I was a doorman at a nightclub in Cleveland back in the late 80’s. One night a limo pulled up and Joan Rivers stepped out carrying a tiny terrier. She asked “Is it okay if Spike comes in with me?” I told her that it would be fine but that it might be too loud for him because there was a big band orchestra playing that night. She set him on the sidewalk and asked him, “What do you think, Spike?” He looked tired so she put him back in the limo with the driver while she went in and checked out the club for an hour. Although our encounter was brief, she struck me as a very pleasant person. Thank you for many years of laughter, Ms. Rivers.
I heard an interview with her on Fresh Air a year or so ago. She had me laughing so hard I teared up. She was controversial at times, but she was very funny, too.
Joan Rivers was a rare gem - a loving mother, comedian, business woman, and force of nature on both television and stage. She overcame tragedy and loss, and did it with grace and humor. Few people have that much faith in themselves and that much drive to succeed.
My sincere condolences to her daughter. She will be missed, but not forgotten.
Sometimes she was funny, her obit indicates this was particularly true earlier in her career. More often, in my lifetime, I found her to be a mean bully who often picked on easy and undeserving targets. I’m not a fan of mean people. However, I am a fan of women who are pioneers in their respective industries.
My sympathies go out to those who cared about her; at least their funeral expenses won’t include any embalming fees.
My wife was recently flown out to Georgia (Tybee island) to be filmed for a documentary on Menopause (for those that are interested, she was selected because she runs this web site http://www.covenantspice.com – may be slightly NSFW). She was told that they also interviewed Joan Rivers too. It would be interesting if my wife was a part of one of the last things that Mrs. Rivers was involved in.
I checked IMDB, and Joan Rivers was also part of a Robin Williams tribute. So sad to loose two comedy greats so close to each other.
Yep; she made me laugh a lot. Sad to see her go.
I thought you meant “she’s a runner. Here is her website” 
Joan, have fun with Robin in the craziest parts of heaven!
Send our love!
Thanks for the laughs and eyerolls, you were one of us.
Ah, the redneck riviera. She has my sympathies.
RIP to Joan Rivers. Can’t say I found her very funny, mostly just mean, but I appreciate that lots of people did like her.
That said, I did appreciate the documentary about her from a few years ago.
And Spaceballs, natch.
I can’t wait for her posthumous album, just in time for Christmas- Joan Rivers- Unplugged.
When my kids asked who she was, the only way they could relate to her was the voice of “Dot Matrix.” Of course, all of my kids have seen Spaceballs at least twice.
I never really appreciated how funny, not to mention hardworking, Joan Rivers was until I read Seriously funny : the rebel comedians of the 1950s and 1960s by Gerald Nachman. The last chapter is about her. Before reading it I had never realized her career went back that far, and had no clue how much she struggled to break out of her family and into show business.
She was an amazing part of an amazing generation, and she will be missed.
Well this prompted me to do a little research. I’ve always assumed she appeared in The Brave Little Toaster, but it turns out it was an imitator. Thirty years ago she was already that iconic.
You never saw her come back to her limo with the dog and driver?
Yep, it’s too bad for her reputation that some of us will remember her mostly for her tirade against Gazans.
I saw the documentary and it is very good. It’s easy to see her as mean, but she was doing a brand of comedy that has mostly passed out of favor these days, Don Rickles et al were doing it at the time she came on the scene. It’s incredible that a woman was able to break in to that kind of ballsy, mean-spirited form of humor and then that she reinvented herself so many times, kept herself relevant, kept the old jokes up to date and kept going decade after decade. I looked up a you tube video of the scene from the documentary where she deals with the heckler so well, and the comments were absolute poison, so anti-semitic, so angry. She didn’t care about the abuse she got as long as she was making people laugh. She said stuff so mean, so crazy that you couldn’t believe anyone would dare to say it.
“It’s not for me, it’s for you, No one likes a necrophiliac”
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
