In Bed With Joan interview
Milano talks to Rivers on In Bed With Joan about her audition for Who’s the Boss?
I found out that the show was picked up from Entertainment Tonight. Nobody called.
Why Johnny Carson “Never Ever Spoke to Me Again”
Rivers writes an article for The Hollywood Reporter relating her bitter break with Johnny Carson.
I adored Johnny. In the ’70s, I did opening monologues, I was hosting. The turning point was when I left the show. Everybody left the show to go to do their own shows. Bill Cosby. David Brenner. George Carlin. Everybody. I stuck around for 18 years. And they finally offered me my own late-night show.
The first person I called was Johnny, and he hung up on me — and never, ever spoke to me again. And then denied that I called him. I couldn’t figure it out. I would see him in a restaurant and go over and say hello. He wouldn’t talk to me.
I kept saying, “I don’t understand, why is he mad?” He was not angry at anybody else. I think he really felt because I was a woman that I just was his. That I wouldn’t leave him. I know this sounds very warped. But I don’t understand otherwise what was going on. For years, I thought that maybe he liked me better than the others. But I think it was a question of, “I found you, and you’re my property.” He didn’t like that as a woman, I went up against him.
And on her work:
If there is a secret to being a comedian, it’s just loving what you do. It is my drug of choice. I don’t need real drugs. I don’t need liquor. It’s the joy that I get performing. That is my rush. I get it nowhere else.What pleasure you feel when you’ve kept people happy for an hour and a half. They’ve forgotten their troubles. It’s great. There’s nothing like it in the world. When everybody’s laughing, it’s a party. And then you get a check at the end. That’s very nice.
I Hate Everyone… Starting with Me
Rivers publishes I Hate Everyone… Starting with Me a comedic diatribe on everyone she hates, including herself.
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
—Elizabeth Barrett Browning, 1850How do I hate thee? How much time do you have?
—Joan Rivers, today, about two-ish
Joan Rivers interview
0 CommentsThe Guardian interviews Rivers about her love of being famous.
It makes the whole world your home town. When my husband committed suicide [Rivers’s second husband, the film producer Edgar Rosenberg, overdosed on prescription drugs in 1987] I went to New York and a man collecting the garbage would say: “Hey Joanie! You’ll get through this.” People in the grocery store would say: “I lit a candle for you last night.” I thought: “My God, the whole city cares.” People can be a great comfort.
Murder at the Academy Awards
Rivers publishes a murder mystery with Jerrilyn Farmer, Murder at the Academy Awards: A Red Carpet Murder Mystery. The novel is is a thinly disguised roman à clef, where Joan is Maxine Taylor, who with her daughter Drew, a cover for her daughter Melissa Rivers, track down the murder of a Hollywood starlet who mysteriously drops dead on the Academy Awards red carpet.
Even the dust jacket was made by Chanel.
Men are Stupid…and They Like Big Boobs
Rivers publishes Men are Stupid…and They Like Big Boobs: A Woman’s Guide to Beauty Through Plastic Surgery. Rivers talks about liposuction and Botox written in her characteristic self-deprecating style.
I’m a plastic surgery whore.
Don’t Count the Candles
Rivers publishes a self-help book on staying young, Don’t Count the Candles: Just Keep the Fire Lit! She offers advice on how to stay youthful at middle age, her experiences with plastic surgery, and her own spin on what it means to get older as a woman — and how to cope.
At fifty, confine your piercing to sardine cans and keep your hair short.
Bouncing Back
Rivers publishes a self-help book, Bouncing Back: I’ve Survived Everything… and I Mean Everything…and You Can Too!.
Dr. Kevorkian will get no call from me, unless I think he’d look good in a brooch.
Tony nomination
Rivers is a Tony Award nominee for Best Actress In A Play for Sally Marr…And Her Escorts.
Daytime Emmy nominations
Rivers is a Daytime Emmy nominee for Outstanding Talk Show Host and Outstanding Writing-Special Class for The Joan Rivers Show.
Daytime Emmy nominations
Rivers is a Daytime Emmy nominee for Outstanding Writing-Special Class for The Joan Rivers Show and for Outstanding Talk Show Host for The Joan Rivers Show.
Daytime Emmy nomination
Rivers is nominee for a Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Talk Show Host for The Joan Rivers Show.
Still Talking
Rivers publishes her second memoirish tell-all, Still Talking with Richard Merryman. In her characteristic comedic vitriolic style, she talks about her husband Edgar Rosenberg’s suicide, the birth of her daughter Melissa, gossip about celebrities, and ribs on the entertainment industry, and sex.
I know nothing about sex. All my mother told me was that the man gets on top, the woman gets on the bottom. I bought bunk beds.
Wins Daytime Emmy
Rivers wins Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Talk Show Host for The Joan Rivers Show.
I didn’t think I was going to win. So I had no speech prepared.
Hollywood Walk of Fame
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Edgar Rosenberg suicide age 62
Rosenberg, commits suicide in a hotel in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He overdoses on prescription medication. He has been suffering from clinical depression.
Why didn’t I pay attention to the signs? Why didn’t anybody? He was never really, really happy anymore.
Enter Talking
Rivers publishes Enter Talking, a memoir recounting her early career in television and her work on the Johnny Carson Show, and advice to wannabe media stars.
I could not endure the reality that I might end up Joan Molinsky, an unattractive, nondescript little Jewish girl, run-of-the-mill, who might just as well have stayed in Brooklyn and married the druggist and had a normal life. I had come from normal life, from real life, and nobody there had been happy. I knew I had to be special, had to have a life different from anything I had ever known, and if I ended up ordinary Joan Molinsky, I would always be unhappy and make my husband and children unhappy.
The Late Show
Rivers hosts The Late Show Starring Joan Rivers, produced by Edgar Rosenberg, Rivers’s husband, and Bill Sammeth, broadcast by Fox Broadcasting. Rivers’s inclusion in the television nighttime lineup competes with Johnny Carson’s Late Show. Her first lineup of guests include Cher, Pee-Wee Herman, Elton John, David Lee Roth, and John Moschitta.
So much has been said, so much has been written. I am so happy to be here.
The Life and Hard Times of Heidi Abromowitz
Rivers releases her book The Life and Hard Times of Heidi Abromowitz published under the Delacorte imprint. The 99-page comedic fiction is a humorous biography of “a loose woman” filled with Rivers’s off-color one-liners and social commentary with illustrations by James Sherman.
Never put off for tomorrow who you can put out for tonight – Heidi Abromowitz
Grammy nomination
Rivers is a Grammy nominee for Best Comedy Album for What Becomes a Semi-Legend Most?