[Woman vocalizing]
[Music continues]
- Would you welcome Miss Joan Rivers.
You know, you're going to be a big star.
- Now here is my daffy little friend, Joan Rivers.
- Aah!
- Joan Rivers,
the groundbreaking female comedian,
paves the way for women everywhere.
- You know how I know who's gay and who's not gay?
Can we talk here?
[Laughter]
- And the Emmy goes to...
- Joan Rivers.
[Audience cheers]
- Here's Joan Rivers!
- Yes, but I'm very, very late.
[Rock music]
[Music continues]
- I hope you've had a few drinks,
'cause you're gonna need 'em.
Will you welcome, please, Miss Joan Rivers!
[Cheers and applause]
- This is my career.
I mean, how depressing is this?
40 years in the fucking business,
and this is where you end up.
Just to show you...
My daughter and I are very close, very, very close,
very close.
But I brought her up all wrong.
I brought her up to have morals.
She turned down doing Playboy magazine cover.
How about that?
$400,000 naked to the waist.
Turned it fucking down and calls me up for approval.
For approval!
"Mother, I've turned down Playboy.
What do you think?"
And you know- What do I think?
"Oh, I'm very proud of you, Melissa.
"What do I think?
"What do I think, you stupid fucking cunt?
"What do I think?
"I think you should ask for $200,000 more
"and show your pussy.
That's what I think."
[Laughter and applause]
I'm a 75-year-old woman up here playing to drunks in Queens.
What do I think?
I'm on the fucking red carpet in the hot sun,
talking to these assholes.
"Where you from?
"Got your lucky charm?
Who the fuck are you?"
[Cheers and applause]
[Music continues]
- Not good.
I mean, this is not good.
We have no Vegas, no giant club dates.
Kathy Griffin has taken all of those away.
Uh, I have the play,
which is not going to bring me any money.
Can't we get club dates?
Can't Billy get club dates?
This is not a full book.
- Like a little date here and there?
- Yeah - Sure.
- These were the good years.
- See, this is the kind of a book I like.
Now, that's a good page, you know what I mean.
These are good pages.
10:00, 11:00, 12:30.
This and that.
That's happiness.
Last year was a very difficult year.
I was playing-here we go-
[laughs]
The Bronx at 4:30 in the afternoon.
That was a real... good one.
I'll show you fear.
That's fear.
If my book ever looked like this,
it would mean that nobody wants me
and that everything I ever tried to do in life didn't work
and nobody cared and I've been totally forgotten.
- When you say, "Joan, get out your calendar,"
she goes, "Hold on, let me put my sunglasses on,
because the white of the page hurts my eyes."
So that's a joke.
So we used to laugh about it.
She goes, "Hold on. Let me get my sunglasses.
Okay, what day?"
- You look handsome.
- Yeah, right.
- Billy looks good. He can't stand it.
I can't. - Why not?
- My career is in the toilet. Oh, no, that's Joan.
- That's me.
- My career is in the toilet.
Nothing is going right.
- That's right. - Nothing.
- Why?
- I don't know. It's like, you know...
- That's what I always tell him.
- Unless Joan gives me...
- Billy Sammeth is a big part of my life,
huge part of my life.
He knows my history.
You know, there are so few people
that you can say, "Do you remember Bernie Brillstein?"
And we both laugh and laugh and laugh.
- Joan is a chronic workaholic.
One job a day is not enough.
It's almost like an addict, sadly,
but she's a work addict, so it's not enough.
No matter how much you give her,
it doesn't fill up that need to be working.
- Now, this is Jocelyn Pickett.
This is my assistant,
who is now going to show you how busy I am.
Anybody call?
- No. - No.
- It's not about whether the talent is good.
It's about whether they're hot.
There are times in people's career
that you just can't get it going.
Careers do that.
You're hot, ; you're not.
You're in a slump, ; you're not.
Nothing is happening right now, so she needs some heat.
[Phone ringing]
- Steve Levine's office.
- Jennifer Moen?
- Hi, Billy Sammeth.
- And Joan Rivers.
- Hi, Joan Rivers. Hold on just a moment.
- Hello.
- Hi.
- Let's hear about Harrah's, which is May 18th.
This is the weekend before Memorial Day.
- I just think it's wrong.
It's not vacation. The kids are still in school.
I want a letter from them saying,
"We acknowledge this is the worst weekend,
one of the worst weekends of the year."
- Okay.
- And I really don't need, at this age,
when I am a comedy icon,
I don't need to walk into a room
and have it half full,
and then have the Harrah's people go,
"Cluck, cluck, cluck."
- Right now, they see her as a plastic surgery freak
who's past due.
Her, you know, sell-by date, was finished.
But God help the next queen of comedy,
because this one's not abdicating.
Never will.
There will be nail marks on that red carpet
before she abdicates, so good luck to the next queen.
- # Happy birthday to you #
- All right, all right.
Don't sing.
Age. ; it's the one mountain that you can't overcome.
It's a youth society, and nobody wants you.
You're too old.
If one more woman comedian comes up and says to me,
"You opened the doors for me,"
and you want to say, "Go fuck yourself."
I'm still opening the doors.
- That's great.
- You're very welcome.
- Thank you very much.
- You are a Barnard College graduate?
- Yes.
- And your father is a doctor? - Yes.
- And you live where, in Scarsdale?
- In Larchmont. - In Larchmont.
And your mother is a...
- A mother. - Just a mother.
- But how do they look upon this,
what you're doing, what it is you do?
- Frightened. - Are they?
- Well, now they're very showbiz.
And my mother and I are thinking of doing a sister act.
But, um, still, uh...
- The audience here really liked you,
and, uh, good luck to you.
Good night.
- Thanks, Jack. Good night.
- Good night.
- Joan, here's the script
for the TV pilot you wanted to look at.
Okay. Thank you.
Do you know where I am in this?
I see no Joan on page two.
I see no Joan on page three.
I see no Joan on page four.
[Laughs]
- I have worked with her for about 15 years, I think,
somewhere in there,
so I definitely have gone through
kind of the ups and downs, you know,
with her, with her career.
When I started,
it was definitely kind of a lower point.
Her daytime talk show was cancelled.
At the same time, her play Sally Mar,
which ran on Broadway, that shut down.
Everything was kind of closing, you know, at that point.
So, of course, Joan being Joan,
then started to try and reinvent herself.
- No.
I ain't seeing me.
- This year is no different.
Joan is looking at new projects,
new ways to get out there.
And she's got two new books coming out,
a new play that she's really worked on very hard
for the past couple of years.
And Celebrity Apprentice-
she's booked to be on the next series
of Celebrity Apprentice.
So she's hoping one of them hits and puts her back on top.
- I can't find me anywhere.
[Soft guitar music]
[Music continues]
[car horns beeping]
What we are planning is...
The cutoff date for the Emm-
for the Tony nominations is somewhere in April,
so we have to open somewhere in April.
For the next few months,
I am really focusing just on my play.
It means a great deal to me because it tells my life story.
- So she calls me up one night, and she goes,
"Billy, it's Joan.
"Listen, I wrote a script a couple years ago.
It's in the drawer."
Now, I actually saw a reading of it a year earlier,
and I enjoyed it.
So I said, "I think you should do it."
Hi, Joanie.
- Hi, Billy Boy. [Kissing noises]
- Hi, Billy. - This is Billy.
- Hi, Seany.
I'm a little schvitzy.
- Schwitzy? How you doing?
- Schvit. - Schvit.
- Schvitzy. - Schvitzy, schvitzy.
- The name of the show is
Joan Rivers: A Work in Progress by a Life in Progress,
you know, episodes from her life,
how she got to where she is now.
We're going to take this to the Edinburgh Festival,
and then we're going to do it
in London's glittering West End.
The ultimate goal?
I think Joan wants to play it in her hometown.
- "I have very few hairs left on my head,
"and each one has a name,
like last week, we had to sit shiva for Bernice,"
or, "We buried Bernice," or, "We cremated Bernice."
- Yeah, "cremated" I think is good.
- I hope that the play is a huge success.
I think the play will remind them
I'm an actress.
I'm a writer.
And if we get great reviews,
it will open up a million other things.
"One of my earliest memories, I must have been,
"tops, six years old.
"My mother took me to see Paul Robeson in Othello,
"and I remember smelling the smells of the theater,
and I thought, 'This is where I belong."'
I was in every school play.
I was in everything you could do at college.
There was never a discussion in my own head
of where I was going, and it was always acting.
Always going to be an actress.
- Were you-were you-you were straight acting or comedy?
- No, no, comedy, never.
I just knew that I could work as a comedian at night
and make money to make the rounds as an actress.
And that's the only reason I went into comedy.
Sometimes I sit at home, and I think to myself,
"Joan, yes, you're a diva. You're a diva.
"Penthouse, limo, furs.
Ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff."
But a diva can get lonely.
And I say this to my staff, I say, "Staff..."
[laughs]
I don't know any of their names, because they're like you people.
They come. They go.
Sometimes I say to them, "Staff, I'm lonely.
Who's going to fuck me tonight, staff?"
[Laughter]
Oh! That's their reaction.
[Laughter]
[Dog barking]
Yes, yes, yes.
This is delicious, huh?
This is Kevin, who runs my house,
also without asking me anything.
Thank God.
That is Debbie, his wife, over there,
who really is the brains behind Kevin.
We thought you should know.
- It's true.
- It's bacon, you idiot.
This is my apartment, and it's very grand.
This is how Marie Antoinette would have lived
if she had had money.
[Music continues]
- You try to explain to people before you go to her house,
"What you're about to see, nobody lives like this.
"Maybe the queen of England,
but besides that, nobody lives like this."
- I live very, very, very well. That's to start with.
I enjoy my creature comforts.
And I know I have to work for it.
I could stop and live carefully, but that's ridiculous.
I don't want to live carefully.
So I would rather work and live the way I live
and have a wonderful time.
- When I hear the numbers from her accountant,
because, you know, behind our client's back,
everyone's whispering.
So they called me, and they said,
"Billy, you've got to pull another rabbit out of the hat."
"How many rabbits would you like out of the hat?
I don't have that many more rabbits in my hat."
- When I first hit on the Carson show years ago,
my manager then was a man named Jack Rollins,
and he said, "You're going to be an industry.
When people hit, they become industries."
And that's really what- I'm a small industry.
- This week's checks for you to sign.
- Oh, good. Okay.
I have an agent. I have a manager.
I have a business manager, a PR lady,
two assistants, and a lawyer.
We forget the lawyers.
There are then certain relatives
that I'm totally supporting,
certain friends.
Most people that work with me, if they have children,
I send the children to private schools.
It goes on and on and on and on.
I'm dancing as fast as I can.
[Laughs]
Are you on speaker?
- Okay. So where do we start?
- Yeah, I would love to, because I'm very short on money.
Trust me, we need it.
- Okay. - Okay.
- Okay, okay.
- Bump up the offer, and you'll do your comedy.
- Yeah, bump up the offer and they get one-
bump up the offer, and they get Joan on stage.
Bump up the offer some more,
and they get Joan doing a survival lecture and onstage.
- Mm-hmm.
- Bump up the offer some more,
and they also get the red carpet lecture,
the survival lecture.
- And don't forget there's the 125 grand worth of charm!
- Just...
[laughter]
[Upbeat guitar music]
[Music continues]
You know the dates we're holding for QVC,
right, Billy, pretty much?
- Yeah. - Let me ask you one last thing.
Do you think it's in bad taste to say about Obama's wife,
who I think is so chic, Michelle,
that she is-your remember we- in the old days,
in the Kennedy era, there was Jackie O?
Well, now, in the Obama era, it's going to be Blackie O.
- Oh, no. - [Laughs] Oh, no.
- Okay, just-I thought it was a great joke, okay.
These are all my jokes.
These are jokes over the last 30 years.
These are just- every time I write a joke,
I try to remember to get it on a card.
"Why should a woman cook?
"So her husband can say,
"'My wife makes a delicious cake,'
to some hooker."
[Laughs]
And you wonder why I'm still working at this age.
People think it comes so easily.
They have no idea that what you're doing
is a terrifically difficult thing to do.
And I prepare like a crazy lady.
I mean, here I am.
I mean, everything is just...
Everywhere you look, there are jokes.
Everywhere-jokes to be filed, jokes to be written,
jokes that I thought of something.
I mean, my life is just...
jokes.
"Vagina farts.
My vagina farts are so loud, my gynecologist wears earplugs."
[Laughs]
"Are gay men proud of their excessive body hair,
like Madonna's daughter?"
Maybe.
"Amazing Race. ;
Mel Gibson chasing Jews into the showers."
[Laughs]
As some of you can tell now,
I'm seven 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 how cruel that can be?
When I started comedy, I was very wild for the time,
but different times.
The last line in my original act was,
"This business, it's all about casting couches,
"so I want you to know, my name is Joan Rivers,
and I put out."
And you would hear the audience-
such a sweet little, silly line from a girl who was,
what, 28 years old, you know, dressed up,
trying to look nice.
The audience, half of them laughed.
Jack Lemmon saw me and walked out.
He said, "That's disgusting."
So for my time, I was very shocking.
I remember I had a joke about abortions
when you weren't supposed to
even say the word on television.
I have a friend who just got married.
The woman is 32 years old.
She had 14 appendectomies,
if you know what I'm telling you.
You know, back and forth to Puerto Rico.
She never stopped flying.
She walked down the aisle in white.
Every usher went...
My manager took me out and said to me,
"Joanala, you're going into places you shouldn't go.
"It's not right. It's not right.
A woman shouldn't talk about that."
I remember thinking, "You are so wrong.
This is exactly what we should be talking about."
My daughter loves me very, very much.
I was there when she gave birth.
Ugch! Oh!
In California, they bring the parents in now
to see the birt-
Ugh, ugh, ugh.
In my day, having a child was better.
They knocked you out with the first pain.
They woke you up when the hairdresser showed.
You knew nothing.
It was so much better.
"Miss Rivers, you had a girl."
"Good, good, good."
"Is she normal?"
"Yeah." "Good, good."
[Laughter]
"Is she white?" "Yeah."
"Good."
[Laughter]
"The marriage continues."
- I went to see her live one time.
The shit that came out of her mouth
was so shocking and so funny.
She was doing something that no other woman was doing.
You know, I wouldn't be doing this if it wasn't for Joan,
much in the way that she acknowledges
that Phyllis Diller paved the way for her
and before her was Moms Mabely, and-get it.
There's a handful of women
in modern history that have done this.
Just a handful.
- I was so angry...
Thank you.
Okay.
While we're on the subject,
let me talk to you about sex over 60.
After 60, the body drops.
The body drops.
- Yeah.
And it's not just the breasts.
Vaginas drop. Vaginas drop.
Um, six years ago, I woke up one morning, and I said,
"Why am I wearing a bunny slipper?
And why is it gray?"
- Brilliant.
- I went to the dermatologist, so please excuse the way I look.
- [Laughs]
- I got a shot filled with everything, and I said,
"I need this for four months."
- When do you go?
- She just went crazy.
- "Just blast away."
[Laughs]
- Then she said, "Here, go to rehearsal."
[Laughs]
Okay.
Thank you, Pat.
My mother told me, "Looks don't count."
She told me this a lot.
Saturday nights,
in our kitchen, while I was growing up.
My mother used to look at me and say...
"Looks don't count!
Now get out of my sight, you big lump!"
And my mother lied because looks count...
It's very scary when you see yourself totally
without any makeup.
It's really...
Ew, it gives me the willies.
[Laughs]
- Why?
- "Who is that person?"
So I get up in the morning,
and the first thing I do is, I get into makeup.
Now, I was never the natural beauty.
No man has ever, ever told me I'm beautiful.
They've said to me, "You look great.
You look this. You're terrific."
But no man ever said,
"Oh, my God, you're so beautiful."
[Rock music]
[Music continues]
- Good.
Bring 'em right in.
Yeah!
Good. Yeah!
Looking good.
Good.
Aah, okay let's do tools.
And one- Yeah, that's great!
Good. Yeah.
- Didn't you want the hand going to the side?
People want to look at pretty women.
Nobody wants an old woman,
so I started with the plastic surgery,
little bits and tweaks.
Then I got very angry because nobody would admit it.
I really became a big advocate of it.
And so then I became the poster girl for it,
and then I became the joke of it.
- Tools out a little bit.
Yeah, that's it.
Good.
- So how'd you come up with the title?
- Marilyn Monroe told that to me at a party.
- Yeah? Yeah?
You and I were having a discussion
before we went on the air today.
I said, if you don't feel good about yourself inside,
plastic surgery will not help at all
and in fact could make things worse,
because then you think, "Well, people don't-
aren't really appreciating the real me."
- Well, who is the real me?
Tell me...
- You are the real me.
Well, don't-look, we want to be loved for our sense of humor,
for our soul, for our sweetness, for our vulnerability,
for our intelligence, yes?
- I just want to be loved.
I met Edgar- I had been on the Carson show,
and Edgar called, and he said to Johnny,
"Who do you know that's a good writer?"
And Carson said, "There was a girl writer on last week.
You should look her up. "
I met him, and I married him four days later.
Was I madly in love with him? No.
Was it a good marriage? Yes.
I thought marriage was going to be hugging and kissing
like in the movies.
You walk hand in hand over the hill into the sunset.
You know what's on the other side of that hill?
Filthy dishes, that's what.
And socks.
- How was the last show last night?
- Very good, as a matter of fact.
- Good, good.
- Without Edgar, I couldn't have done it.
We worked together.
We worked on projects together, so it was a family business.
Any woman that has a child that doesn't yell is a fool.
Don't you think?
Didn't you yell?
- No. - Why not?
It's your one chance to be noticed.
When I was having my kid, you should've-
"Aah!
Aah!"
And that was just during conception.
I just...
I was dying to be a mother.
I couldn't wait to be a mother,
and I really worked very hard to be there for her.
Of course, I'm sure she felt very deserted as a child,
but I was-I was there as much as I could be
and I made sure we were a family unit
and she knew it.
- And everyone's like,
"Oh, what was it like living with a legend?"
I'm like, "Yeah, it was hilarious
when I was getting grounded, "
which is why I always say to people, it's like,
"You don't realize
"how in these very extraordinary,
"abnormal circumstances
what a normal world my parents created."
And that's a testament to them.
It's funny because she refers to her career as "the career,"
and it dawned on me one day that I had a sibling.
We all work on the career
as if it's a totally separate entity in the room.
- Melissa, what was your mom's reaction
when you told her you wanted to go into show business?
- What was it we use to say?
Supportive yet not encouraging.
- Yeah, and still am.
- And still am,
which is a little late in the game.
- Yeah, but it-
- To be supportive and not encouraging.
- No, but it's such a hard business.
What I try to do with Melissa, I try to protect her.
This is the one business in the world-
it is total rejection.
And I'm 75, and I'm still rejected.
This business, you are mud your whole life.
[Hair dryer blowing]
Joce, Joce, are you there?
- Yes.
- Have you heard from Billy?
- I haven't. I have got no calls back.
- All right. Did you send him an email?
I really-I want him there to see the play
before we go to Edinburgh.
I mean, there's Edinburgh. There's London, my God.
He's got to see the play.
- Okay. I'll email him as well.
- So that's my manager, Billy, who I adore,
disappears all the time.
Three years ago, it was very, very bad,
and I almost- I almost fired him then.
And then, God, it's, you know, all this time.
I've known Billy- it's got to be about 35 years.
I could open the drawer here somewhere,
and you'll, uh- you'll find pictures of Billy.
Here.
Look, young Billy, young Joan.
That's Edgar in the background.
And Billy is...
Billy is part of my life.
And I want to see him now because we're doing the play
and I need another pair of eyes.
I need another brain.
I need his input desperately.
- Welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome to what will be
Joan Rivers. ; A Work in Progress
by a Life in Progress.
Okay, here we go.
- I am thrilled to be here.
I just don't want this to be about me, me, me, me, me.
- Hello.
- No, not-not yet, honey.
No, again, you too, back.
Go back.
Beautiful.
Anyhow...
Line.
"Now, where was I?"
- Now, where was I?
[Laughter]
Bill Cosby, who was a very good friend of mine,
was on The Tonight Show,
and the comic that was on with Bill absolutely bombed,
and Bill, God bless him, went over to the director,
and he said, "Listen. Why don't you use Joan Rivers?
She can't be any worse than the guy that was on tonight,"
and that's how they put me on.
They put me on the next night.
And it was one of those nights, um...
Do you know, like, when everything goes right?
Do you know?
When the stars are in alignment?
And the audience, we just connected.
And Carson, at the end of the act-
after nine years of working bungalow colonies
and strip joints and working in Greenwich Village
in clubs where you'd pass the hat,
the hat wouldn't come back-
on the air, Carson said to me, "You're going to be a star."
And I looked behind me.
"Well, who the hell is he talking to?"
And it was absolutely-
it was magical between the two of us.
Absolutely magical.
- Don't you think men really like intelligence more
when comes right down to it?
- Ugh, please, are we gonna go back to that?
Are you kidding?
- Oh, sure, I mean, it's a brain,
you know, a caring person.
- No man has ever put his hand up a woman's dress
looking for a library card.
I'm sorry.
Everyone watched the Carson show,
and when Carson said to me "You're gonna be a star,"
my life changed.
- And as they say at Cape Canaveral,
she took off like a rocket.
- The Tonight Show was a pinnacle for Joan,
and the more guest appearances she got,
either guesting with Johnny or guest-hosting for Johnny,
the bigger and stronger
the career was going and building up and up and up.
And then eventually, they made her
the permanent guest host of The Tonight Show,
which was a big thing.
- After 20 years on The Tonight Show,
FO X came and offered me my own show,
and Edgar would be the producer.
Of course we said yes.
The first person I called was Johnny Carson.
He slammed the phone down. I called him again.
He slammed it down again and never spoke to me again.
Ever.
I think he was furious. He felt betrayed.
I was now a competitor.
He literally had me blacklisted,
and to this day,
I have not been on NBC Late Night ever.
- As she drove off the NBC lot, she lost her confidence.
"Oh, my God, what have I done?"
It was such a bad period.
- The Fox show, even before we went on the air,
was just a nightmare.
Edgar did not like
Rupert Murdoch and Barry Diller,
and from the day we walked in,
there were fights about everything,
about whether we should have
a Coke machine or Pepsi machine,
M&M's or Hershey Kisses.
Finally, they called me in on a Thursday night,
and they said, "You've got to fire Edgar."
I couldn't do it.
I couldn't, uh...
I couldn't- couldn't do it.
Couldn't- couldn't do it.
- The woman who asked, "Can we talk?"
Joan Rivers, is apparently through
as permanent host of her late-night talk show.
- From there, Edgar imploded, absolutely imploded.
He didn't have Joan's strength.
He didn't have it.
I got a call from Gavin de Becker,
who was his security company.
They said, "Terrible news."
"Yes?"
"Edgar killed himself in Philadelphia."
- He left us high and dry.
Everything just went to smithereens.
And he left me with no career and a lot of debts,
because he wasn't a good businessman,
and, uh, a lot of tough times.
I walk past Edgar's pictures.
I feel such sadness, such darkness.
- First off, Mother, I'm very, very angry at you.
Since Daddy died, you have not spent one minute at home.
- Melissa and I,
we started immediately going into therapy,
separately and together.
And then we did something which sounds so sick.
We did a movie about Edgar's suicide
where we played ourselves.
- Are you angry about something?
- I'm angry about a lot of things, okay?
- Okay.
It sounds so stupid and corny,
but I think by walking through it again,
it absolutely mended us,
totally mended the relationship.
Don't ask, ; I'd have to go to another doctor
to figure that one out.
[Laughs]
Thank you.
- Thank you very much.
- Thank you. - Thanks again.
- Lovely that you came. Thank you.
- I worship you.
I worship you.
- Get off your knees.
- Joan. Joan, oh, my God.
Joan Rivers, everybody. Please give her a clap.
- Billy sent me this for opening night.
Wait, wait, wait.
- Polly wants a fucking cracker.
Give Polly a fucking cracker now!
Squawk!
- Old lady on the cover.
[Laughs]
Young people, young festival,
young idea, old lady.
- Hold on.
Get ready.
"Hottest ticket."
Isn't it great?
And the front page.
- Oh.
[Cheers and applause]
The play went beyond my wildest dreams in Edinburgh.
We had great reviews, the audiences adored it,
but who knows what's going to happen in London.
It can turn on a dime.
[Police siren wails]
Now where are we?
- Oh, the signage is going up. Look, your canopy is going up.
- Oh, isn't that sweet? All right.
This is where we'll make the decision for me
whether or not I'm gonna try to bring it to New York.
Oh, If the reviews are bad, we're dead.
We finished it. It was wonderful.
But it will not go to New York.
- Joan, this is Graham McCluskey,
your lighting designer.
- Thank God.
Soft pink. I don't care what it says.
- Joan didn't want to open the play in New York or L.A.,
because even if it's great,
they will not give her the kudos that it's great
because of who she is,
that there's nothing she can do that will be industry-embraced.
- How much does it hold?
- Uh, 393...
- So it's 400.
- Yes, of course.
- I have never been the critics' darling.
I've always been considered a comic
and a Borscht Belt comic or a Vegas comic or-
there's always an adjective before my name,
and it's never a nice adjective.
I go back to Fun City,
which was my first play in 1973,
and they were- they were very harsh to it.
It was a horrible experience,
and I will not go through that again.
I mean, I moved us out of New York.
I said, "When that play closes, we're out of here, "
and we moved right after Fun City.
I just think they're not going to like us, and, uh...
but I didn't spend all this time and all this energy
to have this close.
And it breaks my heart to see it die here.
- It won't die here.
- That's-that's- only that's killing me.
And I was thinking-
- All right, you're not going to lose it.
We won't let this go.
And I know it's your w- your work of love.
- I really think it's good. I really think...
- I know.
Okay. Onward and upward.
- Oh!
Hello, press!
Be kind. Not too close.
Thank you. Hello.
I'm very nervous.
I don't like opening nights.
I think you should celebrate second nights
when you're a success.
I think anyone that celebrates opening nights is a fool,
because you're not-that's-
the opening night is your walk to the executioner.
So I will be very, very happy tomorrow if all goes well,
and very smug,
and I will throw some diva scene about something
when I know I have the power.
Right now, I don't know if have the power.
[Laughs]
[People murmuring]
- You got enough glitter?
- Yes.
- Okay.
- Oh, God, yes.
- Plenty.
- Plenty of glitter.
[Dramatic music]
[Music continues]
[upbeat orchestral music]
[Music continues]
Oh, shut that stupid bitch up.
Jesus!
[Applause]
At the end of the show, Johnny Carson,
on the air, turned to me and said,
"You're going to be a star."
Vaginas drop.
I did not know this.
I am 75 years old,
and I tell you, I haven't peaked.
And that is why I'm going to go out that door
and the door after that and the door after that
and the door after that,
and I invite all of you.
Come with me!
Thank you.
[Cheers and applause]
Whoa.
Okay.
- That was pretty extraordinary.
All stood up right at the end.
In America, if this goes out in America,
we love you, but you do stand up all the time
at the end of shows whether-
you know, like you're supposed to or something.
Here, they don't, except for this show.
- What a triumph!
- Not a triumph till we read the papers.
- I know a triumph when I see one.
- Tonight was a triumph.
- I've never laughed so much.
- Thank you very much.
Sorry to bother you.
- You're not bothering me.
- I thought you were brilliant.
- Are you feeling all the love that we have here for you?
- No.
We'll feel it tomorrow after the reviews.
You were such a nice audience. Thank you.
Now, let me ask you,
when will we find out about the reviews?
- Tomorrow morning first thing.
I'm pretty sure they're going to be fantastic.
- And what does it say?
- "Comedy, tragedy, surgery, and Rivers isn't going quietly."
- Okay.
- "If the energy dips slightly towards the end,
that is understandable given the star's age."
- They only gave me three stars out of five.
- Okay, Leicester Square.
"All this play-acting is an excuse
"for a night of 'Me, me' Joan.
"She is not short on self-pity,
"and a passage about her relationship
"with her daughter is pretty low-grade schmaltz,
mind you."
- It's so wrong.
It ends in a joke, you ass.
- Exactly, that's why;
he's just not getting the theater.
"Longer exposure to her even in a small theater
"betrays a husky weakness of voice
that some may find monotonous."
- And I'm thinking, Joce,
do I want to take this into New York?
Do I want to sit in a taxi in New York in six months
and hear this and see this again?
I don't know. - Yeah.
- I don't know, Jocelyn.
I don't know.
I am not going to walk in to New York City
and be hurt the way Fun City hurt me.
My acting is my one sacred thing in my life,
and I will not have anyone hurt me with that.
You can say I'm not a good comedian.
It doesn't bother me.
You say you didn't like me as an actress,
you've killed me.
And I don't want that in New York.
But I know I'm an actress.
It's all about acting.
My career is an actress's career,
and I play a comedian.
So it's over. It's over.
No one will ever take me seriously as an actress.
- Don't be downhearted.
Are you downhearted?
- I'm not down-I'm just...
It's not what I thought was going to happen.
What I thought was going to happen was,
we were going to sail in from Edinburgh,
everyone was going to love it,
and then we were going to pick our producer
and then move it forward and then change it,
but not this, like-
and of course, there's no Billy around.
Billy is never around in trouble.
And this is in trouble, you know.
Anyhow...
The play is over, and it hurts very much,
but I got to take a deep breath and start again.
[Jet engine roars]
[Pensive music]
[Music continues]
It wouldn't kill you to get me another commercial.
Just remember, when they come in and ask for a man,
I can be very butch.
- [Laughs]
So she'll do anything
and really get into it like she loves it.
- Okay.
- Okay, well, if nobody has anything else,
I'm very depressed.
- Bye.
- Bye, Steve. - Okay, bye.
- I don't want to retire.
I don't want to go and sit in the sun.
I don't want to go and learn to garden.
I paint. Who cares?
[Phone beeping]
- Hello, Emily Hope.
- Hi, guys. Pleasure to meet you.
Explain to us what you're offering.
- Yes.
- I will do anything.
I will knock my teeth out and do DentAssure
or whatever it is.
- I mean, she's done...
- I will wear a diaper. I don't give a shit.
I think I should...
- Joan has a fanaticism, a maniacal focus to succeed,
and works at it every day.
I remember once meeting
with Richard Pryor,
and I sat with him
and spent an hour with him,
about his career, and I said "Okay, Richard,
"what we're going to do is,
"we're gonna do this, we're going to do that,
"and we're gonna plan on this, and then in the next year,
we're going to do this, and we're going to do that."
And he looked at me, and he says,
"Larry, that's all great,
but what the fuck do we do Monday?"
That's where Joan is:
"What the fuck do we do Monday?"
- What is this?
- That's my thing. I've been reading.
I am holding dossiers of all the people
for the Celebrity Apprentice
that we pulled off of the internet.
"Brande." B-R-A-N-D-E.
"Turn-ons: Taking in a good movie
"while spending time with loved ones
and my beautiful puppy, Mercedes."
- Aww.
"Turn-offs: Negative people who are unkind
and have no respect for others."
Well, she's going to hate me.
- Yeah, exactly.
- I'm doing Celebrity Apprentice
because it's face time on NBC
and NBC has not let me be on NBC since the Carson show.
- I didn't want her to do it. She didn't want to do it.
I thought it was F-class people,
but it is face time, prime-time network.
- And I think they'd be stupid to put me off
the first four shows.
But I may be very free the second half of October.
I think they're not going to throw me off in the beginning
because I'm the only one kind of that's a name.
Even though Donald says, "These internationally known"-
- "Entrepreneurs."
- "Entrepreneur-celebrities."
- And you know, Billy, I'm going to say that
in the press release,
that I was told that Paul Newman was going to be...
[laughter]
I am actually very excited about Celebrity Apprentice,
because Melissa, my daughter,
is going to be on the show with me,
which means we'll have a lot of time to spend together.
You haven't had your hair done yet?
- No.
- Jesus fucking Christ, Melissa.
- Why? It's fine.
- You've got 40 minutes.
- That's more than enough.
- All right, let me move over here.
- That's more than enough, Mom.
- No, it's not. - For my hair, yes, it is.
- All right. Whatever.
Melissa red-eyed in from L.A. This morning
and we start taping Celebrity Apprentice tonight.
You got to stop smoking immediately.
I went to a pulmonary guy today.
What? Am I boring you?
- No, no, no. I'm listening.
I brought all my gum with me.
I'm down to, like, two or three a day.
That's it.
- I'm telling you...
- I know, but that's, you know-
be supportive that I'm down to that.
- He said women react differently
to cigarettes than men.
- All I'm saying is, I'm down to, like, two, three a day.
- He said more women are dying of lung cancer
than breast cancer.
And nobody's discussing it.
So that's very interesting.
- Well, I'm down to, like, two, three, a day, so...
- Yeah, but I'm just telling you...
- I'm just saying I know. - You're really loading a gun.
- I know, but I'm just saying, at least be supportive
that I've gotten down to that.
- He scared the bejesus out of me.
The great pressure is,
what if she gets voted off ahead of me?
It's going to be very traumatic.
I would rather I get voted off ahead of her.
I know that I will always hold back.
I know that and so...
because I don't want ever to come out
brighter than Melissa and smarter than Melissa.
I just don't want-
I don't compete with her on that level.
- I believe that consciously she would believe that,
and then even if I did win, she would say she held back,
but I don't think she really could.
- Okay, see you later.
- In the business, you have to put yourself first.
You got to protect yourself.
And my mother will tell you that she only wants me to win,
but then she'll do something without realizing it
that is very destructive.
And I think it's a very tough dynamic,
because I truly think
it's completely subconscious with her.
Will you open that?
- Okay.
- That's a nice Dooney and Bourke bag.
- These are very nice goodie bags.
- Yeah.
- I feel very out of place.
I'm the oldest by far.
They all were talking and chatty,
and for a long time, I stood by myself,
and I felt very isolated.
- Well, see, I think you also bring a lot of that on yourself.
I think you don't make any- like tonight,
you made no effort to be, like, welcoming.
- I stood there-
- Well, no, but I'm saying,
but you were on your BlackBerry so fast,
and I tried to introduce you to people,
and you were already like,
"Uh, hi, bye," because you get so shy,
and that's what people don't know about you.
Hell, I wouldn't walk over to you.
- Well, they didn't.
- But you made- but you set it up for that.
You don't realize that you do that...
All stand-ups are innately insecure.
Who would stand on a stage by themselves and say, "Laugh"?
"Laugh at me. Laugh with me.
I don't care. Just laugh."
And I think that's just sort of the nature of the beast.
Overall, I just- sort of my perception
growing up in the world of comedians:
They're all very damaged, and they need that reassurance.
It's all a cover.
- It's been a bloodbath.
They don't play fair.
They cheat.
- So Melissa was fired, um, on Tuesday,
and I know Joan was very upset.
- She is a snake.
- Annie Duke was on a team with Melissa
and absolutely conspired to get Melissa fired.
- Annie Douche, that fucking moron.
Would you right now, Graham,
onto my blog and onto my Twitter,
it should be, "Annie Douche, that moron,
she should kiss my ass."
She should kiss my Jewish ass,
but not with those non-kosher lips.
[Laughter]
Not with those big pig lips.
That's it: "She should kiss my Jewish ass,
but not with those big pig lips."
Do you think that's too rough?
So tell me, you didn't think it was going to get vicious?
- No, I just thought it was at least going to be
moderately fair.
And my concern is how I will be portrayed
because I have more of an image issue than you do.
So that's a little unsettling.
- It meant you're going to look very angry,
and they already said, when you left
you really called them all kinds of names.
So that's there.
- But if they cut it to show that I was telling the truth...
- Oh, they're not going to cut it to show
you were telling the truth, 'cause they don't care.
They're going to show that you left pissed off.
But you also came back, and you also worked,
and you also- that's all right.
I think it makes you more interesting,
Melissa, frankly.
- You have done really an amazing job,
but, Melissa, you're fired.
- Whore! Pit viper.
I want my [bleep], and I want it now.
Not getting without it.
- It makes me very upset to see her that hurt.
It wasn't even hurt.
It was the frustration of the lies.
It is such a cruel business.
Sometimes, I just want to say to her,
"Why in God's name are you opening yourself up
to such punishment?"
I mean, mine is not a choice.
Mine is, uh...
Mine is-I always say, it's like, uh-
people say, "Why are you in the business?"
Ask a nun why she's a nun.
That's my drive at 4:00 in the morning in the airport.
It's-I have no choice.
And that's where I was from the time
I could figure it out.
No question where I was going.
There were no drugs. There was no sex.
There was no any- nothing until I got my job.
That's where I was going, and just go away.
[Sirens wailing]
[Light guitar music]
[Music continues]
Mohammed, it's going to be a long evening.
We're doing two shows tonight.
- Joan Rivers? - Yes?
- Do you mind autographing this for me?
- Oh, my goodness. Yes, of course.
I love you.
- Every Wednesday night when I'm in New York,
I work in some tiny little club where I can practice my act.
I just talk about anything and everything that annoys me.
Thank you.
- You don't get the recognition you deserve.
- Damn right, William.
Okay, see? I have a fan.
I have William.
The minute you're not angry about things,
the minute you're not upset about things,
what are you talking about?
"Oh, my grandson was so cute."
It's not my comedy.
I'm furious about everything, furious about everything.
Good things don't always happen to good people,
and I'm very angry about it.
But if I didn't have the anger, I wouldn't be a comedian.
Anger fuels the comedy.
I hate everybody.
I hate old people.
I hate ugly children.
I hate fat people.
I hated China.
I hate whiners.
Oh, I hate dead people.
I even have the three wise men who I hate.
I love anal sex 'cause you can do other things, you know?
It's like...
You can iron.
You can read a book.
Get your emails on your BlackBerry.
[Laughter]
[Upbeat guitar music]
[Music continues]
- Well, right now, we're getting
the 17-foot table up the stairs.
These two guys just walked it up seven flights and...
Bring it right here.
- Today is Thanksgiving. ;
favorite time of the year, favorite time of the year.
Melissa and Cooper come, of course,
and then I invite my friends, and many of them are strays
or single women or my neighbors from downstairs.
It's sad.
- Why is that?
- I don't know, just sad that it seems
you have fewer friends in New York,
and I know when something wonderful happens,
there are maybe three people I'll call,
when maybe 15 years ago,
there would have been six people I'd call.
So many people are dying, my God.
They'd better eat fast tonight.
[Laughs]
Oh, it's cold!
Every Thanksgiving, I bring meals
from God's Love We Deliver
to people that absolutely are too ill to go out.
This year I asked my grandson Cooper to come with me.
If you what?
If we can stop at an electronics store,
his PSP is broken.
But If you're very good,
I'll buy you a new one for your birthday.
- Well, my friend had three of them, and he gave me one.
- That's very nice.
Is this the one he gave you?
- Yes.
- He had three of them?
Has he got a single grandfather?
[Laughs]
I love your hands.
They're great hands, Cooper.
At God's Love We Deliver, when I started out,
and I'm on the board, we used to give AIDS patients
that were going, we would give them food.
Well, now AIDS is chronic,
and I am still delivering their fucking food.
I am so pissed.
I am so- you know what it's like?
Thanksgiving morning, ding-dong,
the guy opens the door, "You again?"
[Laughter]
"This is the third fucking Thanksgiving in a row, buddy."
"Miss Rivers, just leave it over there.
I'm on my way to the gym."
"The gym?
"You're going to die today.
AIDS or me; I'm not sure which."
- Oh, look.
- Oh, "God's Love We Deliver."
Aw, how nice is that?
You want to ring?
[Doorbell rings]
Hello, hello. - Hi.
- I'm Joan Rivers. This is my grandson, Cooper.
And how nice to see you.
- Joan Rivers?
The Joan Rivers?
- I pay her bills.
[Laughter]
- You have entertained me for years, Miss Rivers.
- I'm so glad.
- I'm a photographer.
- Yeah, you can see there's something going on here
that's wonderful.
- Right there, I photographed the same drugstore
for 20 years,
every time they changed the price of cigarettes.
- Oh, how brilliant is that?
- Thank you.
- Where was it shown?
- Life magazine.
I have taken over 100,000 photos,
so you might even know my work.
Look up FloFox. Com.
- Thank you. - Happy Thanksgiving.
- I can't wait to get out of here
and go home and look you up.
- Flo Fox, baby. My name is Flo Fox.
- I'm with Flo Fox right now.
What happened that caused your eyesight to start to fail?
- I believe it's connected with multiple sclerosis.
I walk with a cane. I'm a little off-balance.
First my eyes went and...
- Oh, it's so sad.
There's this sexy, young, artistic, edgy,
New York, tough, bohemian girl.
- It's amazing isn't it? - Yeah.
- Life is so mean.
[People talking at once]
[Glass clinking]
And I thank you all for being here.
This morning, I delivered meals with my grandson
for God's Love We Deliver, and may I tell you,
we are so blessed.
We are so blessed, and I thank God every minute
that I ever step into a limousine.
I know it sounds silly.
Since 1968, they've been sending limousines for me,
and I never get into one that I don't say,
"Thank you, God. I am so chosen."
And I thank you all for being here,
and I thank God for another wonderful Thanksgiving.
- Hear! Hear!
[Applause]
[Laughter]
[Car horn honks]
- We are at the Kennedy Center, in Washington, D. C.
I am here to do a tribute to George Carlin.
I find this whole thing very hypocritical.
This is everything George claimed he wasn't.
George hated the establishment.
George hated the people that are going to be here tonight,
which are going to be a bunch of older,
very wealthy Republicans.
All the things that George fought against
tonight will all be negated
because he's getting the Mark Twain award.
It would be like me getting a big award
from the German Bund.
[Laughs]
"And now for funniest Jewess not in the ovens,
Joan Rosenberg Rivers!"
[Laughs]
But, um, there's an importance for me
for this type of an event for comedy,
because I'm always left out of it.
So for me, this is nice to be included,
because I'm usually not included.
Once a Jew, always a Jew.
[Laughs]
I'm going in to clean that bathroom.
- Have you seen that shower in there?
It's kind of interesting.
- Ugh.
Oh, look.
- Now it is.
[Aerosol can hissing]
- The writers are ready for you when you want them.
- I'm ready for the writers.
- Okay.
- Okay, where are the writers?
They're coming in here?
- Yeah.
- Now, is it just the two of us?
- Yeah. - All right.
- Miss Rivers, the "fuck" thing,
I know the executive producers
are a little concerned about that.
- Yes, and well they should be.
I probably will have one "fuck" somewhere in there.
- That's fine. - Just to get the audience...
- No, exactly. One is fine.
And it will be bleeped for TV. - Yes.
- I have no problems. All right, guys, see you later.
Thanks, Joan. See you in a bit.
- Thank you. Thank you, thank you.
They're all going to be so much funnier than I am.
See, when you see the lineup, and you know Jon Stewart
had 12 writers work on this,
and you know, uh, Garry had six writers work on this.
And you know all these people- look who's here.
They all have professional staffs.
- Wow.
[People speaking indistinctly]
- You know, there's a lot of his stuff that's-
[laughter]
- Joan, um, what is it like being a comedic icon?
I'm sure there are comedians that come up to you and say,
"You were an inspiration."
- I'm not ready to be an icon,
and I'm not ready to be told thank you.
Fuck you.
[Laughter]
- Lewis Black. Margaret Cho.
Ben E. King. - Don't know him.
- Dennis Leary. - Clever.
- Bill Maher. - Brilliant.
- Joan Rivers. - Okay.
- Garry Shandling. - Brilliant.
- Jon Stewart. - Smart.
- Ben Stiller. - Eh... lucky.
- And Lily Tomlin. - Brilliant.
- Ladies and gentlemen, George Carlin.
[Laughter]
[Applause]
[Joan speaking indistinctly]
- The Smothers Brothers and Laugh-ln.
And it was such a great time to be in comedy.
[Applause]
- Few people are always funny,
but certainly one of the chosen people
is our next presenter,
the fabulous Joan Rivers, ladies and gentlemen.
[Cheers and applause]
- We use to play these terrible clubs.
Literally, you didn't get paid.
You passed the hat,
and some nights, the hat would come back
with a severed head.
Some nights...
[laughter]
And they asked me to say a couple of words about George,
and I kept thinking that is so unfair.
You cannot sum George Carlin up in two words.
Give me at least seven.
And...
[laughter and applause]
- You were so funny.
- I think today went very well.
I think I did not embarrass myself at all.
I think I was fine.
I think I was funnier than a lot of people,
not as funny as a lot of people,
but, uh, yeah, I was perfectly fine.
[Dramatic guitar music]
[Music continues]
- I am getting ready to go to Wisconsin.
I've never done an act before in Mukluks.
- [Laughs] They have no idea.
- They'll stare at me when I say,
"Where are the gays?"
They're going to tell us, "Dead, we killed them."
[Laughter]
Why am I going to Wisconsin?
A thing called money.
They're so desperate to get me, they're paying me.
That's why I'm going to Wisconsin.
[Music continues]
I worked last night.
I worked in Toronto until about 2:30 in the morning
on The Shopping Channel.
Then I got up at 5:00 to make a 7:00 plane or something
to Chicago.
And then from Chicago, I took a little,
what they call, "puddle jumper."
It was adorable.
How is the gay community here?
- That I really don't know.
- Oh, see.
Ask your cousin.
[Laughter]
Ask your wife's brother.
- Is this the most remote place?
- No-oh, no.
- Well, where is the most remote place
you've ever played?
- The most remote place I've ever played
was Reykjavik, Iceland.
I've played them all. Juneau.
Oh, are they wrong.
That was called the Texas Motel.
[Laughs] They are so off.
[Laughs]
[Music continues]
Some places, as you know, are better than others.
This would not be my first choice of décor.
The audience is going to be very born-again,
I have a feeling, very fundamentalist.
They're going to get very shaken up.
[Laughs]
Get the check.
Yeah, right.
Whatever I do on stage...
Are they gonna clean the stage a little bit?
Because I kind of roll around on it and stuff.
It's a little...
Ick. There's gum.
Aren't you the makeup person?
You win the award, that showed up with no makeup.
Don't you have your makeup?
Aren't you the makeup girl?
She's the makeup girl, and she didn't bring makeup.
"May."
Good month.
- Of next year.
- May of next year.
You leave New York, you leave L.A.,
you leave the world.
But that's what makes it charming.
[Cheers and applause]
First of all, where are- where are we?
What the hell is going-
I was out in the casino.
A guy put a quarter in, fish came out.
Uh, well, never mind Viagra. What about Cialis?
36 fucking hours a man has an erection?
An 85-year-old man for 36 hours?
That's devil's work.
And on these poor, old, dried-out old wives?
And these guys on top of them,
in and out, in and out, in and out.
They're going to set them on fire.
It's-yes.
Ugh, I hate children.
[Groans]
The only child that I think I would have liked ever
was Helen Keller because she didn't talk.
It is just...
[laughter]
- Not very funny.
- Yes, it is.
And if you don't, then leave!
- It's not very funny if you have a deaf son.
- I happen to have a deaf mother.
Oh, you stupid ass.
Let me tell you what comedy is about.
- You go ahead and tell me what comedy's about.
- Oh, please. You are so stupid.
Comedy is to make everybody laugh at everything
and deal with things, you idiot.
My mother is deaf, you stupid son of a bitch.
Don't tell me.
[Cheers and applause]
And just in case you can hear me in the hallway,
I lived for nine years with a man with one leg.
Okay, you asshole?
And we're going to talk about what it's like
to have a man with one leg who lost it in World War II
and never went back to get it,
because that's fucking littering.
[Laughter]
So don't you tell me what's funny.
Comedy is to make us laugh.
9/11?
If we didn't laugh, where the hell would we all be?
Think about that.
Where the hell would we all be?
How can you not find Osama?
There is one- there is one outlet.
He's on dialysis.
There is one outlet in all of Afghanistan.
Find the plug...
[laughter]
And follow the cord.
[Laughter]
[Cheers and applause]
Well, okay.
How about that?
"I have a- a deaf son!"
Oh, what a good way to build.
That was a very difficult moment.
It throws you terribly, because you know
the audience is so nervous and so scared to laugh.
Your mind is going a mile a minute.
"Where am I going to go? What am I going to do?
Where am I going to take them?"
So there are two things going on,
your mouth and your head.
Luckily, I was able to get them back.
- Thank you. You are so-
I've never laughed so hard in my life!
- Oh, you were a good laugher,
and that makes such a difference.
- Oh, I know, and that-that rotten guy.
- I'm sorry for him.
- I was ready to get up and say-and tell him to leave.
- He has a deaf son.
- I know, but he's got to realize that this is comedy.
- Comedy. - Right.
- I felt terribly sorry for the man with the deaf son,
and of course he's angry.
Of course he's angry.
I get that, but don't ruin the whole act.
But maybe it got it out of him,
and maybe it's good what happened to him too.
He had kind of a catharsis.
And you're driving us? - Yep.
- Have you been drinking? - No, ma'am.
- Have you been drugging? - No.
- Have you been whoring?
- I may have been.
- Okay, well, that's good.
Then you'll be relaxed.
You ought to just head for New York
and just get me home.
There's nothing like your own bed.
Nothing like your own bed.
[Car horns honking]
They called my agent.
They wanted to get William Shatner.
He said no.
They wanted to get George Hamilton.
He said no.
So I said, "A woman should do it.
And I'll do it."
Extend.
Extend, which is, you take a pill,
and the man's penis just grows, grows.
Not penile enlargement,
just, "Oh, look, who's a big boy now!"
- Joan will turn nothing down at all.
Nothing.
- And she hears the clock ticking
every minute of every hour of every day.
- I'm going to Palm Springs for-what is this for?
Do you know what this is for?
- The Betty Ford Clinic.
- This is for the Betty Ford Clinic,
so they'll be very serious about drugs.
[Laughs]
All right, well, uh,
Are they lining you up like Nazis?
All right. That's all right.
Okay.
"Sorry, bitch.
"I'm not Carol Channing, but this will have to do.
Much love, Joan Rivers."
- Thank you.
- I have Ss, sibilant Ss.
Ss, ss.
Even a little more.
If you take out the top or the bottom,
that usually works pretty well.
- This is the early Joan, and this is me.
"Oh, darling. Can we talk?
Oh, does this tampon make me look fat?"
- We're going to go straight down this hallway.
- I'll follow you. - Okay.
- I love that the nails match the dress.
I think that's so fabulous.
- Thank you.
- Nice to meet you. - Nice to meet you.
- Be careful. Be careful; it's wet.
Victoria Beckham,
"Uch, uch, does the tampon make me look fat?"
I can't stand her.
Okay. Up we go.
And we're going to Minneapolis, right?
- Yes. It's cold there.
[Dramatic music]
[Music continues]
- All right. And thank you.
You were terrific.
- Pleasure meeting you.
- Thank you.
Hello.
I don't care if it's God himself.
No one is to call my room until 6:30.
- Okay.
- Save your money when you're younger,
that you don't have to whore yourself out when you're old.
To be roasted, Comedy Central.
- Oh, God.
- I know, but the money is extraordinary.
I am so depressed.
I can't even go there with you now.
This-this is the cherry on the cake.
Mohammed, could you stop for a moment
so I can get out in front of the car?
And could you just run me over?
End it now, Mohammed.
- It can't be...
- Oh, do you know the jokes?
Every joke is going to be plastic surgery or old.
It comes back at you, doesn't it?
- Yep.
- God.
- Miss Rivers to the set, please.
[Bell rings]
- Slate here. Stand by.
- And action.
- This tastes like urine!
- You crazy fucking bitch.
- The crew loves me.
They keep telling you it's an honor.
I'm telling you that if I had invested wisely,
I wouldn't be doing this.
- By the way, did you know that I have never done
a roast in my life?
- It's so disgusting.
- They're not disgusting.
It is an honor. I'm telling you.
No, don't make that face.
- But the money is very good.
- The money is good, which is an honor.
I mean, I'm an artist, and I'm doing it
for the art like you are.
- Yes, precisely.
- Couple of artists, with easels,
sitting around, collecting our money.
- Joan will cross to her seat, all right,
in, let's say, three, two, one, go.
- Talk about lucky!
Brad and Angelina are having a sale!
Look at them!
Go on down now. Auntie Joanie's busy.
Fuck. Sh-
- Okay, no, no, don't go yet.
- We're just-and this is-
At this point, that's when you would go.
- Could somebody help me here, please?
No, no, really.
Don't bother.
- You know, if everybody's giving you a standing ovation,
that joke probably won't read that well.
- I beg you. It will read.
I will wait until the standing ovation is over.
I will get up here-
- They will not sit down till you sit down.
- Well, then, they're going to stand until I sit.
I'm pleading with you, don't knock every joke,
or it's not going to be funny.
I'm begging you. I'm pleading with you.
I will thank them,
and then I will either sit down and miss the chair.
I will do something funny, because I am a funny person.
[Applause]
- Hello, hello, hello!
We are here to celebrate the career
of a groundbreaking comedian and a legendary bitch.
[Laughter]
- How much worse could your real face look
than that clown mask you've had welded onto your head?
- Look at her. She's a cougar.
Freddie Cougar.
- Joan's face has been lifted so many times
that when she sneezes, she has to blow her clit.
[Laughs]
- I get mad at myself.
I think, at this age,
you've been doing it since 1966,
and you shouldn't let them upset you anymore,
but they do.
I did the Comedy Central roast, okay?
[Audience cheers]
And, uh, yeah, which was great, which was great.
I-I was-they-they-
they said such mean, disgusting, filthy-
they called me a whore and a cunt
and a this and a that.
I kept thinking, "How do they know me?"
It is just...
[laughter]
Oh, oh, sure. Turn against the queen.
It's like Marie Antoinette.
Yeah, like you're going to do better with Kathy Griffin.
Fuck you.
It is just...
when she lasts 45 years, then go stand on my grave.
[Cheers and applause]
Just kidding.
I love Kathy.
- Where's Billy these days?
- I have no idea.
He's no longer really part of my career.
He can't be.
You spend too much energy looking for Billy
and too many phone calls coming in from people
that haven't heard from Billy, and, uh, can't deal with it.
- You know it's bad when people say something to me.
You know what I'm talking about?
I run into people, and they're like,
"Oh, we were trying to reach Billy,
and he never called us back."
I'm like, "I don't know what to tell you."
- Yeah, but let us know. Yeah, just say, "Call Jocelyn."
- Yeah.
- Billy, unfortunately, is no longer part of my team.
I sent him an email saying
we're no longer in business together.
He just can't be counted on, and it's killing me.
I'll tell you why it really upset me.
Billy is one of the last links
that I can say, "Do you remember?"
And I had to cut that off, and I think that's-
it's not the business.
That's where l-
I cannot tell you I will never not miss Billy.
He was there when Melissa was born.
He was there for Edgar's funeral, you know?
He's a link.
I have no one to say,
"Do you remember when Bernie Brillstein gave his party
and Edgar was the only one that came in black tie?"
I know it sounds-
he was my last memory bank,
and I have no one-no one- to say that to now.
And that is very difficult for me.
[Pensive music]
[Music continues]
Tonight is the live finale of Celebrity Apprentice,
and it is between me and Annie Duke.
If I win, I'm back.
I'm back in spite of being a woman,
in spite of being 75,
and in spite of being blackballed from NBC.
I'm back, you bastards.
- And it's been a tremendous, tremendous season.
Annie, do you know what I'm going to say?
- No, I have no idea.
- I'm going to say, Annie...
you're fired.
[Cheers and applause]
- It's great. This has been wonderful.
[All speaking indistinctly]
It's great. It's terrific.
Ah.
Here we go.
But it's just Celebrity Apprentice.
I mean, it's not the Academy Awards,
but it was wonderful.
And I'm very happy I won.
- Congratulations.
- Thank you.
- Now, I've always said,
you can't get hit by lightning
if you're not standing out in the rain.
Nobody can stand in the rain longer than Joan Rivers.
She will stay there.
She's the last person standing.
She'll let it rain. She'll let it rain.
She'll let it rain, because she knows
lightning can hit, 'cause it's hit her more than once.
But she knows you have to stay out in the rain.
And she did.
- Line two.
Okay.
Hello, my sweetheart.
Yeah.
All right, so tell me.
Tell me yes or no; just tell me fair.
Aah!
That's fabulous!
Are you-oh!
Jocelyn!
We were picked up!
- No way. - Yeah, we got it.
- Awesome! - All right, all right.
- You know what the real pinnacle in a comedy career is?
It's not an Oscar.
It's not one thing.
It's the fact that you're still doing it.
That's really what's so rock star about her.
She's really the master of sticking in there.
- Wait, wait.
Let's talk about what this is gonna entail.
It's a photo shoot for The New York Times?
- I could do it Monday afternoon
if they want.
I'm still in town.
Right now, everything is absolutely wonderful.
I am the golden girl.
But I have been here before, and I know,
nothing is yours permanently,
and you'd better enjoy it while it's happening.
- So... next week, Monday:
Regis and Kelly, book signing, and QVC.
Tuesday. ; WOR, Rachael Ray, Howard Stern, Cutting Room.
Wednesday. ; Florida, breakfast lecture,
do an afternoon book signing,
back to Miami, perform two shows.
Thursday. ; L.A.,
The Doctors, radio show, red-eyeing home, QVC,
corporate booking, then back to Cutting Room.
- Okay, I'm fine.
Is that locked?
Get him out of the picture.
[Laughter]
It's me alone.
It's an "artist alone" shot.
I'm grabbing you, Mohammed.
Thank you.
I am opening for Don Rickles, and when they say opening,
what it is, is,
he and I split the money.
And years ago when we started, I said "Well, I'll open,
'cause that means I get out earlier,"
and he's still pissed about it.
[Laughs]
The theater is wonderful here,
It's a Vegas-sized theater.
It's 1,800 or 2,000.
- No, it's 4,000. Yeah.
It's a 4,000-person theater.
- I'm nervous.
[Laughter]
- But I go way back with Joan when she was in Vegas
and she was a struggling comedian.
And we got to know each other.
She's done an outstanding job with her career.
I mean that.
She has outstanding timing,
and she takes her work very seriously.
And if I didn't marry my Barbara,
I would have married Joan, and with that remark...
Aah, gaah.
God.
Oh, God. I was kidding around!
Oh, God, why?
- Don Rickles is in his late 80s,
and he is still hilarious.
He's like George Burns,
who was amazing until he was in his late 90s,
and Phyllis Diller.
Until she was 92, she just laid it down.
And I'd like to beat them all,
and I think I will.
That's what's so sick. I think I will.
First wife is always some poor, dumb bitch
who he married on the way up.
Second wife is always like, "Hello,"
and he's an asshole and marries her.
And the third wife, he's 96.
The balls are on the ground.
She's 11. She's Chinese.
"I ruv you."
[Laughter]
Thank you.
It's been a pleasure.
[Cheers and applause]
[Rousing instrumental music]
[Music continues]
This is where I belong.
Only time I'm truly, truly happy is when I am on a stage.
- Why can't you do a good job once?
It's embarrassing.
I keep saying, "She's wonderful,"
and you always fail me.
- I am a performer.
That is my life.
That is what I am.
That's it.
[Music continues]
[upbeat music]
[Music continues]
- I do hate children, and that's the truth.
Oh, God, so Halloween, and they,
"Oh, lady, we don't like apples."
"Then just eat the razor blades."
It is so...
- Joan, love you, love you, love you.
- I love you, love you back.
Who do I make this to?
- Lucy.
- I can spell- - I have all your jewelry.
Love you.
I love everything you've done for women.
Love all your humor, all your grace.
- Oh, thank you.
- You're the best. - Oh, Lucy.
- Love you.
- Lucy, I love you back.
Surprise!
So bored that they're taking torture away
in the United States.
Oh, it was-
Oh, like-like- oh, like torture is bad.
"Oh, waterboarding, waterboarding."
Oh, big fucking deal.
Try getting a bikini wax one time.
Get a Brazilian wax.
You'll give up secrets you never knew you had.
[Screams]
They're doing a documentary of my life.
- And you said earlier that they're just waiting
for the moment, right?
- They are praying that I'll die
during this-this film.
Wouldn't that be great?
Wouldn't that be amazing?
They got the last year of Joan Rivers.
It would give them such a hook.
- People would watch. - People would watch.
- That's sick.
- I know, but wouldn't it- but still,
sick but very commercial.
- You'd watch.
- I'd watch.
Wouldn't you?