Joan Rivers
(born Joan Alexandra Molinsky
; [1] [2] [3] June 8, 1933) is an American comedian, actress, talk show host and businesswoman. She is known for her brash manner and loud, raspy voice with a heavy metropolitan New York accent, and numerous cosmetic surgeries. Rivers's comedic style relies heavily on poking fun at herself and other celebrities.
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JOAN RIVERS TICKETS
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Biography
Rivers was born
Joan Alexandra Molinsky
in
Brooklyn, New York, the daughter of
Russian Jewish immigrants Beatrice (née Grushman) and Meyer C. Molinsky, a doctor.
[4] [5] 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
[6] and
anthropology. During college, a friend took her to see
Lenny Bruce do stand-up comedy, and, as Joan describes it, "It was an epiphany." Before entering show business, Rivers worked at various jobs such as a tour guide at
Rockefeller Center,
[7] a writer/proofreader at an advertising agency
and as a fashion consultant at
Bond Clothing Stores.
[8] During this period, an agent named Tony Rivers told her to change her name, so she suggested "Joan Rivers" as her new name.
[9]
Personal life
Her first marriage was in 1955 to James Sanger,
[10] the son of a Bond merchandise manager. The marriage lasted six months,
[11] and it was annulled on the basis that Sanger did not want children and had not told Rivers before the wedding.
[12] Her second marriage was on July 15, 1965
[13] 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 Duplicitous
, she describes how she developed
bulimia and contemplated suicide. Eventually she recovered with counseling and the support of her family.
Rivers is a supporter of animal rights and an active member of
PETA.
[14]
Political views
For most of her life, Rivers considered herself a
Republican. When asked about her political leanings, Rivers replied,
How can you not be [a Republican]? How can anyone not be? How can you live in a country when you can not [sic] say the Pledge of Allegiance anymore? Insane people have taken over the Democratic Party. They’re mad. They’ve taken over the asylum. To be worried about what the terrorists were eating at Camp X-ray, I think you’re beyond insane. They've just blown up New York. [15]
After the election, however, Rivers is quoted in a January 2009 interview on National Public Radio's
Weekend Edition
, as saying that President Obama is an "off-limits" subject for comedy since "we all have such high hopes for him."
[16]
Career
Early show business career, 1950s and 1960s
Some time in the late 1950s, Rivers appeared in a short-lived play called
Seawood
, in which she played a
lesbian with a crush on a character played by
Barbra Streisand. The play ran for six weeks.
[17]
Rivers performed in numerous comedy clubs in
Greenwich Village in the early 1960s, including
The Bitter End and
The Gaslight Cafe.
[18]
In the early 1960s, she appeared several times as a guest on
The Tonight Show
, which at the time originated from
New York and was hosted by
Jack Paar.
[19]
In 1965, she had a stint on TV's
Candid Camera as a gag writer and participant as, "the bait," to lure people into ridiculous situations for the show.
On Feb. 17, 1965,
[20] she got a big break by making her first appearance on
The Tonight Show
with its new host
Johnny Carson. In the 1960s, Rivers made other
television appearances on
The Tonight Show
and
The Ed Sullivan Show
, as well as hosting the first of her several talk shows.
Later in that decade she made a brief appearance opposite
Burt Lancaster in
The Swimmer
, a 1968 film.
In 1969, she had a short-lived, syndicated daytime talk show, and her first guest was
Johnny Carson.
[21]
In the middle of the 1960s, she released at least two comedy albums,
The Next to Last Joan Rivers Album
[22] and
Joan Rivers Presents Mr. Phyllis & Other Funny Stories
.
[23]
1970s
In the 1970s, Joan Rivers appeared often as a guest on various television comedy and variety shows including
The Carol Burnett Show
.
From 1972 to 1976, she was the narrator for
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.
Rivers was the opening act for singer
Helen Reddy on the
Las Vegas Strip during the 1970s. Rivers would eventually become a headliner in her own right into the 1980s.
1980s and 1990s
In the 1980s, Rivers frequently substituted for
Johnny Carson as guest host on
The Tonight Show
.
On April 9, 1983, she hosted
Saturday Night Live
.
[24] At about the same time, she released a best-selling comedy album on
Geffen Records,
What Becomes a Semi-Legend Most?
The recording reached #22 on the U.S.
Billboard 200 and was nominated for a
Grammy Award for
Best Comedy Recording.
[25]
In August 1983, she was named the first and only permanent guest host on
The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson
.
In spring 1986, the
Fox Television Network announced that it was giving Rivers her own late night talk show,
The Late Show Starring Joan Rivers
.
[26] It would be one of the launch shows for the new network and
The Late Show
would air from 11:00 p.m. – 12:00 a.m.
Eastern Time. In October 1986,
The Late Show Starring Joan Rivers
premiered on Fox TV. By May 15, 1987,
Rivers was unceremoniously fired from the show. The title was shortened to
The Late Show
, and it featured a rotating series of guest hosts.
In 1988, Rivers guest-starred on the
Pee-Wee's Playhouse
Christmas Special.
Eventually Rivers returned to television with her own daytime talk show,
The Joan Rivers Show
,
[27] which ran from September 11, 1989 to September 10, 1993.
In 1994, she and her daughter,
Melissa, first hosted the
E! Entertainment Television pre-awards show for the
Golden Globe Awards.
[28] 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.
2000s
In 2003, Rivers left her popular E! red carpet show and accepted a three year deal valued between 6-8 million with the
TV Guide Channel to cover award show red carpets.
[29]
From 2005–2007, Rivers was a host for the
TV Guide
Channel, often co-hosting red carpet specials before awards shows with her daughter,
Melissa Rivers. She was replaced by
Lisa Rinna starting with the 2007
Emmy Awards telecast.
In the movie
Shrek 2
, Rivers cameoed as a computer-generated version of herself, hosting the parody
ME! Medieval Entertainment Television
channel.
Rivers is the National Chairman of the
Cystic Fibrosis Foundation and is a board member of , a group that delivers meals to homebound
AIDS patients.
[30]
In 2004, she appeared as a guest on the first episode of the
BBC One stand-up comedy program
Jack Dee Live at the Apollo
. She would eventually guest host the fifth episode in the 2007 season.
When in New York, where she lives, Rivers appears weekly in workshop productions at the small venue
The Cutting Room
. She donates proceeds to the charities God's Love We Deliver (for which she is a board member) and
Guide Dogs for the Blind.
Rivers appeared in two episodes of the show
Nip/Tuck
during its second and third seasons.
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", which is one of that network's best-selling lines.
Rivers was a guest speaker at the opening of the
American Operating Room Nurses' 2000 San Francisco Conference
.
Both Joan and her daughter Melissa are frequent guests on
Howard Stern's radio show.
Joan frequently appears as a panelist on UK game 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.
[31]
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, in a spin-off show entitled
Big Brother: Celebrity Hijack
. She did so for one day.
On June 24, 2008 Rivers appeared on NBC’s show
Celebrity Family Feud
. She competed with her daughter, Melissa, against
Ice-T and
Coco.
thumb.
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.
[32] After a
falling out with poker player
Annie Duke, following Melissa's on-air "firing" (elimination) by Donald Trump, Joan 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.
[33] [34] 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 (TV series), 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.
Cameos and parodies
Rivers had a cameo in the film
Shrek 2
(though for the
UK version she was dubbed by
Kate Thornton).
[35]
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.
Rivers appeared in the Season 2's season finale and also in Season 3 of the TV program
Nip/Tuck
, as herself.
She loaned her voice to the
Mel Brooks film
Spaceballs
as "Dot Matrix".
Rivers has also appeared in a
GEICO insurance commercial making satirical comments about her many plastic surgeries.
She also appeared as herself in a parody of her career on
E! True Hollywood Story
, on April 1, 2001.
Rivers also appeared in
Family Guy
as herself as she interviewed Brian at the Adult Video Awards.
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.
[36]
Awards
In 1990, Rivers won the 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.
[37]
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)
- 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)
Television work
- The Joan Rivers Show
(1969) (syndicated daytime talk show)
- The Electric Company
(cast member from 1972 - 1977) (voice)
- 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) [38]
- 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) [40]
- 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
- "Celebrity Apprentice" (2009)- Herself
- "How'd You Get So Rich?" (2009)- Herself
- "Roast of Joan Rivers" (2009)- Herself
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) [41]
- 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
- Comic queen Joan Rivers bites back with sharp, funny new show.
- CAN SHE TALK! Joan Rivers muses on her daughter, Cher and fun Down Under
- OSCAR FILMS/THE SHOW; Taking No Prisoners at the Edge of the Red Carpet - New York Times
- Joan Rivers’ ‘Life’—audacious, as always
- Joan Rivers Biography (1933?-)
- Rivers, Joan (1986). Autobiography: ''Enter Talking''. New York: Delacorte Press, First Printing
- Autobiography: ''Bouncing Back'' (1997), HarperCollins. p. 74-75
- Riley, Sam G. (1995) ''Biographical Dictionary of American Newspaper Columnists'', Greenwood Publishing Group, p. 265 ISBN 9780313291920.
- Sochen, June (1998). "From Sophie Tucker to Barbara Streisand: Jewish Women Entertainers as Reformers". Talking Back: Images of Jewish Women in American Popular Culture. Ed. Joyce Antler. Brandeis series in American Jewish history, culture, and life. Hanover, NH: Brandeis University Press Published by University Press of New England. pp. 68-84.
- ''Enter Talking'', p. 67-71
- ''Enter Talking'', fourth page of photo inserts between p. 182-183
- ''Enter Talking'', p. 70
- ''Enter Talking'' epilogue, p. 375
- PETA featuring Joan Rivers
- Comedy - Joan Rivers
- "Joan Rivers Talks About Nips, Tucks And A New Book," ''Weekend Edition'', National Public Radio, January 10, 2009. (''Retrieved 2009-04-29.'')
- ''Enter Talking'', p. 85-96 and last photo insert page before p. 183
- ''Enter Talking'', p. 230
- ''Enter Talking'', p. 233-239
- ''Enter Talking'', p. 359-373
- ''The Joan Rivers Show'' (1969 syndicated daytime talk show) at IMDB
- ''The Next to Last Joan Rivers Album'' at
- ''Mr. Phyllis'' LP at
- ''Saturday Night Live'', Host Joan Rivers, Apr 9, 1983 at IMDB
- 1984 Grammy Awards at
- King, Norman (1993). ''Arsenio Hall''. New York: William Morrow & Co., p. 47-48
- ''The Joan Rivers Show'' (1989) at IMDB
- ''Bouncing Back!'', p. 207
- Entertainment & the Arts
- ''Bouncing Back'', p. 110
- San Francisco
- Joan Rivers
- 'Celebrity Apprentice': Rivers Run
- Rivers defends daughter on 'Celebrity Apprentice'
- Kate Thornton (I) - Biography
- 23rd Annual Night of A Thousand Gowns
- Entertainment Awards Database accessed Feb. 28, 2009
- ''Tears and Laughter: The Joan and Melissa Rivers Story'' (1994 TV movie) at IMDB
- ''E! True Hollywood Story: Joan Rivers'' (parody - April 1, 2001) at IMDB
- ''Season 2 Episode 16''
- ''Broadway Bound'' by Neil Simon at IBDB.com - Replacements