Image via Complex Original
Earlier today, Melissa Rivers released a press statement to let the world know that her mother, Joan Rivers, passed away. She went peacefully, surrounded by her family and close friends. She was 81. Since starting her career in 1950, in a play where she played a lesbian with a crush on a then-unknown Barbara Streisand, she never stopped working. She lived to be on stage, even though she admitted to being terrified every time before a show. She had a full career, from guest hosting The Tonight Show, to fronting The Late Show With Joan Rivers, to being the face of Fashion Police. Sure, she wasn't perfect, and she'd be the first to admit that, but she helped bust open the doors for women in comedy.
At the end of her press statement, Melissa beautifully said, "My mother's greatest joy in life was to make people laugh. Although that is difficult to do right now, I know her final wish would be that we return to laughing soon." So, in honor of Joan Rivers, and to respect her daughter's wishes, get to know the comedian better and watch her fearless comedy, and the joy she experienced when she made other people laugh.
And, on that note, let's remember Joan's fitting description of what would happen when she died, "I've had so much plastic surgery, when I die they will donate my body to Tupperware."
She was never afraid to speak her mind.
From September 1983 until 1986, Joan Rivers was the "permanent guest host" of The Tonight Show and late night audiences got to enjoy some of her most crude and daring monologues, including this one from '82. In between spitting on virtue, Rivers delivers a hilarious bit about a woman she was so pleased to get married, even though she was the poster girl for herpes and the bride on top of the cake was bowlegged.
She was able to share the stage with any diva.
Rivers worked alongside Ms. Piggy in The Muppets Take Manhattan, successfully introducing a lot of children to a standup worth getting to know. In a perfect world, we'd be watching an entire special with the two connecting over their mutual hatred of all things not them, and destroying men who scorned their romantic advances. Looking at you, Kermy.
She felt no shame in changing up her look.
Everyone has something to say about Rivers' plastic surgery, including herself. But in a career where women stop being interesting after the men who run Hollywood don't want to sleep with them anymore, could you blame her? She never felt shame for what she did to make herself feel better about her appearance, and it was often a great source of jokes. In Spaceballs, her character based on C3PO is completely metal, which, no offense to the one deceased, but in real life she was mostly plastic, so she could probably relate.
She loved comedy more than anything, and never stopped working.
Louis C.K. has a talent for bringing out the best in other performers, and this clip from Louie shows his respect for a woman he probably grew up watching and admiring. It's a softer side of Joan Rivers not many people had the pleasure of experiencing. In the heartbreaking clip, she calms the fellow comedian down, saying they do comedy not because it's a job, but because it's a calling.
If you have followed Rivers' career, you'll see that what she preaches in this clip is exactly what she practiced. She never stopped working a day in her life, she felt most alive on stage, and she did what she did because there was something inside of her pushing her to do it.
And then, Louie tries to have sex with her, and that sentimental speech just means a little bit more when it ends on a laugh.
She covered issues in '68 that we're still ranting about.
What a lot of people don't realize about Joan is that she was always more than someone who razzed people on the red carpet about their outfits. She was a feminist warrior. In this stand up act from 1968, she rants about the differences between men and women, and it is still fully relevant today. She's timeless.
No one was safe from Joan.
Love her or hate her, Joan Rivers could not possibly care less. Everyone was fair game to her, the Hollywood elite and music's darlings now, were all possible victims to Joan's sharp tongue. There's something you have to find respectable about that, she never backed down. Even when she said Rihanna's lipstick reminded her of Miss Piggy leaving the backseat of Kermit's car.
As a grandmother, she still rocked the AVN "Porn Awards."
It's hard to picture the late comedian as being, well, late and gone. Because, although she was 81, she still attended every event—like, literally every one. She even mentions walking the red carpet (albeit, it was shaved) at the Porn Awards.
Imagine writing that essay in grade school: "My grandma is my hero because she took me to the Porn Awards."
As much as she roasted others, she was always her biggest punchline.
There was always a lot of roasting of celebrities in Joan's life, but she always used herself as her biggest punchline. She made jokes about her appearance, her body, and how her childhood friends would use her oversized Girl Scout uniform as a tent. She proved as long as you could dish it out, you had to be able to take it, too.
She could wreck a heckler and still talk about the beauty of her craft, between curses.
This clip of Rivers is perfection. After making a Helen Keller joke, because, well, she is Joan Rivers, a heckler says she isn't funny. She goes off on a rant about how people use comedy to get through life. She once famously said, "Life is very tough. If you don't laugh, it's tough." She used comedy more as a kind of therapy than as a job, and it's always very satisfying to watch a heckler get owned.
She used comedy to heal herself, and she'd want us to start laughing again as soon as possible.
Comedians are a special breed of people. Often, the more pain they're experiencing, the funnier they are. Case in point, Joan Rivers. She grew up thinking she was so ugly it completely shaped her stand-up, her husband, and father of her daughter, committed suicide, and when she had to cremate her mother-in-law, she made it a joke. It's not a sign of strength, really, it's just how she, and many others, cope. She often called her audiences her group therapy sessions. And, with Joan's passing, she'd want her family, friends, and her fans to heal themselves by laughing as well.
