By Christopher Clark
material on par with none. To reach
the masses she released several comedy
This September the world lost a great
albums in the mid 1960’s that were
entertainer, the incomparable Joan
well received. By the 1970’s Rivers was
Rivers. Oddly I just watched one of Joan’s performing on many television comedy
last stand-up comedy DVD’s, 2012’s
Don’t Start With Me two days before she
went home (Joan left us September 4,
2012). Joan Rivers is an icon. An Actress,
writer, producer and television host, Joan
has been known to the entertainment
world since she first appeared in the
play Driftwood with another unknown
actress named Barbara Streisand during
the late 1950’s. Numerous comedy clubs and variety shows. She was a must see
began to appreciate her humor in the
on the carol Burnett Show and was a
early 1960’s.
frequent star on the Hollywood Squares
game show.
Her big national break came as a guest of
The Tonight Show hosted by Jack Paar.
Rivers would go on to write a TV movie
Later she would work as a gag writer
and a feature film as well as narrate The
and participant on the TV show Candid Adventures of Letterman for The Electric
Camera. She would visit The Tonight
Company, a PBS show that appealed to
Show again in 1965 with new host
kids. She would continue to work and
Johnny Carson. Afterwards she would
even had a stint as a regular guest host
appear numerous times on The Tonight
of The Tonight Show in 1983. A host of
Show as well as on The Ed Sullivan Show an episode of Saturday Night Live and
while hosting the first of her several talk another album would follow.
shows.
In the decade of the 1980’s Joan
Watching Rivers do stand-up was
continued to get great reviews for her
magical, with her wit and delivery of
stand-up comedy and would continue
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