Rivers, Joan (1933-2014), was an influential American comedian, actress, writer, and television personality. She was known for her brash humor and raspy voice. Rivers was one of the first successful female stand-up comedians in the United States.
Rivers was born Joan Alexandra Molinsky in the Brooklyn borough (district) of New York City on June 8, 1933. She graduated from Barnard College in 1954 with a bachelor’s degree in English. After graduating, she planned to become an actress. From the middle to late 1950’s, she worked at various jobs and acted in small parts in off- Broadway productions. Around this time, she changed her last name to Rivers, the last name of her agent.
Joan Rivers began performing stand-up comedy in nightclubs in the late 1950’s to support her acting career. In 1961, Rivers joined the Second City comedy troupe of Chicago. Her big break came in 1965, when she performed on “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. ” Later that year, Rivers married the British film and television producer and writer Edgar Rosenberg, who became her manager. The couple had a daughter, Melissa, and were married until Rosenberg’s suicide in 1987.
Rivers became a frequent guest host on “The Tonight Show” and a popular performer in Las Vegas and on television. In 1968 and 1969, she hosted “That Show with Joan Rivers” (also called “The Joan Rivers Show”), a talk show on daytime television. In 1986 and 1987, she hosted “The Late Show Starring Joan Rivers” on the new Fox TV network, making her the first woman to host a late-night network talk show. The show aired in direct competition with “The Tonight Show.” Rivers’s show was canceled after less than a year because of poor ratings. From 1989 to 1993, she hosted the daytime talk show “The Joan Rivers Show,” for which she won an Emmy Award in 1990. Beginning in the mid-1990’s, Rivers and her daughter, Melissa Rivers, became known for their nationally televised “red carpet” celebrity interviews and commentary at TV and motion-picture awards shows. From 2011 to 2014, they starred in the reality TV show “Joan & Melissa: Joan Knows Best?” Joan Rivers also co-hosted the fashion talk show “Fashion Police” from 2010 until shortly before her death in 2014.
Rivers also co-wrote and starred in Fun City (1972) on Broadway. In 1988, she starred in the Neil Simon Broadway play Broadway Bound. In 1994, she was nominated for a Tony Award for her performance in Sally Marr … and Her Escorts, a Broadway play she co-wrote that was based on the life of the mother of the American comedian Lenny Bruce. Rivers also acted in a number of Hollywood motion pictures and directed the comedy Rabbit Test (1978).
Rivers wrote a dozen books, including two best-selling comedy novels The Life and Hard Times of Heidi Abromowitz (1984) and Murder at the Academy Awards: A Red Carpet Murder Mystery (2009, with Jerrilyn Farmer); and the best-selling memoirs Enter Talking (1986, with Richard Meryman), Still Talking (1991), I Hate Everyone… Starting With Me (2012), and Diary of a Mad Diva (2014).
Rivers died on Sept. 4, 2014, following a surgical procedure on her vocal cords.
