--- title: Joan Rivers Dead at 81: Richard Corliss Remembrance description: The acidly funny comedy diva is dead at 81 canonical: https://time.com/3212274/joan-rivers-dead-81-remembrance/ author: Richard Corliss article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-09-04T19:02:35.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:40:32.023Z article:section: Entertainment og:title: Joan Rivers Dead at 81: Richard Corliss Remembrance og:description: The acidly funny comedy diva is dead at 81 og:url: https://time.com/3212274/joan-rivers-dead-81-remembrance/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb3c048712abdc982/6986a20fcd68481f70096534/joan-rivers-081.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Joan Rivers og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Joan Rivers Dead at 81: Richard Corliss Remembrance twitter:description: The acidly funny comedy diva is dead at 81 twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb3c048712abdc982/6986a20fcd68481f70096534/joan-rivers-081.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Remembering Joan Rivers: As If She'd Let Us Forget Her > Sponsored content. 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Terms and conditions apply. * Savings buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Savings Account. * No ATM fees from Ally Bank at Allpoint and Moneypass ATMs plus we reimburse for fees charged by other ATM owners nationwide up to $10 per statement cycle. * Early direct deposit offers eligible direct deposits up to two days sooner. * Spending buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Spending Account. ## Video: Joan Rivers: A Hilarious and Unapologetic Career [Watch (HLS stream): Joan Rivers: A Hilarious and Unapologetic Career](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/URFsJdAT.m3u8) (1:39)  _Published 2014-09-04. Joan Rivers: A Hilarious and Unapologetic Career_ by [Richard Corliss](https://time.com/author/richard-corliss/) ## Richard Corliss Sep 4, 2014 7:02 PM UTC  Joan Rivers poses for a portrait during the 2010 Sundance Film Festival held at the WireImage Portrait Studio at The Lift on January 27, 2010 in Park City, Utah. (Photo by Andrea Collins/WireImage) Joan Rivers poses for a portrait during the 2010 Sundance Film Festival held at the WireImage Portrait Studio at The Lift on January 27, 2010 in Park City, Utah. (Photo by Andrea Collins/WireImage)Andrea Collins—WireImage/Getty Images by [Richard Corliss](https://time.com/author/richard-corliss/) ## Richard Corliss Sep 4, 2014 7:02 PM UTC “Can we talk?” Joan Rivers always asked audiences, and by this she meant: Can I talk about life’s biases and prejudices — mine? For more than a half-century, first as a pioneering standup comedienne, then as a defiant survivor, she spoke skewed truth to power, and in doing so became her own potentate and garishly fossilized icon. She could be a ranting bag lady, if the lady were as funny as she was rude, and the bag from Gucci. Rivers, who died Sept. 4 at 81 in New York City after complications from throat surgery, created her look and legend as much as did Santa Monica plastic surgeon Steven Hoefflin (who also was Michael Jackson’s nose-whittler). She made fun of herself — her homeliness as a child, her flat chest, those layers of cosmetic archaeology (“When I die they will donate my body to Tupperware”) — and everyone else from Bo Derek to Tom Cruise. “I succeeded,” she said, “by saying what everyone else is thinking.” Everyone else, that is, with a wicked mind and an agile tongue. Born Joan Alexandra Molinsky in Brooklyn, she graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Barnard College in 1954\. (“I spit on education. No man will ever put his hand up your dress looking for a library card.”) In 1959 she acted in the off-Broadway play _Driftwood_ opposite another budding, brassy dominatrix, the 16-year-old Barbra Streisand. But nobody could write for Joan better than she, or manufacture a comedic personality so etched in acid and agita. Transporting the bold delivery of such earlier standup femmes as Sally Marr (Lenny Bruce’s mother) and Belle Barth to the same night clubs that nurtured the young Woody Allen, Molinsky changed her name on the advice of her then-manager, whose name was Tony Rivers. She got her big break on Feb. 17, 1965, when she first appeared with Johnny Carson on _The Tonight Show_. In 1983 Carson named Rivers his “permanent guest host”; but permanent proved ephemeral, as she fled to the newborn Fox network in 1986 for a late-night show opposite his. She didn’t tell Carson in advance, and he never spoke to her again. A year later, Rivers’ husband and longtime manager Edgar Rosenbaum killed himself by taking an overdose of prescription drugs. Even this tragedy became fodder for her act. “I was the one who really caused Edgar’s suicide,” she would say, “because, while we were making love, I took the bag off my head.” Rivers starred in and cowrote two Broadway plays: _Fun City_, which expired after a week in 1972, and _Sally Marr…and Her Escorts_, which ran for 50 performances in 1994 and earned her a Best-Actress Tony nomination. She also directed and cowrote the 1978 movie _Rabbit Test_, with Billy Crystal as the world’s first pregnant man. But narrative fiction was not her forte, unless it was the tragicomic saga of her own life — and of her randy alter-ego Heidi Abramowitz— which she alchemized out as a talk-show stalwart, a QVC pitchwoman (“The only time a woman has a true orgasm is when she is shopping”), an indefatigable diva on the road and a red-carpet scourge on showbiz awards nights with her daughter Melissa. In the 2010 documentary _Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work_, Melissa says that her mother’s career “was like me having a sister.” Having Joan for a mother meant being the butt of her jokes (“She doesn’t want me to be lonely; isn’t that nice? She’s trying to fix me up with Robert Blake”), competing with her on Donald Trump’s _Celebrity Apprentice_ (Joan won, Melissa was fired early) and sharing the screen with Mom in a 2010 Bravo caper called _Joan Rivers: Before Melissa Pulls the Plug_. A perpetual commotion machine, Joan had to keep working. In _A Piece of Work_, her assistant says, “Joan turns down nothing.” For Rivers, fear was an engagement calendar with no gigs. The woman who turned hate and self-hatred into comedy needed the loving validation of an audience — any audience. As she careered into her Golden Girls years, she mocked the Grim Reaper by saying that “age-appropriate” clothing “would be a shroud” and that, “At my age, an affair of the heart is a bypass.” Rather less amusingly, she discounted the deaths of several thousand Palestinians in this year’s war with Israel by fuming, “They started it. We now don’t count who’s dead. You’re dead. You deserve to be dead.” She added: “They were told to get out. They didn’t get out. You don’t get out, you are an idiot. At least the ones that were killed were the ones with low IQs.” She later said her remarks were taken out of context. Then again, life and career were dead-serious to Rivers, for whom every challenger, including the younger female comics, deserved to be whupped in a cage match. “They all come up to me and say, ‘Without you, I couldn’t be here, the barriers you broke down.’ I say, ‘Get the f— away from me. I still could take every one of you with one hand behind my back. Outta here. Talk like that at my funeral, but not till then.’” Let the eulogies from her admirers and victims begin now. Let them speak of her caustic wit, her acute timing and her understanding that comedy at its sharpest is not an anesthetic but a defibrillator. If Joan Rivers can no longer talk, she deserves to be talked about forever. ### Joan Rivers: A Life of Laughter in Pictures  Joan Rivers, pictured here in 1965, was born Joan Alexandra Molinsky in Brooklyn N.Y. on June 8, 1933. Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images  Rivers got her big break on "The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson" in 1965. Dan Grossi—AP  Comedienne Joan Rivers making faces in a mirror on the street in New York City on March 1, 1966. Truman Moore—The TIME & LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Comedienne Joan Rivers wearing black mesh dress and heels, while talking on the phone in a bathtub in New York City on March 1, 1966. Truman Moore—The TIME & LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Joan Rivers lights a cigar for her husband Edgar Rosenberg after giving birth to baby Melissa Frida, 6lb 13.5 oz, in New York City on Jan. 20, 1968. New York Daily News/Getty Images  Joan Rivers, Dick Cavett, and Liza Minnelli on This Morning, Feb. 12, 1968. ABC Photo Archives/Getty Images  Ed McMahon and host Joan Rivers on Kraft Music Hall on Aug. 21, 1968. NBC/Getty Images  Comedian Rodney Dangerfield (L) and actress Joan Rivers wrapping up Dick Cavett (C) in a scene from the Portnoy's Complaint, Jan. 1, 1969. Arthur Schatz—The TIME & LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Joan Rivers with daughter Melissa at home in New York City in Nov., 1970. I C Rapoport/Getty Images  Producer Edgar Rosenberg and wife comedian Joan Rivers during the Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson 10th Anniversary party on September 30, 1972 in New York City. NBC/Getty Images  Actress Joan Rivers guest stars on "The Carol Bunett Show" on Dec. 13, 1975 in Los Angeles. CBS Photo Archive/Getty Images  One of the many accolades that Rivers received during her life was being named "Woman of the Year" by Hasty Pudding Theatricals, the Harvard University drama group in 1984\. She celebrated by riding a parade float through Harvard Square. Ted Gartland—AP  Rivers' celebrity gave her the opportunity to meet prominent figures in show business and politics, including Nancy Reagan in 1984. Bettmann/Corbis  Rivers, pictured in 1985 with star wrestler Hulk Hogan, became a regular guest host of the Tonight Show in the early 1980s and published "The Life and Hard Times of Heidi Abramowitz," a best-seller, in 1984. AP  Oprah Winfrey was one of the many that Rivers interviewed during her guest-hosting stints on "The Tonight Show" in 1986. NBC/Getty Images  By 1986, Rivers had been cut out of Carson's circle, having signed on to host "The Late Show Starring Joan Rivers" on Fox. Elton John, Cher and Pee Wee Herman joined Rivers for her first episode. Bob Galbraith—AP  Rivers remained on "The Late Show " for less than a year before leaving Fox in 1987 and starting her work on "The Joan Rivers Talk Show" in 1989. Nick Ut—AP  Joan Rivers is honored with a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on July 26, 1989, at Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood Ron Galella—WireImage/Getty Images  Rivers, pictured with RuPaul in 1993, won a Daytime Emmy Award for hosting the eponymous "Joan Rivers Show" in 1990. Jim Cooper—AP  Rivers, pictured with Kelly Osbourne and daughter Melissa in 2012, became best-known to younger generations for hosting E!'s red carpet pre-awards show for the Oscars. A. Ariani—Splash News/Corbis  Pictured here at the Sundance Film Festival in 2010, Rivers remained active up to her death, hosting internet talk show with her daughter Melissa, "In Bed with Joan." 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