appeared on stage and gave C.K. Humour advice. The A.V. Nathan Rabin of the club described the episode as a "funny and deeply moving investigation of the existential mystery of the stand-up comic and a valentine to the art form." Rivers and her daughter appeared in Joan & Melissa: Joan Knows Best?, which premiered on WE tv in 2011. The series follows her daughter's arrival in California with her daughter to be closer to her family. The program ran for four seasons from 2014 to 2014. Rivers played Annie Dubinsky, an agent trying to resurrect Krusty's career on the 11th episode of The Simpsons, "The Ten-Perspect Solution" on December 4, 2011. The A.V.'s Hayden Childs of The Hayden Childs. Since she was able to "emplode her trademark parody in The Simpsons without hijacking the plot or satire," the club lauded her choice of having Rivers guest star. She appeared in two episodes of two series: Drop Dead Diva and Hot in Cleveland in 2012.

Rivers published her 11th book I Hate Everybody...Starting with Me on June 5, 2012. It received mostly positive feedback and made the New York Times Best Seller List for several weeks. According to the New York Times, there were "more punch lines per paragraph than in any book I've read in years," and Publishers Weekly said that "Rivers is equally passionate and opinionated on every subject she addresses." "Indefeniably original and uplifting." Rivers in Burbank, California, on August 7, 2012, protested that Costco's warehouse club did not sell the book. She handcuffed herself to a shopping cart and yelled out a megaphone. The police were called to the scene and she went without incident; no arrests were made; no arrests were made. In Bed with Joan, a television talk show, was launched on March 5, 2013. Rivers invited a new guest to discuss a variety of topics, including their history, their marriage life, and their careers.

Rivers published Diary of a Mad Diva, her 12th book, on July 1, 2014, which also appeared on The NY Times Best Seller list. She received the Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album in 2015 after winning the book. She filmed a part of the documentary MAKERS: Women in Comedy, which premiered on PBS in October 2014.

Source