Actors - Joan Rivers

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	Actors - Joan Rivers

Joan Rivers (born June 8, 1933) is a United States comedian, talk show host, and celebrity. She is known for her brash manner and loud, gruff voice with a heavy New York City accent. Like the ground-breaking Phyllis Diller before her, Rivers' act relied heavily on poking fun at herself. A typical Rivers joke about her unattractiveness: "I used to stand by the side of the road with a sign, 'Last girl before freeway.' "

Biography

Early life and career

Joan Rivers was born as Joan Alexandra Molinsky to a Jewish family in Brooklyn, New York, and raised in Westchester County, New York. After briefly attending Connecticut College, she 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 a regular gag writer and performer on TV's Candid Camera show.

1970s

In 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
instead as "Rhonda", to the delight of the audience.

In 1978 Rivers directed and wrote the film Rabbit Test starring her friend Billy Crystal. The avant-garde movie about a man who gets pregnant bombed at the box-office.

Rivers was the opening act for singer Helen Reddy on The Las Vegas Strip during the '70s. 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 standup act entitled "Can We Talk?"

1980s and 1990s

Joan Rivers continued to gain acclaim on television as she would often be brought in as a guest host of the Tonight Show throughout the 1980s.

In 1986 Rivers hosted her own evening talk show, The Late Show Starring Joan Rivers, on the then-fledgling Fox Television Network, one of the launch shows for the new network. The show lasted about a year. When it began, Rivers had already become the permanent guest host for Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show. Carson was so upset by her decision to leave 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. When he answered, she talked to him, but Carson hung up on her. The two never reconciled before his 2005 death.

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", who turned out to be author and future game show host Ben Stein.

Not long after this Rosenberg committed suicide. Rivers was devastated by the loss, but eventually returned to television with a daytime talk show of her own, The Joan Rivers Show, which ran from 1989 until 1993. 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." She candidly wrote about her husband's passing in two autobiographical, motivational best-selling books published in the 1990s, entitled Enter Talking, and Still Talking.

2000s

As of 2005, Joan Rivers is a host for the TV Guide channel, often cohosting red carpet specials before awards shows with her daughter, Melissa Rivers, from whom she was estranged briefly after her husband's suicide. She previously worked for the E! Entertainment Television network in a similar role. In the movie Shrek 2
, she cameoed as a computer-generated version of herself, hosting the parody ME! Medieval Entertainment Television channel.

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