Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Still Talking by Joan Rivers' Cause of Death Revealed. — -- Joan Rivers died in a New York City hospital Sept. 4 at the age of 81. Now, there are some answers for what happened. Rivers was sedated with propofol before she died of low blood oxygen during a procedure to treat voice changes and acid reflux, according to the New York City medical examiner. Rivers lacked sufficient oxygen to her brain for a prolonged period of time, which caused brain damage, the medical examiner said. Her heart had stopped after she was sedated with propofol and undergoing procedures to examine her condition. The medical examiner’s office said it found no obvious medical error and that the manner of death was “therapeutic complication,” indicating that death is an accepted possibility of the procedure she was undergoing. Her daughter, , told ABC News, "We continue to be saddened by our tragic loss and grateful for the enormous outpouring of love and support from around the world. We have no further comment at this time." A person briefed on the Rivers investigation said an autopsy was not performed on Joan Rivers at the instruction of the family and in accordance with Jewish law. Instead, the report was based on a noninvasive physical examination and a thorough review of her charts from Yorkville Endoscopy, where she was undergoing her procedure, as well as her medical history. As a result, the report from the medical examiner's office does not explain what caused the sudden lack of oxygen. No additional information will be released by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, citing New York state law. Rivers was being treated at Yorkville Endoscopy in Manhattan Aug. 28 when she suffered cardiac arrest. She was taken to a nearby hospital, where she arrived unconscious and was kept sedated by her doctors. Her daughter confirmed a few days later that her mother was on life support. The comic legend died "surrounded by family and close friends," Melissa Rivers said. "My mother’s greatest joy in life was to make people laugh," she said in a statement. "Although that is difficult to do right now, I know her final wish would be that we return to laughing soon." Meanwhile, the New York State Health Department recently completed its "full investigation" of the clinic where Rivers was being treated, according to a DOH representative, and results will be released soon. A source said initially there was no suspicion of wrongdoing and the investigation was routine. All About Joan. An unparalleled legend in the entertainment industry, Joan Rivers was more than just a comedian – she was a force of nature. An internationally recognized celebrity, Emmy-award-winning talk-show host, Grammy-award-winning performer, Tony-award-nominated actress, bestselling author, playwright, screenwriter, film director, columnist, lecturer, radio host, jewelry designer, entrepreneur, and the renowned creator of the modern day “red carpet,” Joan was also the first woman to break the glass ceiling of male-hosted late-night television. Above all her accomplishments, she was most proud of her daughter, Melissa, and her grandson, Cooper. A true New Yorker from the start, Joan Molinsky was born in Brooklyn on June 8, 1933 to Russian-immigrant parents Dr. Meyer and Beatrice Molinsky. The family eventually relocated to Larchmont, New York prior to Joan attending and graduating from Barnard College in 1954. For over 50 years, Joan pioneered her own brand of irreverent, unconventional comedy, first enduring tawdry clubs, Borscht Belt showrooms, and grimy Greenwich Village cabarets. She was never one to give up and her relentless work ethic allowed her comedy to evolve, and her audiences continued to grow. She soon headlined in Las Vegas and throughout the United States, as well as in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia and Canada. Joan’s fame skyrocketed in 1968 when she first appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson . Within three years she was hosting That Show with Joan Rivers , one of the first syndicated daytime talk shows on the air, and made television history as the permanent guest host of The Tonight Show, where she coined her iconic catchphrase, “Can we talk?” In 1984, Joan received her first Grammy nomination for her gold-selling comedy album, “What Becomes a Semi-Legend Most?” Joan helped launch the nascent Fox Network in 1986 with the debut of The Late Show Starring Joan Rivers , and in 1989 she triumphantly made her mark on daytime TV with The Joan Rivers Show , winning an Emmy Award for Outstanding Host. In 1990, Joan launched the Joan Rivers Classics Collection of fashion jewelry, apparel and accessories on QVC. She constantly kept her finger on the pulse of the latest trends, and was widely considered to be one of America’s most visible, accessible, and authoritative fashion spokespeople. Her brand was an instant, enormous success and remains so today thanks to the continued hard work and leadership of Melissa Rivers. Joan’s love and admiration of fashion didn’t stop with QVC. Armed with a microphone and her signature question, “Who are you wearing?” she turned walking the red carpet, the simple act of entering a building, into a star-studded event. Years after creating and hosting Live from the Red Carpet for the E! Network (1996-2004), Joan later returned to anchor their hugely successful franchise Fashion Police , hosting both its hour-long weekly broadcasts and its awards-season specials, reaching more than 10 million people worldwide. From hot new trends to red-carpet risks, Joan hilariously took viewers through a recap of the week’s celebrity fashion and ultimately decided who sizzled and who fizzled. In 2009, Joan was not only honored during The of Joan Rivers , she also starred in the second season of NBC’s hit reality-TV series The Celebrity Apprentice . Her emergence as that season’s victor was chronicled in the 2010 critically acclaimed, no-holds- barred documentary Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work . Joan’s documentary launched a new phase of her career – this time in the world of reality television. Her popular show, How’d You Get So Rich?, which ran for two seasons on TV Land, took a candid look at the extravagant lifestyles of fabulously rich North American entrepreneurs and innovators. Joan and Melissa Rivers together dominated the world of reality TV during four seasons of their hit series on WEtv, Joan and Melissa: Joan Knows Best ? The inimitable duo answered the question plaguing daughters since the beginning of time: Does mother truly know best? Throughout her career, Joan was also a vastly accomplished author, penning 12 celebrated books. Her most recent work, Diary of a Mad Diva , was published in 2014 and instantly became a New York Times Bestseller. A recording of the audiobook version of Diva also earned Joan a posthumous Grammy Award in 2015 for Best Spoken Word Album. Joan’s other works include the bestselling I Hate Everyone… Starting with Me , her revered autobiographies Enter Talking and Still Talking , as well as Murder at the Academy Awards: A Red Carpet Murder Mystery , a work of fiction. Joan continued to reach new audiences with the help of a vibrant, joke-filled Twitter feed, as well as the inception of her cutting-edge, independently produced weekly web series, In Bed with Joan, featuring intimate interviews with actors, singers, internet superstars and rising comics. Launched in 2013, in its first year alone, In Bed with Joan garnered critical acclaim and industry accolades. No stranger to the world of animation, in addition to lending her unique voice to Shrek 2 and Spaceballs: The Animated Series , Joan received a Daytime Emmy Award nomination in 2009 for her portrayal of “Bubbe” on PBS’ award-winning animated children’s series Arthur . In 2011, she voiced “Annie Dubinsky,” the hard-talking agent of “Krusty the Klown” on The Simpsons . Since she was a child, Joan’s passion and love was always live theatre. Besides being an ardent fan of plays and musicals, Joan appeared on Broadway three times – her first venture taking place in 1975 when she co-wrote and starred in Fun City . In 1986, she returned to the Great White Way, starring in Neil Simon’s Broadway Bound , and in 1994, she co-wrote and starred in Sally Marr and her Escorts , for which she was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play. Joan also explored deeply personal theatrical endeavors, including Joan Rivers: A Work in Progress by a Life in Progress , which she co-wrote and starred in. The show began as a limited workshop engagement in San Francisco in 2007 before opening to rave reviews at the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles. In 2008, Joan took the show overseas for a sold-out run during the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, moving on to a highly successful limited run in London’s illustrious West End. Despite being constantly in motion, Joan worked tirelessly on behalf of charities that were close to her heart: God’s Love We Deliver, Guide Dogs for the Blind and The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. She also dedicated herself as a longtime spokesperson for both the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation and the National Osteoporosis Foundation. Joan passed away on September 4, 2014 in New York City. Her enduring legacy as an entertainer and as a humanitarian lives on. Joan Rivers. How a first generation Jewish American became an entertainment legend. Share. You might also like. Jewish Jokes. Ruth Bader Ginsburg. My Jewish Learning is a not-for-profit and relies on your help. Note: This article was written before Joan Rivers’ death in 2014 at age 81. “Can we talk?” In the minds of millions of Americans, this common phrase conjures up the image of Joan Rivers, the woman who realized in the mid-1960s that “the country was ready for something new–a woman comedian talking about life from a woman’s point of view” (Enter Talking). In revues, nightclub acts, and concert halls (in the early 1960s), and to a vast new audience via television in the 1970s and 1980s, Joan Rivers popularized and perfected a genre of comedy that challenged reigning social conventions. Her willingness to “say what is really on everyone’s mind” was coupled with an ingénue quality. This made her a less-than-threatening figure and enabled her to popularize the type of monologue that had previously been the domain of male comedians: Their acts combined social criticism with sharp wit, and Rivers was soon to join them. She paid homage to these pioneers in her 1986 autobiography, Enter Talking . Hearing Lenny Bruce perform in the village was for her “an event that forever changed my comedy life…. Boom! there he was, an obscenity among the pleasant routines of the Establishment” ( Enter Talking ). Influenced by Bruce, Rivers worked assiduously on her own routines and became a skillful crafter of comedic scripts for herself and others. Among her early writing credits are routines for the Phyllis Diller Show , episodes of Candid Camera , and material for Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show . It was on the Tonight Show , in 1965, that Rivers got her big national break. Introduced as one of the writers for the show, she and Carson engaged in a hilariously funny dialogue. As Rivers remembered it, “At the end of the show he was wiping his eyes. He said, right on the air, ‘God you’re funny. You’re going to be a star'” ( Enter Talking ). Parental Background. Born in Brooklyn, New York, as Joan Alexandra Molinsky on June 8, 1933, Rivers was the youngest daughter of Beatrice (Grushman) and Meyer Molinsky, a doctor. Both of her parents were Russian Jewish immigrants from the Odessa area. Despite the geographical proximity of their origins, Rivers’s parents came from vastly different socioeconomic circumstances. Meyer Molinsky’s family had been poverty-stricken in Russia, and they remained poor in their early years in America. Molinsky’s entry into the medical profession propelled the family into the emergent Jewish middle class of Brooklyn. Beatrice Molinsky’s family had been very wealthy merchants in Odessa but left everything behind in the Old Country. That loss of status forever haunted Beatrice Molinsky, and she continually pushed her husband—a struggling general practitioner in the heavily Jewish Brownsville section of Brooklyn—to earn more money. The conflict between her parents (“My mother wanted M.D. to stand for Make Dollars”) was the inspiration for many of Rivers’s early routines. The constant arguments in the family about money left her with a permanent sense of insecurity that she mined for its comedic value. The epilogue to Enter Talking concludes in this way: “She lives the life her mother longed to have—but still believes that next week everything will disappear.” Education. From earliest childhood, Rivers wanted to be an actor. Her mother wanted her youngest daughter to prepare herself for marriage and entry into polite society. The tension between these aspirations deeply influenced the young woman’s life and craft. Educated in Brooklyn’s Ethical Culture School and Adelphi Academy, Rivers was an enthusiastic participant in the school drama and writing programs. At Adelphi, she founded the school newspaper. At Connecticut College and later at Barnard, she read widely in the classics and took courses in the history of the theater. Though she was later to project a scatterbrain image, the key to her craft lies in her classical education and her ability to turn out witty monologues and dialogues. In 1954, Rivers graduated from Barnard College with a degree in English literature and was awarded membership in Phi Beta Kappa. After college, she took an entry-level job at a firm in the New York fashion industry. She soon gave it up for a short-lived (and disastrous) marriage to the boss’s son. “Our marriage license turned out to be a learner’s permit” ( Enter Talking ). Early Ventures in Entertainment. Determined to succeed in the theater, Rivers did temporary office work while auditioning for roles in Off- and Off-Off-Broadway plays. In 1960, she developed comedy routines that gained some attention and in 1961 got her first big break when she joined the Second City Comedy troupe of Chicago. Her improvisational and writing skills shone at Second City. Within a few years, she was a regular at New York City comedy clubs, foremost among them the Duplex and the Bitter End. In her act, she joked about sex in a way that was both shocking and endearing. Female comedians had not spoken with such frankness before. “I knew nothing about sex. All my mother told me was that the man gets on top and the woman gets on the bottom. I bought bunk beds” ( Still Talking ). It was from these clubs that Rivers was catapulted to fame by her appearances on national television. Throughout the first decade of her career she continued to write, perform in clubs, and appear on television. The 1970s saw Rivers venture into other entertainment media. While her Broadway play Fun City was greeted with a mixed reaction, her comic 1973 TV movie, The Girl Most Likely To , was the most successful made-for-TV movie of its time. Its theme—the revenge of a woman jilted for her looks—was the harbinger of a new direction in writing about women’s issues. Two of her books, Having a Baby Can Be a Scream (1975) and The Life and Hard Times of Heidi Abramowitz , were also great successes—as were her 1986 autobiography, Enter Talking , and its sequel, Still Talking (1991). Starting a Family. During her rise from stand-up comic to television personality, Rivers married producer Edgar Rosenberg. He became her de facto manager, and together they embarked on a number of entertainment ventures, including the ill-fated The Late Show Starring Joan Rivers . Their marriage, described in some detail in Still Talking , was inextricably linked to both of their careers. They had one child, Melissa Rosenberg, born January 20, 1968. In 1987, Edgar Rosenberg committed suicide. Rivers’s reaction was feisty and characteristic: “The best therapy for me would have been to go right from the mortuary to the stage, but my advisers agreed it would have been unseemly.” Seven years later, in 1994, Rivers dealt with this tragedy and its aftermath in her NBC movie Tears and Laughter . In this film, Rivers and her daughter Melissa play themselves and demonstrate, as Gina Bellafante noted in Time magazine, “the sunny conviction that the saga of their cruel lives will serve as a morality tale…. It also manages to convey a message about the capacity for survival.” In that same year, Rivers wrote and produced a Broadway play, Sally Marr and Her Escorts . Based on the life of Lenny Bruce’s mother, it too deals with the cruel price that celebrity and talent exact from those blessed and cursed with its gifts. Since 1995, Joan Rivers had been a host for the E! Entertainment television network, where she and her daughter broadcast their “Joan and Melissa’s E! Fashion Reviews” from the scene of the annual Golden Globe, Emmy and Academy Award ceremonies. Rivers herself won the 1990 Emmy award for best daytime talk show host. Jewish Identity. Joan Rivers was supportive of Jewish philanthropic and social causes and was a former Hadassah Woman of the Year. In her books, she made reference to Jewish holidays and rituals, as well as very trenchant and witty remarks about American Jewish social phenomena—including the Catskill Mountains Borscht Belt, where she performed early in her career. In Enter Talking , there is a particularly moving account of her first Yom Kippur away from the warmth–and fury–of her family. Her portrayal of her own family’s Jewish life provides us with confirmation of Jenna Weissman Joselit’s observation in The Wonders of America (1994) that, for American Jews, “the Jewish home was now placed at the core of Jewish identity, often becoming indistinguishable from Jewishness itself.” Still Talking. Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. excellent story of Edgar's suicide - her ups + downs - very insightful. The well-known comedienne and talk-show host opens up about her life, describing her rise to the top, her marriage, the birth of her daughter, the politics of the entertainment industry, and her husband's suicide. This is the story of a woman who had - and then lost - everything. The story of a woman who worked for three decades to finally reach the top. What subsequently happened to Joan Rivers had more to do with being a woman than with being a star. In a business that is notoriously harsh to women, Joan Rivers struggled to carve out a niche for herself that for the past several decades, has marked her as one of the gutsiest comediennes working in the business today. Ultimately, Joan was forced to choose between her husband and her career. In the titanic confrontation between her husband and the boss of her television network, Joan stood with her husband and was out of a job. Far worse, Edgar, her husband of twenty-two years, took his own life. In the face of such awful tragedy, where did this controversial star find the inner strength to continue on and survive without the protection of her husband? With her trademark combination of biting humor and fragility, tough-minded ambition and traditional values, Joan Rivers tells a story of tragedy and eventual triumph. Not only has she learned to survive the trials and tribulations of life, but she has ultimately thrived. I must say that while I don't enjoy Joan Rivers' style of comedy, I certainly enjoyed reading her autobiography. She has gone through so much tragedy; things that would quite possibly torpedo another person's career for good. However, Joan Rivers has somehow risen above and triumphed over such sadness and still has managed to be successful. In my opinion, she is a very strong woman; a woman who is to be admired for her fortitude. I give this book an A+! ( ) Edgar Rosenberg, Joan Rivers’ Late Husband: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know. Nurse holds baby Melissa, as Joan Rivers lights cigar for daddy, Edgar Rosenberg. (PDeMaria/NYDailyNews/Getty Images) pic.twitter.com/LKVDbwuKSJ — Michael Fullam (@bombasticbunnee) September 4, 2014. Edgar Rosenberg is the late husband of Joan Rivers, who often joked about his death in her stand-up acts. When the two first met, Rivers immediately fell for Rosenberg and the two were married within just four days by a judge in New York. 1. Rivers Cheated on Rosenberg Many Times. In a 2012 interview with , Rivers confessed how she treated on Rosenberg many times, including a tryst with Robert Mitchum. The two met while appearing on The Tonight Show . She also admits in the interview that she left Rosenberg several times during their marriage. Rivers was first married to a man named James Sanger, but her first marriage was a bust after only six months. Rivers had the marriage annulled after Sanger revealed he did not want to have children, information he hadn’t told her until after they were married. About a decade later is when Rivers married Edgar Rosenberg. When Rivers spoke of Rosenberg, she said: It was a good match. We filled each other’s gaps like two pieces of a puzzle. I gave him warmth. He gave me style. Read More From Heavy. Joan Rivers’ Death: The Celebrity Tweets You Need to Read. 2. Rosenberg Committed Suicide. US Joan Rivers Husband Edgar Rosenberg Was Found Dead in Philadelphia Hotel Room in 1987 http://t.co/mUAdOnBaZd — free media (@pressfreedom1) August 28, 2014. Edgar Rosenberg was found dead room of the Four Seasons Hotel in Philadelphia on August 15, 1987. Rosenberg reportedly overdosed on Valium, left a suicide note, and left three tapes with messages he recorded on them. One was for Joan, one for his daughter, and one for his business manager. People reported: During the night, Edgar, 62, had taken his own life by a combination of Valium and alcohol. He had been found by security guards in his hotel room in Philadelphia, where he had gone to see his closest friend, Tom Pileggi. Rivers’ rep had told People that Rosenberg had suffered a major heart attack in October 1984 and underwent quadruple bypass surgery. He was reported to have been in poor health just before his suicide and was very depressed. The Philadelphia Inquirer writing about his death said: Rosenberg was often the butt of on-stage jokes by his wife, but she said she “fell apart” when he was stricken by the heart attack. He had closely managed her career since their marriage. Flashing forward, when Rivers was asked about comedian Robin Williams’ death, she said she had a tough time hearing the news because of her husband’s suicide, though it was many years ago. She told the Asbury Park Press: I still can’t believe it. He was a genius. Whenever I would interview him, I knew it would be fun. It hits hard for me since my husband (Edgar Rosenberg) committed suicide. Think about it. Robin had everything, a great deal of success, more money than he could ever spend. Respect from the industry. He was a comic, who could do the serious roles. All that and he still killed himself. You never know what’s happening with people. They can have it all and still be in this very dark place. 3. The Married Couple Worked Together. Rosenberg was a German-born American film producer who worked with Rivers on many of her gigs. According to People, Rosenberg had a lot of connections. He had mastered the machinery of the show business world that was her consuming ambition. He was the No. 1 assistant and virtual son to the legendary public relations consultant Anna Rosenberg (no relation). He had worked as an assistant producer for NBC, and had produced five feature films, including The Poppy Is Also a Flower. It was actually through work that Rosenberg and Rivers found a great bond. People wrote: Work had always been a bond for both Edgar and Joan. In fact, it was work that brought them together. Joan, working as a writer and a comic, met Edgar in 1965 in New York. Billed as a funny writer, she had just scored on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, and Edgar brought her to Jamaica to work on a script for his friend Peter Sellers. At the time of his death, Rosenberg had been involved in a major real estate project in Pennsylvania with Tom Pileggi. The deal had been worth $19 million.