So many people that are here. Hello, my darling.
Missy, darling, are you there?
[narrator] She was known as fashion's funniest critic...
Who are you wearing? Who are you wearing?
Who are you wearing, and who are you wearing?
And the "Queen of Mean".
This is what, this is feathers?
What kind of feathers, cock feathers?
Joan Rivers also blazed a trail in a man's world.
She was hilarious!
The beautiful, Joan Rivers.
It was the first time I ever saw a female comic.
I went, "Oh, girls can do that!"
The world was not quite ready for Joan.
She was comedy's version of a rock star.
A woman modelling being a boss...
Here's Joan Rivers.
And being funny and unafraid.
I should be in good in bed 'cause my first sexual
experience was at 12, you know, this afternoon.
♪
And she'd have the gorgeous gowns,
and she'd have the styled hair.
So glamorous!
She looked like a normal lady.
But when she opened up her mouth, you better watch out.
So, how'd you gain the weight?
-I ate a lot. -[Laughing]
You shouldn't let that happen to you, you're very pretty.
-Oh, Joan, you know what! -No, I don't want to hear!
She was honest.
I don't go into hotel rooms with men,
I don't spend my life on knees and-
I don't either- [Indistinct speaking]
[Audience laughing]
I don't spend my life on my knees either!
But beneath her powerful exterior...
There was a piece of her that was broken.
You are always putting yourself down.
You must have some favourite, surely.
Oh, please, no... nothing.
She was struggling with a dangerous obsession.
-Hi, Doc. -How are you?
-Very nervous. -Okay...
I think about how scary everything was for her.
If any of you are thinking of plastic surgery,
this was taken the day after.
Very bruised, but alive, right?
She was being spoofed, she was-
she turned into a caricature of herself.
She was not taken seriously.
It was the monster that created
her need to win people.
How does a comic who smashed the glass ceiling
become so toxic to women, especially herself?
No one, I mean no one,
is safe from my wrath.
[Overlapping voices] Ladies and gentlemen!
You're about to be entertained!
Getting the laugh is the greatest addiction.
They want more of it, they want more of it.
He was getting death threats. It [beep] with your head!
...he's out of his skull! That's what took her down.
This is a crazy story.
♪
[Applauding]
I don't know how many of you know about Brooklyn,
but Brooklyn was, it was very tough to grow up.
My parents, we lived right down there,
wonderful people. Worked hard, played.
We lived in a big brownstone right off there.
Not a house- a big, brown stone.
[Laughing]
Joan Alexandra Molinsky,
a child of Russian -Jewish immigrants
seems born with a passion for the performing arts.
When she was 3 years old, she was cast in
a preschool play as the "pretty kitty".
And she made the audience laugh.
She said, "It might as well have been crack."
And from then on she was chasing that
incredibly thrilling, exhilarating high.
Because what it meant was that the audience loved her.
Now, you're a Barnard College Graduate?
-Yes. -And your father's a doctor?
-Yes. -And your mother is a...?
-A mother. -Just a mother.
How do they look upon this, what you're doing?
-What it is you do? -Frightened.
From the time of her preschool play,
Joan desperately wanted to be an actress.
It's a dream that will sustain her through college,
but she's plagued by self-doubt.
She used to tell stories about how somebody
would see her in a bathing suit, and they would say,
"I'm not going out with her." Or, you know,
a cousin who refused to take her to the prom.
So, she always had a terrible complex
about her appearance.
A new medical procedure is being marketed to women
as a beauty miracle.
It's called plastic surgery.
In the time when Joan grew up,
the standards of beauty in America were very
blonde, blue-eyed,
pert, bobbed noses that
the models in the magazines had.
She felt like she was- in that way, in the,
in the physical way- not quite good enough.
There's the ethnic part of it.
There was a part of it of the not embracing...
who we are.
Joan's mother takes her for her first nose job.
The transformative surgery allows Joan to
see herself in a whole new light.
When I first got out of college,
I got me a manager who said, "You'll never make it under
the name Joan Molinsky," which is my real name.
Which hurt. And, ah, I, I would be booked in places
I can't tell you 'cause you've never had to
go through, you know, like, strip joints.
-No. -And I tried to belong.
I used to wear a G-string over my dress and everything.
[Laughing]
-Weird. -Strange.
When she graduated,
she spent a terrible decade trying to
break into performing in New York.
♪
She would make the rounds of the casting agents.
And finally, one of the secretaries said to her,
"You know, you're kind of funny.
Did you ever think about trying to do comedy?"
And when she first tried doing stand-up,
she was terrible.
She went to see Lenny Bruce who was fearless and
famous for getting up onstage and saying
all the things that you are not allowed to say.
Ah, she was like, "Oh, my god, you can do that?"
As Joan beings writing her own material,
a new persona emerges.
I met Joan in, in the Village.
And, here was this tiny person...
and she was doing what women didn't do at that point.
Came in appearing to be harmless, but boy,
she was a killer. [Laughing]
She's so likeable, she's so sweet.
And then she says these crazy things, and that's...
that's the sneak attack.
I just absolutely became enamoured with this very
intelligent, articulate, well-educated woman
coming up with issues and situations-
political and social commentary-
that the world had not seen.
We weren't even allowed to have like our own
credit cards at the time where Joan
was going onstage.
That made her powerful.
She was more than a comic, she was an event.
[Joan] It was Second City,
which did well around here.
And then nobody cared really, you know,
there were great lapses.
And I'd given it up, and I'd become a writer,
and was making a living.
And then they asked me to go on the Carson show to
discuss writing- not as a performer-
and discuss my theories of writing,
and I did, and they laughed.
So, I became a performer again.
The Tonight Show,
when Johnny Carson was the host,
he was known as the king of late night,
and was unquestionably the show to watch at 11:30.
It was a launching pad, it was a
platform to introduce comics to the world.
You would be seen by as many people in,
in 15 minutes as could possibly see you in
10 years in a club.
My name is Patric M. Verrone.
I'm a television comedy writer,
currently working on Futurama.
Here's a good friend of ours.
Um... Julie says she taped three shows today.
She's a lot of fun. Would you welcome, Joan Rivers!
If Johnny Carson gave you that sign, or that sign,
or called you over to the couch...
you had made it.
And apparently, he told Joan
on her first appearance...
You know, you're gonna be a big star.
And, he loved her.
It's the most awful thing for a woman,
is when you're sitting there talking to a guy and an
18-year-old chickee walks past, and-
"Heh-heh-heh-heh."
And these girls are dumb, Johnny.
-Dumb? -Dumb!
-You know, stewardesses? -Oh, yeah.
Dumb! Dumb, dumb!
-They're pretty. -Oh, sure, bring that up.
It was like Johnny Carson was anointing Joan Rivers.
We'll take a break, and we'll be right back.
The fact that she woke up and she was suddenly an
overnight star, ah, was just a testimonial to her
persistence and her refusal to take no for an answer.
Joan's breakthrough appearance on
The Tonight Show is a life changing event.
Joan Rivers, a refreshing change of pace from the
usual sleep talking nature of Johnny Carson's show.
And this fall, she's begun a series of engagements with
that monument of massive charm, Ed Sullivan.
The first time I ever saw Joan River was as a very
little girl, on my TV, watching Ed Sullivan.
I almost didn't come out tonight because
I'm backstage shortening my skirt.
It was the first time I ever saw a female comic.
You know, you have to shorten it again
because the dumb styles.
Joan was the person who I could say to this day,
I went, "Oh, girls can do that."
I'd watch Joan Rivers on Ed Sullivan
in her beautiful black designer cocktail dresses.
Here is...
little Joan Rivers!
With all the beautiful jewelry,
her hair done perfect.
Perfect makeup, manicured, gorgeous shoes-
the whole thing- and I went, "She's beautiful!"
When I was 21, my mother said,
"Only a doctor for you." When I was 22,
she said, "Alright, a lawyer. CPA."
24, she said, "We'll grab a dentist."
26, she said, "Anything!"
She looked like the perfect woman.
My father's a doctor, and he figured if they
educate the lump, she'll get married, you know?
[Lisa Ann] But she kept telling me
that she wasn't.
Joan's overnight success isn't enough for her.
She wants something more.
She becomes obsessed with the way she looks onscreen.
This time, it's the bags under her eyes.
She returns to the surgeon's chair.
Back when Joan was doing stand-up,
you started looking your age, you don't get booked!
That's the Dark Side of Comedy,
is that there is a chronic low self-esteem
in every good comedian.
And it doesn't go away
no matter how successful you are.
No matter how much face work you get,
it just, it's still there.
But, you know, why not keep trying?
You're already fighting to be on a stage full of men.
You're playing in a boys' club.
So now you don't look as pretty.
What are my opportunities gonna be?
So, here is a young lady who, ah...
I think had her first national exposure on my show,
who not only writes funny, she is funny, herself.
Would you welcome, please, Joan Rivers.
Joan's breakout appearance on The Tonight Show
isn't the only big change in her life.
A lot's happened in a year.
Last year, I was home alone, with no job,
watching you, you know, on television.
And, which is- you know, you were funny, but then...
[Laughing] And, ah, you know.
This year, I'm married, and I was out with my husband
to a formal party, and we watched you on television.
Joan had been looking for an appropriate husband for a
long time when she finally met Edgar Rosenberg.
He was kind of a Hollywood producer wannabe,
and then he proposed to her, and they kind of had a
whirlwind romance and got married pretty quickly.
As some of you can tell now,
I'm 7 and a half months pregnant.
And you want to know the truth?
You know how lousy you feel at night?
When I'm undressed, my husband
looks at me and mentally dresses me.
-You know? -[Laughing]
Soon she's balancing motherhood along with
a white-hot career.
Would you welcome Miss Joan Rivers!
Joan's regular appearances on Johnny Carson's show are
her springboard to becoming a household name.
You're done so beautifully.
-She does. -Oh! I hope she's not happy.
-It just kills me. -[Laughing]
Do you have a calendar like this out?
Not- Well, I tried. But unfortunately...
[Laughing] Just one month.
[Laughing]
They said, "Forget the rest of the year," ah?
Yeah, they said, "Blech!" No.
[Laughing]
They saw December and says, "Well, forget it."
I have no sex appeal, you know that.
I'm just teasing. No- I- See, I-
-Oh, come on! -No, no come on,
You're gonna start that self-deprecating stuff again.
Well, how can you when Ann is sitting next to you,
you know what I- How can you- I mean, my marriage, I mean,
there's nothing, there's no romance left.
Oh, come on.
Last time there was any sex, you know,
he was doing push-ups and I slid in.
-Otherwise... -[Laughing]
Carson gives Joan a golden opportunity.
Johnny only worked four nights a week.
The Monday night show,
he would bring in a guest host.
You name it, they would find anybody who was willing to
sit in the chair and talk to somebody on the couch.
So, Joan became a regular.
And Joan was well, well liked.
So, at some point, every Monday night,
she became the permanent guest host.
For her to take over and host when Johnny wasn't there...
mind blowing.
Even today, it's unusual for there to be
a woman host of a talk show at night.
That was a ----ing huge deal.
Joan would come on, and she would
do material that Johnny Carson would not do.
When my water broke, it showed up on
the weather report, now what about you?!
She would also have guests that he wouldn't have.
And, people liked to be a little bit naughty
when Joan was there.
I keep staring at your chest, just- Ah!
[Laughing]
And I'm a woman, I mean,
do men ever see your face?
It felt to me like she was the only woman on TV.
But Joan was always herself.
It felt like she did not hold back on what she would say,
and that was a rare quality, for any comic in those days,
but especially for a woman.
She was ballsy!
So, how'd you gain the weight?
-I ate a lot. -[Laughing]
No, no, no, no! No, no, no!
You said 50 pounds!
You shouldn't let that happen to you. You're very pretty.
-Alright, Joan, you know what? -No, I don't want to hear!
It seemed like she was fearless.
She would go there with no hesitation,
reservations, or apologies.
-Ah, Joan Rivers, please. -Joan Rivers!
But beneath Joan's fearless exterior,
she's fighting an ongoing battle with her appearance.
Joan was always incredibly paranoid about her weight,
and she was bulimic for a lot of her adult life.
Her friends claimed that she lived on, you know, like,
Altoids mints and just would not eat food.
From liposuction to face lifts,
Joan turns to surgery over and over again.
Despite her obsession, the public loves her.
Whenever Joan was on The Tonight Show,
the ratings like spiked.
She became the substitute teacher that everybody loved.
So, if Johnny was the king of late night,
Joan became the queen.
This is- I'm used to this, I shouldn't complain.
Men never do things because I'm not attractive.
[Laughing]
When I was born, my mother looked at me,
looked at the afterbirth, and screamed, "Twins!"
[Laughing]
Famously self-deprecating,
Joan's comedy begins to take a turn.
I loved it when Joan Rivers was self-deprecating because
I think that's the way we get into, you know,
people relating to us.
And a lot of it was the very
direct assault on certain personalities.
She changed and, you know,
sometimes she would double down on people.
She really got on Elizabeth Taylor's ass.
She talked about her hair, she talked about her clothes,
she talked about her makeup.
I mean, she was fat, not-
Who's gonna tell you if not your good friend?
Well, I suppose you're right.
She had her ears pierced, gravy came out,
I mean, this woman-
The fat jokes...
again, and again, and again.
One nice thing about having Liz to dinner is when you buy
a pizza, you don't have to cut it into slices.
[Laughing]
When she began to go to Las Vegas,
the material that she was able to do there was
much more, ah, salacious even.
She was vicious about many of
America's most respected women.
And, audiences ate it up.
She is fat! Her blood type is ragout!
The audiences roared.
And, it was really, for Joan, it was like, you know,
throwing red meat to a starving tiger.
The woman is a tramp!
Her towels say "His" and "Herpes".
-I- Oh, yes! -[Laughing]
The woman is a tramp!
Her legs are in the air so often,
her feet are sunburned!
[Laughing]
Joan's popularity is at an all-time high when a
dream job opening makes it onto her radar.
After years of speculation, rumours,
cocktail party conversations, and just plain old gossip,
Johnny Carson has finally made it official.
He is not going to stay on television forever.
It was a long time for anybody in television,
and he was...
aging, so the assumption would be that someone
would have to take his place.
Here's Joan Rivers!
[Cheering continues]
If you have somebody on that does the job that Joan did,
I think there has to be an understanding that,
well, I'm probably gonna be a successor.
You know, and he's gonna support that.
'Cause she knew what the show was doing,
the numbers the show was doing when she was on it.
Supposedly, there was a list produced by somebody-
I don't know who- that...
talked about who would take over for Johnny,
and Joan wasn't on that list.
And of course, it was all men on the list.
And they weren't even considering her
to take over hosting duties.
If you're the permanent guest host,
and you see your ratings are going up because Joan is
coming in, why would she not be on a list?
You could only say it's because she was a woman.
Even as a TV queen, she's still a woman
fighting in a man's world.
My sense of Joan, because she was such a hard driven,
hard driving individual, if she thought that
she was not being given the opportunity that
anybody else would have been given...
that would've upset her.
That would cause her to drive even harder.
Joan's perfectionism pushes her back into the surgeon's
chair with each new television appearance and
magazine cover.
It really made Joan Rivers obsessed with the way
she looked because Joan had to deal with fear,
and she dealt with insecurity.
When you go in and you start thinking, "Oh, my gosh,
there's something wrong with me...
I got too many chins, my nose is too wide,"
you, you can get addicted.
Some will see her next move as career suicide.
To do what she did took chutzpah.
Good evening, this is the 10 o'clock news,
I'm Steve Powers.
And today, confirmation of the largest single broadcast
station transaction in history.
Joan is furious as what she sees as a betrayal by
Johnny Carson until a new opportunity
falls into her lap.
My understanding of the story at the time was that
Rupert Murdoch announced, with Barry Diller,
that there was going to be a fourth network.
They were going to start in late night.
And so, in order to make the biggest splash possible,
they needed to get a late night host who was somebody
that was recognizable, and who was a proven commodity
in a world dominated by Johnny Carson.
Well, Joan Rivers was the obvious candidate.
Fox executives offer Joan the biggest opportunity
of her career, but it means she will have to
compete directly with Johnny Carson.
This is a businesswoman saying, "Oh, I need to work,"
and she did what anybody would do.
If you were gonna pay me 9 times my salary, buh-bye!
That rippled the waters.
Joan Rivers against late night talk show champ,
Johnny Carson, and both corners
will be pulling no punches.
[Applauding]
The groundwork for tonight's main event was
laid last May when Rivers was still serving as sole guest
host for Carson, appeared at a press conference to
announce plans for her own late night talk show.
There's room for all of us.
He should be thrilled he found me.
There's room for all of us.
Carson was not thrilled, and a statement issued through
his company maintained that Rivers, quote,
"Handled the situation very shabbily in
her sudden announcement," end quote.
He further termed her behaviour, "Unethical."
And the kingmaker didn't like it.
I think he felt like he could...
destine her life?
The word at the time was that Johnny was offended
that Joan Rivers, a woman whose
career he felt he had launched,
didn't consult with him or even let him know that
she was going to take this very high-profile job
in direct competition against him.
It was perceived by a lot of people
as a slap in the face.
She's not asking to marry someone,
needs a father's permission.
There was no protocol for this.
What a lot of people don't understand is,
because there's so many women in comedy now,
she had to fight for everything,
so that's probably why she didn't call Johnny
to ask to kiss the ring.
"Is it okay if I go do my own show?"
She's gonna go do her own show.
Doesn't Johnny have the power to
really hurt you in the business?
I don't think Jonny wants to.
NBC is trying to, but I...
Oh, who cares?
You want to know something, what's gonna happen?
I have a good marriage, I have a terrific child.
Um...
I have a terrific dog.
[Laughing & applauding]
Not only was she never back on The Tonight Show,
but Johnny Carson never talked to her again.
What do viewers think of the Johnny Carson,
Joan Rivers feud?
It was great Hollywood gossip.
All Fox had was The Late Show with Joan Rivers,
so this was a dream amount of publicity for
the launching of this network.
Hold it, Harry! Hold it!
My new show is coming on!
Harry, Joan Rivers is talking to you.
But I like the weatherman's puppet, Mr. Sunshine.
For Joan, the stakes can't be higher.
She's burned a bridge with Carson,
and the success of a brand-new network
rests on her shoulders.
As the first-ever female host of late night television,
the world is watching.
Joan insists on hiring her husband as executive producer
and gets down to the business of creating a smash hit.
The first episode in October of 1986,
and they had booked a list of guests for the premiere
that was gonna blow the roof off the place.
For her first round with the champ,
Rivers is parading out an all-star lineup,
including Cher, Elton John, Peewee Herman,
and David Lee Roth.
She herself, Joan herself, was an attraction.
♪ ...THE BITCH IS BACK! ♪
♪ THE BITCH IS BACK! ♪
[Cheering & applauding continues]
I ran into the green room, and in the green room
were sitting Barry Diller and Rupert Murdoch.
That shows you how important this first episode was.
They were businessmen looking
very carefully at their investment.
Right now, they're here to perform,
"You Gotta Fight For Your Right to Party,"
The Beastie Boys!
[Cheering]
I'm enjoying you 'cause this is not my house.
Chris Rock!
[Cheering & applauding]
So, what's up?
Are you gonna have PMS with us?
No...
No, I had it this afternoon.
[Laughing]
She was like an electrifying presence,
and she had a really young following.
What's going on?
It's either the 4th of July...
or someone's trying to kill us!
No!
When Joan lands her first cover of People Magazine,
it's the ultimate symbol of celebrity success.
But instead of celebrating,
it triggers something else in Joan.
And what she sees in the mirror...
is very different than what we all see.
The thing about becoming famous and being constantly
in front of cameras is you look at yourself on a
magazine cover, or in People Magazine,
or on camera or whatever, and you think,
"Oh, I hate the way this looks.
Maybe I could do something to fix that."
And, her attitude was, bring it on.
As the number of Joan's surgeries increase,
her late night talk show hits a roadblock.
There was a rumour in town that if you went on the show
with Joan to promote your movie or TV show,
you would not get booked on The Tonight Show.
I guess he got mad and said,
"You can't be on her show and my show,"
and everybody was afraid to go on the woman's show.
He tried to ruin her.
As the weeks went by, it became clear
the show was beginning to falter.
As in any time something goes wrong in anything in
this world, somebody needs to be blamed.
She would rely on Edgar's opinion more often than
she would when people with more experience
doing this kind of programming.
The executives started to tinker.
And they started to disagree openly with Edgar.
They weren't so into her husband.
They weren't so into the Edgar of it all.
They asked her to choose.
Fox executives demand Joan fire Edgar, or else.
She chose her husband...
which is so ----ing crazy to me.
So, I don't...
understand the choice, but it shows her spirit that
she's just like, "---- you, that's my man.
I'm standing by my man."
After less than 7 months on the air,
Joan is fired from her late night talk show.
When you have a bomb like that where you have this
huge opportunity, you have this talk show...
and then it gets canceled, it's so embarrassing.
She was the first woman in late night.
It was a huge moment to have her have her own talk show,
and I'm sure people just loved it when it failed.
Things don't work out, you know what I mean?
It's nobody's fault.
I've been in this business 23 years.
I'm gonna be in this business another 23 years.
-[Cheering] -It doesn't matter.
But the loss of her show is only the spark that will
ignite a devastating fire storm in Joan's life.
♪
In the aftermath of the disaster with Fox...
she was in California, and she was getting
yet another cosmetic procedure,
some beauty-related thing.
Edgar was in the east...
where Melissa, their daughter,
was at the University of Pennsylvania.
♪ SFX: [Heartbeat] ♪
Edgar was staying at the Four Seasons in Philadelphia.
♪ SFX: [Heartbeat] ♪
♪
He chose that place to...
kill himself.
♪
We were fired from Fox,
and then he committed suicide.
1987 was not a very good year for me.
The husband of comedian Joan Rivers is found dead
in a posh Philadelphia hotel.
Police say it may have been a suicide.
I don't know why exactly he did it.
There were all kinds of rumours that were
swirling at the time.
There was some blame being laid at Edgar's feet
for the, the failure of the show.
And, honestly from a firsthand perspective,
I can't tell you that that was necessarily the case,
but there was that sense.
The reality was, the man was dead,
and Joan was a widow.
Joan talked to me about what happened in
that aftermath of Edgar dying.
My name's Oz Scott. I'm a director, producer.
She talked to me about sitting Shiva and having her
agents show up and tell her they were letting her go
because nobody wanted to see a comic
whose husband had committed suicide.
And then, for her to learn that she was broke...
on top of it all.
While still dealing with the shock of Edgar's death,
Joan learns that he had been keeping a secret from her.
Edgar was filled with shame because
he had screwed up everything.
I gather Edgar had made some bad investments so,
she was really in trouble.
Not only had Edgar lost all of their money,
he left her $37 million in debt.
Millions and millions of dollars in debt,
which is so devastating.
I can't even imagine...
how she and Melissa got through that.
I was so angry at my husband, I went in one night,
and I opened his medicine chest.
I think the man had killed himself four days before.
And I said, "What did you do to us?"
I love my husband, I miss my husband.
I was so angry, it was like, "You son of a bitch,
you son of a bitch!"
I was very secure in the fact that I knew
my father loved me, and that I, I knew that
he knew that I loved him tremendously.
All of the anger and all of the rage
came flying out at my mother.
When Joan's show was canceled and she was
fed up with being married to him,
he had screwed up her whole life and her career,
which is the thing she cared most about,
when he died...
Melissa blamed her mother for her father's death.
She's lost her career, she's lost her money.
She feels like she has nothing left to live for,
and so she's sitting there with this gun.
And, she knew how to use it.
But Joan doesn't give in.
Instead, she does what she's always done in the face
of a challenge- she fights through it.
I have terrible things happen to me all the time,
but I don't dwell on them. I spend like a
week or two weeks, and I say, "Enough of this."
Out the door and start again.
Even though the person she sacrificed
everything for checked out...
she kept going.
She had to rebuild her career from scratch.
Total scorched earth...
and then she rises.
[Applauding]
Joan lands a brand-new daytime talk show.
Are you sleeping with Miss Piggy?
Can we just get right down to it-
are you sleeping with Miss Piggy?
Well, Joan Rivers was a hustler.
Can you please welcome, Miss Grace Jones.
Why do you have to be so extreme?
She kept her position at Caesar's Palace,
and she continued to, to tour,
and she continued to make albums, and she put out books.
She did what every real woman does,
pull herself up by her pumps,
put on her big girl panties.
She's doing the grunt work.
Now she's interviewing people,
she's out at every event.
She hits the stages,
and she is bringing it full fledged fire.
-Joan Rivers! -[Cheering]
She was back.
Ah! Hi, can we talk?
Listen, this Saturday evening I will be joining QVC to
introduce my new classics collection of fashion jewelry.
It's just beautiful, and you are gonna love it.
People would say, "Oh, my, she's done, she's doing QVC."
Nobody who was famous already...
was on the Home Shopping Network.
In Joan's quest to rebuild her fortune,
nothing is off limits for public consumption.
Oh, don't worry, Daddy.
Mom's just fine, she won best dressed patient and
Miss Congeniality at the hospital.
The film "Tears and Laughter" was the aftermath
of Edgar having committed suicide.
And, how Joan Rivers and Melissa Rivers,
the two of them fell apart and had to find a way of
coming back together.
One of the things a lot of people asked was
why did Joan take this part?
And I asked Joan, and Joan said,
"Why would I create a part, a character,
and give it to somebody else?"
♪
"I want to do it."
Ah! What a surprise, you're early!
Missy, what is it? Missy, what's happened?
Melissa, just tell me what's happened.
♪
I know that her goal was to be taken seriously
as an actress and I don't think she ever was.
♪
Despite all her success over the years, Joan wanted more.
She always felt that her looks were holding her back.
♪
From her earliest childhood, she was incredibly jealous of
other girls who, because of beauty,
had opportunities that Joan felt she was denied.
Hearing her say that she wanted to be taken seriously
as an actress kind of breaks my heart.
She, she didn't care about the other gifts God gave her.
Joan always felt like the ugly duckling in the family.
She had an older sister.
And, the sister was, according to family
mythology, prettier, smarter, and more popular.
To be told as a child, "Oh, you're fat, you're ugly,
you're not the best -looking in the family,
everybody's better than you,"
it probably really took a toll on her.
That is what created her.
It was the monster that created
her need to win people.
This fuelled an endless quest for beauty,
regardless of the dangers.
-How are you? -Very nervous.
It's sad that Joan never felt beautiful,
and was constantly always trying to fix herself and get
that love that she never felt and that adoration from just
being a girl that people admire from across a room,
without having to tell a joke.
And then this thing is getting me.
This is really looking old.
Okay, we're gonna go ahead and...
take care of the bends of the neck area here.
There's gonna be a small incision just underneath
the chin area here.
Plastic surgery is a way to achieve a look that
you think will get more people to love you.
'Cause I want to look good. I don't want to look...
I don't want to look too tight, I want to look good.
Okay, got that.
Just remember, I'm a mother.
♪
I was ugly as a child, I was ugly as a teenager,
and I'm puke now. I- [Laughing]
That's why my sex life is so bad.
My husband says he won't touch me
on religious reasons. He's Jewish and I'm a pig.
[Laughing]
In a world that demands beauty,
Joan started out by making fun of herself.
Being funny is very powerful.
It is intrinsically powerful, which is, in women,
huge amount of our personal power is sexual.
Or beauty.
In order to mitigate that power,
we have to say, "We are not that."
I didn't like all the self-deprecation
that she had to do.
At the time that she was coming up,
that was the way comedy was for women...
self-deprecating.
And then she got more bold and she...
pushed that envelope.
Is this feather? What kind of feather?
Is it cock feather?
When she was asked to do red carpet commentary,
for her it was just an excuse to crack jokes and
make fun of people.
That didn't exist!
She turned that into an art form.
-Who are you wearing? -"Who are you wearing?"
Who are you wearing?
"Well, who are you wearing?"
The fashion, it was what she liked.
[Sputtering]
She was able to merge a professional and a
personal affection into a third act.
And who the hell are you? What do you want me to say?
Get away, you SOB!
We went subtle on the jewelry,
which I know you're opposed to sometimes.
You call those subtle?
You bitch, you're very spoiled now.
But in the twilight of Joan's career,
she becomes even more vicious.
She would be mean as hell.
Rate! That! Face!
Ugh! I, I, I, I could- she-
that is probably the ugliest plastic surgery I've seen.
You almost wish that Chris Brown would punch her
in the face, she could do it again.
Oh, my god!
She fat shamed Liz Taylor, and Adele later on.
She just plugged somebody else in
as the years went on...
probably as a way of deflecting her own
body dysmorphia.
Three things you could see from, from outer space.
You could see the Great Wall of China.
You could see the Grand Canyon,
you could see Oprah Winfrey's ass, those are the three...
-[Laughing] -Ah!
I really relate to having a lot of shame about my looks,
not being as pretty as I want to be.
But in the end, ah,
you can't really control it and
you're mad about it, and so
you want to call it out in others.
When people do fat, Oprah Winfrey fat jokes,
every time, even now still, it hurts.
My way of being...
on the defensive, I guess, and like,
I'll be damned if you're going to hurt me,
so up yours.
You're not hurting me.
I'm not gonna let you see you're hurting me.
I'm not gonna let you know that you're killing me.
Joan is about to face some
of what she's been dishing out.
This is the Comedy Central Roast of Joan Rivers!
Joan doing that roast...
That feels like it was just abusive.
We have a very special treat tonight.
Joan's plastic surgeon is here.
Ladies and gentlemen, Dexter.
That really breaks my heart that she had to
endure those jokes.
Your face is like the war in Iraq-
an expensive bloody mess that
everybody's tired of seeing on TV.
Self-esteem is like a whack-a-mole game
in that you feel good about one thing.
You, you know, I'm gonna lose 5 pounds.
And then another head pops up.
Yeah, what are you gonna do about that nose?
Bam! Oh, yeah, you think you look cute now?
Whack! And it's the-
what I call the beauty industrial complex...
can't wait to let you know what sucks about you.
Her face looked like that because
she wanted people to like her.
It's the sad that the business supported that too.
That they kind of made her feel like
you have to be...
you have to look a certain way in order to win.
You ----ing can't win!
Ah, God, what a [beep] business this is.
You have to look good.
This business does not like old people.
And so she was an aging woman
in a predominantly man's profession.
On one hand, Joan Rivers was...
a ground breaker.
A feminist icon.
On the other hand, she was also
a human being and insecure.
If anything happens, Melissa.
No, but I'm no chicken. I've had a great life.
She was being spoofed. She was-
she turned into a caricature of herself.
She was not taken seriously.
Had an amazing life. If I died this morning,
nobody would say, "So young."
People were really mean about her.
"Get her off the red carpet.
She sucks on her E show, she's old,
her voice is annoying.
She's so annoying, she's so offensive."
I've had an amazing life.
If it ended right now...
Amazing life.
Women in entertainment go away as they age.
♪
The only reason we leave is 'cause
no one wants us anymore.
In 2014, 81-year-old Joan Rivers
goes under general anaesthetic as she's
done hundreds of times before.
But this time, it's a medical procedure,
considered minor and routine.
Instead of doing it in a hospital setting where
she had, you know, her celebrity doctor to
oversee the procedure, she did it at a clinic.
That was her fatal mistake.
Joan stops breathing during the procedure,
and is rushed to hospital for resuscitation.
From the day that the procedure happened,
it was hopeless.
The family elects to keep Joan on life support.
Melissa decided to handle it in the way that
she thought that Joan would have liked.
They had her hair done and her makeup,
and people would come in and, you know,
say goodbye at the bedside.
So, they tried to have a meaningful and
sort of civilized goodbye.
But, she was brain dead.
On September 4th, 2014,
Joan Rivers is officially pronounced dead.
Joan Rivers, the famous, famous comedienne
has passed away.
81-year-old comedian had been on life support for a week
since something went wrong during an
outpatient medical procedure.
Here's a woman, ah, I don't know- a real-
a pioneer for other women looking for careers in
stand-up comedy, and, and this woman,
talk about guts.
And by the way, she was indefatigable.
She would be on this show,
she would be on all of the shows,
and she would work about 300 dates a year.
That's a lot of work.
She would come out here and sit in this chair,
and say some things that were unbelievable.
My vagina! [Laughing]
-Is like Newark. -[Laughing]
Men know it's there, but they don't want to visit.
[Laughing & applauding]
I still, to this day, cannot believe that Joan Rivers is
gone because a part of me just feels cheated that
I'm not gonna be able to prepare for her death.
I was devastated.
Joan Rivers, um...
was a woman you never thought would leave.
I always thought I would hear that mouth.
I always thought that she would be around to
make people laugh.
Alright, so the memorial for Joan Rivers yesterday.
I heard words like, well, it rhymes with "rich".
I heard the 'F' word several times.
But it was so funny, they kept apologizing to
the rabbi there, but they still let it fly.
And if it sounds outrageous, it wasn't,
or it was perfectly outrageous.
It was just a beautiful event.
Her friends saying goodbye to Joan Rivers.
-There's Howard Stern. -Oh, yeah, he started it off.
He was magnificent, magnificent.
He was a genius because he started off
with something really irreverent.
He talked about one of her body parts.
-And then... -In temple!
Joan made sure she'd leave her mark,
even after death.
Joan had left very explicit and elaborate instructions
for this extravaganza of a funeral.
The sanctuary is filled with white phalaenopsis orchids.
You can't see the altar because there are
so many flowers.
If there's a god, I hope he or she
is very well dressed today.
She created a generation of women who grew up saying,
"That's what a funny woman is.
Maybe I can do that."
One of the things that Joan taught me,
and something that I've learned in my own career,
is stay in there.
Don't give up, don't run away.
Joan Rivers leaves an amazing legacy.
She took all those knocks,
and she turned it into this beautiful career.
She was able to stay relevant...
constantly.
Before Joan's death at 81,
she was worth an estimated $150 million,
and as popular as she'd ever been.
I always use the same joke that Joan Rivers would say.
Stuff like, "Next time in life I want to be born rich
instead of beautiful."
Hers was the opposite though. She would say-
"If I could choose between funny and beautiful,
I'd pick beautiful every time."
I went for x-rays, right.
They made me take off my blouse.
Edgar went crazy.
He took that dentist, he slammed him!
What would I say to Joan?
Thank you.
And you're beautiful.