In stand-up comedy, you “kill” the audience or you “die.” In a seven-decade career, Joan Rivers “died” many times but kept coming back to “kill” again until she became a comedy legend. Joan Alexandra Molinsky was born in Brooklyn to Russian immigrant parents on June 8, 1933. The family moved to Larchmont, Westchester County, when Joan was nine. She attended Connecticut College before earning a Bachelor’s degree in English from Barnard College in 1954. Joan worked in New York department stores while hoping for a break on Broadway as an actress or writer. When the break didn’t come, she tried stand-up comedy. In the late 1950s female comedians were still rare and Joan posing for a photo at USO often unwelcome by their male counterparts. Woman of the Year event in 2001 Joan started at the bottom, working at a Boston Source: US Coast Guard burlesque club as “Pepper January.” She later renamed herself after a talent agent, Tony Rivers. Despite hostile audiences and disapproving parents she made it onto Jack Paar’s popular NBC TV program The Tonight Show in 1960, but failed to make an impression. Joining the Second City comedy troupe, Rivers began to improvise comedy based on her own experiences and brought new self-mocking humor to her stand-up act. Slim and attractive, she joked about how fat and ugly she used to be. In 1965, after perfecting her act in small nightclubs, she returned to Tonight, now hosted by Johnny Carson. A highly- amused Carson scheduled her frequently thereafter. Rivers still craved success beyond stand-up. She hosted her own daytime talk show brie y in 1968. In the 1970s she co-wrote and starred in a Broadway play, Fun City, that opped. She directed and co-wrote a movie, Rabbit Test, that also opped. But her stand- up act grew more popular as she started making fun of celebrities. Audiences often were shocked into laughter by her frankness about herself and others. Her con ding words, “Can we talk?” became a national catchphrase in the 1980s. By 1986 Rivers seemed near the peak of success, hosting Tonight several weeks a year during Carson’s vacations. Despite her strong ratings, Carson doubted whether his audience would accept Rivers as the full-time host after he retired. Seeing no future for herself at NBC, Rivers accepted the new Fox TV network’s offer of her own late-night talk show. The Late Show with Joan Rivers premiered in October 1986. It was the biggest disaster of her career. Ratings were poor because Fox reached relatively few homes, while some potential guests feared that Carson would ban them from Tonight. In the spring of 1987 Fox red Rivers. Later that year her husband Edgar Rosenberg committed suicide. Rivers never gave up. She came back with an Emmy-winning morning talk show. She continued to write books and plays while touring with her stand-up act. She tried everything that could earn money, including designing jewelry. In the 21st century she gained new fans by selling her designs on the QVC cable channel and mocking new generations of celebrities on her show, Fashion Police. Only her shocking death on September 4, 2014, following a botched surgery, stopped her. Joan Rivers remained controversial to the end of her career, which meant people never stopped talking about her. Brooklyn is one of New Whatever people thought of her, everyone agreed that she York City’s ve boroughs had been the queen of American comedy. but is also Kings County - one of the 62 counties that make up New York State. For more about Joan Rivers read one of her books or visit her website at joanrivers.com.This is one of a series of Famous New Yorker pro les written by Kevin Gilbert for the NYNPA Newspaper In Education Program. All rights reserved 2015.