I was in a bit of denial the past week ever since news of Joan River's cardiac arrest during minor throat surgery was reported. She'll bounce back, I thought. She always has.
But at age 81, Rivers succumbed to what we all will succumb to eventually: death. At least for her, it happened suddenly. It sounds like she was never conscious again after her heart stopped. She's probably already in the hereafter cracking jokes about it.
Whether you found her funny or mean spirited, she was a groundbreaker, a female stand-up comics when they were rare. And she brought an edge that was refreshing in its day. She became Johnny Carson's understudy - until he felt she betrayed him by starting her own rival talk show in 1986 on Fox. Soon, Fox fired her when ratings failed to grow and she battled their efforts to fire her husband Edgard Rosenberg. Tragically, he then committed suicide. Through all this, Carson never spoke to her again. (She chronicles it a bit here.)
She soldiered on, a workaholic at heart, even after such personal heartache. She had a daytime talk show for five years. She became the queen of the red carpet, often asking candid questions to celebrities that offended many a delicate spirit. In 2009, her career got an extra booster shot thanks to Donald Trump. She won "Celebrity Apprentice," showing an indefatigable competitive spirit that impressed Trump and millions of viewers.
A 2010 documentary about her "A Piece of Work" chronicled her impressive career. I loved how she kept her jokes by topic on cards used by libraries in the pre-digital age. She kept hip with the kids by doing a reality show on WE-TV with her daughter Melissa.
Like many journalists who have covered entertainment over the years, I've had the pleasure to talk to her a few times and she never ever phones it in. The last time did a phone interview with her was June, 2013 before what would be her final Atlanta Symphony Hall stand-up appearance. (You can read the entire story here.)
She sounded genuinely happy with how her life was at age 80. "Everything is terrific," she said to me. "I'm climbing over pianos in my act. I do the New York Times crossword puzzle every day. I have pleasant dreams."
And she had no apologies being a curmudgeon. "I've always been that way," she said. "Now, truly, I don't care anymore. The emperor wears no clothes. I'm glad to point that out."
Recently, she made headlines for leaving in the middle of a CNN interview because (ironically) she found the anchor too mean.
Up to the Emmys and MTV Video Music Awards last week, she was running at full throttle on E!'s weekly show "Fashion Police," where she would crack up her hosts at least five or six times per episode with hilarious put-down lines. Even if you don't care about fashion (and I hardly do), the show was always entertaining. Sadly, I can't imagine E! would go on with it without her. Who could possibly replace her? Nobody.
"We were the first ones to turn walking into a building into an event," she said to me last year. "But now everyone is there on the red carpet. Everybody has a press agent. Everything is so controlled. It's not as much fun. With 'Fashion Police,' we can sit there the next day and make comments about what we really thought."
She was unapologetically opinionated and did what she wanted, political correctness be damned. And she did this decades before Roseanne Barr and the like showed up on the scene. The fact she kept herself relevant to her very last breathing day is a testament to her unique talents and the respect she has earned.
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