I almost laughed when someone wrote RIP – Rest In Plastic when Joan Rivers finally kicked the bucket at the ripe old age of 81. And frankly, I’ve not known much about Joan Rivers beyond her hideous “plastic” face. Well, she was obviously a very self-conscious person terrified by aging. If she believes in rebirth, she must be happy at her dying moments that she can now hit the reset button and start anew. Her struggle to defy mother Nature has ended. The clinic which operated on her before she slipped into a coma and never woke up insisted that she was there for an endoscopy and not a cosmetic procedure.
Joan Rivers started her career on a somewhat serious note. When she interviewed Lucille Ball, she was not the funny one. But she later found her feet as a comedian and made a career out of unmentionable things. Her latest antic was probably calling President Obama gay and saying that his wife is transgender. Of course, Joan Rivers insisted that offending people was never her primary objective. Making people laugh and getting paid very well for it was. Whenever she caused an uproar, she once said: “Lighten the fuck up, these are jokes.”
Also famous for saying that she would do anything for money (including having sex with a centenarian) and pointing out that men wouldn’t lift up a woman’s dress to see if she has a library card, it’s curious that she should have disapproved of Miley Cyrus’ twerky antics recently. What sort of role model is there in showbiz? The old lady was confused.
Crossing the line is what Joan Rivers did for a living. Like many in the tough business of showbiz, Joan Rivers had her fair share of ups and downs. At her lowest point, her then husband committed suicide. Humour is not the only business Joan Rivers did. She was involved in retailing lifestyle products and published 7 books. The one that caught my attention was Men Are Stupid And They Like Big Boobs. When I last checked, one of her out-of-print books is going for over $100 a copy.
She crossed the line in every arena from comedy to plastic surgery and politics and yes, she was Jew. Born of Jewish parents from Russia, her original name was Joan Molinsky. The family name “Rivers” actually came from an agent by the name of Tony Rivers. Besides her comedies, Joan Rivers also wrote and directed movies. On stage, her self-deprecating humour made her look like a bimbo, but she was obviously a very talented and intelligent entertainer.
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