Once Joan Rivers left the red carpet after too many publicist debacle’s, we were left with Star Jones followed by Ryan Seacrest (an insulting lubed up puppet show which could only be obstructed by the hands of Sasha Baron Cohn) who dressed as “The Dictator,” spilled ashes on Ryan Seacrest’s well-manicured physique during his 2012 Academy Award red carpet appearance.  Presumably Cohn meant no harm and it was just a prank, but it lent itself so wonderfully to what had been missing all these years, ridicule in a time of supposed adulation.  According to the way many celebrities, their fans and particularly the red carpet T.V. hosts carried themselves, you would think these starlets had just freed the Jews from the Holocaust; Joan reminded them they did nothing of the sort.

Joan would grow tired of celebrity suck up and in her 2010 documentary “A Piece of Work,” she let audiences know how she really felt:

“Who are you wearing . . . have you got a lucky charm . . . who the fuck are you!!?”

As Michael Schulman so eloquently wrote in his New Yorker piece on Joan, “Everyone who called her the Queen of Mean was missing the point: life is what’s mean, and she was here to let us know how funny that is.” If you take yourself too seriously life has a lot of troubling things in store for you, better to face the Queen than the masses.

Joan perfected the art of telling it like it is and let’s face it: Lena Dunham’s tits really do look like “Michael J. Fox drew them, and Stevie Wonder filled in the lines.” As a young or aspiring anything coming into ‘the business,’ Joan is reminding you that ‘sell by date’ is just around the corner. In her 2014 book, “Dairy of a Mad Deva,” which she was promoting just prior to her death, she penned a disclaimer:

“Miss Rivers wrote this diary as a comedic tone, not unlike Saving Private Ryan or The Bell Jar…Anyone who takes anything seriously in this book is an idiot.”

This disclaimer however did not perturb actress Kristin Steward from suing Joan over statements Joan had made about her love life.  Joan would go on to address the matter to The Daily Beast as only Joan can:

“I didn’t know who she was. She should have a sense of humor. It’s a shame as I wanted her in court and made to touch a doll in the parts where the director touched her. . . I love when they say I’ve crossed a line. On the scale of 1 to Osama bin Laden, I didn’t blow up buildings.”
Joan knew the shelf life of a celebrity and spent the majority of her career at the top of that shelf.  When she found herself close to the floor Joan recognized the power of humility, “I’ll do anything, I’ll even wear a diaper.”  After her husband Edgar committed suicide in 1987, Joan’s Vegas contracts were cancelled, and no venues would touch her.  She went back to the Village where her career began, where “sometimes the hat wouldn’t come back,” and she somehow managed to make suicide funny.  A made for T.V. movie with her daughter and a daytime talk show later Joan would be on top.

Joan’s career would continue to go up and down, but Joan always remained relevant with a drive surpassed by no one—QVC, noted TV appearances ranging from “The Apprentice” to “Louis,” Red Carpet shows, “The Fashion Police,” “Joan and Melissa: Joan Knows Best?” “In Bed with Joan” all while consistently touring around the country and averaging a book every three years.

Joan’s temperament and comedy would change after the death of her husband and as she recently told Howard Stern, that she nearly completed suicide after her husband killed himself. But when her Yorkie dog “Spike” climbed onto her lap and sat on the gun, Joan reconsidered.  The kids in the Village circa 1988 would not accept a former talk show host and with nothing to lose, no contracts beholden to, Joan raunched it up and became one of the most beloved comedians of our time.

Joan’s Highlights

The Girl Most Likely to . . . (1972)
Starring Stockard Channing
Written By Joan Rivers

Rabbit Test (1978)

A Piece of Work (2010)