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Joan Rivers
Joan Rivers (born Joan Alexandra Molinsky;[1][2][3] June 8, 1933) is an American comedian, actress, talk show host, businesswoman and celebrity. She is known for her brash manner and loud, raspy voice with a heavy metropolitan New York accent. Rivers is the National Chairwoman of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation and is a board member of God's Love We Deliver. Like the ground-breaking Phyllis Diller, Rivers' act relied heavily on poking fun at herself. A typical Rivers joke about her appearance was "I used to stand by the side of the road with a sign: 'Last girl before freeway.'"
BiographyEarly life and careerRivers was born Joan Alexandra Molinsky in Brooklyn, New York, the daughter of Russian Jewish immigrants Beatrice (née Grushman) and Meyer C. Molinsky, who was 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 and anthropology. In the 1960s, Rivers made television appearances as a comedian on the popular shows 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 but notable appearance opposite Burt Lancaster in the film, The Swimmer. She was also a regular gag writer and performer on TV's Candid Camera. 1970sIn the 1970s, Joan Rivers appeared often as a guest on various television comedy and variety shows. One notable appearance on The Carol Burnett Show had her spoofing Valerie Harper in Rhoda (Rivers' character was named "Rhonda"), to the delight of the audience. From 1972 to 1976, she was the narrator for The Adventures of Letterman, an animated segment for The Electric Company. In 1978, Rivers directed and wrote the film Rabbit Test starring her friend Billy Crystal, an avant garde movie about a man who gets pregnant, but it had disappointing results at the box office. Rivers was the opening act for singer Helen Reddy on the Las Vegas Strip during the 1970s. She would eventually become a headliner in her own right to standing-room crowds continuing into the 1980s. Rivers also recorded a popular record album of her live stand-up act entitled What Becomes a (Semi) Legend Most? 1980s and 1990sRivers continued to gain acclaim on television as she was often guest host of The Tonight Show throughout the early 1980s. In 1986, Rivers hosted her own evening talk show, The Late Show Starring Joan Rivers, on the then-fledgling Fox Television Network; her talk show was one of the launch shows for the new network. The show lasted about a year. In 1983, Rivers had become the permanent guest host for Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show. Carson was so upset by her decision to leave The Tonight Show without discussing it with him that he banned her from his show, even after Rivers' show failed. Rivers reportedly tried to call Carson on the phone personally after the Fox deal was announced; when he answered, she talked to him, but Carson hung up on her. The two never did reconcile before Carson died in 2005. Soon after the cancellation of her series, Rivers saw a published interview claiming that her husband Edgar Rosenberg, who was a producer on her show, had tried to drive her insane during his illness. According to the interview, she was reported to have commented, "...I think things are just about finished with Edgar" and referred to her former boss at the Fox Network as "Barry (expletive) Diller." Rivers then went public with the news, saying in tears that a "Ben Hacker" had fabricated the story with what she called "vicious lies." A suit was filed against "Hacker." In 1988, Rivers guest-starred on the Pee-Wee's Playhouse Christmas Special, along with other stars, which included Oprah Winfrey, Charo, and Cher. In some sense, it was Rivers' way of repaying Paul Reubens (creator of the character Pee-Wee Herman, and the show) who was the very first guest on her talk show when it premiered in 1986. Not long after this, Rosenberg committed suicide, devastating Rivers. In her book, Bouncing Back, she describes how she developed bulimia and contemplated suicide. Eventually she recovered with counseling and the support of her family. Eventually she returned to television with her own daytime talk show, The Joan Rivers Show, which ran from 1989 until 1994. Her enormous stock of bored husband jokes could no longer be used. A Rivers favorite had been: "When Edgar and I were first married, we'd play 'catch me, catch me!' and we'd run around the house. We still play 'catch me, catch me!' but now we walk." Beginning in 1997, Rivers hosted her own radio show on WOR in New York. In 2003, Rivers and the station mutually decided to part ways. 2000s
NEW YORK, New York (May 24 2001) Joan Rivers poses for a shot at the Pierre Hotel. In 2004, she appeared as a guest on the first episode of the BBC One stand-up comedy programme 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 is an avid and unapologetic user of plastic surgery to enhance her looks, however this has occasionally resulted in ridicule and self-deprecation. This was played up in a Geico television commercial in which she delivers the lines "Am I smiling? I can't tell!" and "I can't feel my face!" She appeared in two episodes of the show Nip/Tuck during its second and third seasons. During her first appearance, she wanted to find out what she would look like without all the plastic surgery she has had and was horrified by the result. During her second appearance, she wanted to invest in a post-surgical health spa. She is also an avid collector of jewellery. Rivers also appears regularly on television's The Shopping Channel (in Canada), and QVC (in both the U.S. and the U.K.), selling her own line of jewellery under the brand name "The Joan Rivers Collection", which in fact 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. Rivers is a grandmother to Edgar Cooper Endicott, who was born in 2000 during her daughter Melissa's brief marriage (1998?2003) to John Endicott. While touring in the UK, Rivers appeared on BBC Radio 4's Midweek programme and became involved in a heated on-air argument over the issue of race with broadcaster Darcus Howe.[7] Together with Melissa, Rivers appeared in a special feature on the season one DVD set of The Golden Girls, commenting on the sometimes-odd fashion styles worn by the characters in the sitcom. 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. During an interview with Celebrity Week in October 2006, Rivers remarked that Mel Gibson "is an anti-Semitic son of a bitch. He should (expletive) die!?[8] She has also insulted Chris Burney, the guitarist in the band Bowling for Soup, calling him "fatso" and renaming his band "Bowling for Crap". Later that year she voted Bowling for Soup the worst-dressed musicians. Joan Rivers is a supporter of animal rights and an active member of PETA.[9] Joan had a cat, Edgar (named after her deceased husband); after the cat had died, Joan had it stuffed and kept in the foyer of her apartment for three years. As of April 2007, Joan Rivers has been fired from the Red Carpet on TV Guide. TV Guide chiefs decided they wanted a friendlier face greeting the stars and asked TV actress Lisa Rinna to take over the show.[10] On The Simpsons episode "Make Room for Lisa", Homer Simpson asks an employee at Kharma-Ceutric, an alternative medicine shop, "What's keeping Joan Rivers alive?" to which she replies, "Foetal Grindings". Rivers was satirised in three other episodes as well. 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.[11] On December 3 2007, Rivers featured before Queen Elizabeth and 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, bringing her usual sniping wit with her. On June 17 2008, Rivers used two expletives while talking about Russell Crowe (though possibly meaning Mel Gibson as expressed in an interview with Richard & Judy) as a guest host on the live gab-fest Loose Women, a British daytime talk show. She was asked to leave during a commercial break. Joan joked about it, saying the incident reminded her of her wedding night?because she was asked to leave in the middle of that, too.[12] On June 24 2008 Rivers appeared on NBC?s show Celebrity Family Feud. She competed with her daughter, Melissa, against Ice-T and Coco. Cameos and parodiesRivers had a cameo in the film Shrek 2 (though for the UK version she was dubbed by Kate Thornton) [13]. She 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 appears in Drawn Together as Clara's talking vagina, called a "Vajoana", as the result of Clara getting too much plastic surgery. She appears in the season finale in season 2 and in season 3 of Nip/Tuck as herself. She lent her voice to the Mel Brooks film Spaceballs as Dot Matrix, a parody of herself. She has also appeared in a Geico Insurance commercial making satirical comments about her many plastic surgeries. ControversyOn June 17, 2008, Joan Rivers was removed from the set of the British ITV lunchtime talk show, Loose Women after swearing live on air. She described the actor Russell Crowe as a piece of "fucking shit". She made an error by not realizing that the show was completely live, not tape recorded and/or had a 7 seconds delay and appeared to believe that the producers would "bleep" her swearing and said to the camera "get ready to bleep," but the show is broadcast live. The co-hosts immediately apologized for Rivers' little outburst and during the commercial break she was asked to leave the set and not invited to come back for her final segment. A spokesperson for the show says, "Guests are always briefed that it is a live daytime show and are reminded not to swear or use inappropriate language. An editorial decision was taken that Joan Rivers should not appear in the final part of the programme. We would like to apologise to Loose Women viewers for the inappropriate language used on today's show." Rivers, for her part, finds it all quite funny. "I said: 'I apologize.' Everyone apologized. It was hilariously funny," she says. However, on June 19, Rivers revoked her apology[14], saying the whole thing had been blown out of proportion. She said, "Lemme get this straight. Bin Laden's top man has been released. The price of petrol is through the roof. There's inflation, depression. And people are hysterical because I said f**k? I was having a great time and everybody was laughing. Then these people - these idiots - came running onto the set and ripped me off my seat and dragged me off. They were saying 'Let's go, let's go, let's go'. I thought I was being arrested. At my age I should be able to say what the hell I want. I think saying, 'Go f*** yourself' is a very pleasant way of saying good morning to someone you don't like. So I want to say to everyone that Loose Women was an honest mistake because I truly thought I'd be bleeped. Now. Get. Over. It!" Joan adds that this was the first time she had been removed from a TV show in 40 years and she was "thrilled". Also while still on the air after learning that she was not bleeped, a co host on the show said "A mother explaining to her four year old... these words are" (Referring to Joan's Russell Crowe statement) - Joan then wasted no time by saying "These words are words that Mommy said about a man and now she has to wear a big vest".[15][16] It is noteworthy that the following day in a pre recorded interview on the Richard & Judy show she again apologized, not for swearing but for not saying Mel Gibson instead.[17] AwardsJoan Rivers has been awarded the 1975 Georgie Award as "Best Comedienne", the Clio Award for "Best Performance in a TV Commercial" in 1976 and 1982, and the 1990 Daytime Emmy Award as "Best Talk Show Host." In a 2005 Channel 4 poll to find The Comedian's Comedian, she was voted amongst the top 50 comedy acts ever by fellow comedians and comedy insiders. Rivers co-hosted a segment of the Australian 2006 Logie Awards. She was given a specially commissioned pink Logie award, threw it over her shoulder and remarked "It's the ugliest award I have ever seen." Months later (in June), footage of the spectacle featured in an episode of Web Junk 20 and on YouTube. Books
Filmography
Television work
Theater work
ReferencesExternal links
fr:Joan Rivers pl:Joan Rivers ru:??????, ????? simple:Joan Rivers Source: Wikipedia | The above article is available under the GNU FDL. | Edit this article
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