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Comedienne Joan Rivers dies at age 81 - just a week after routine throat procedure left her in a coma


  • Melissa Rivers put out a statement saying the legendary comic passed away at 1:17pm surrounded by her family 
  • Joan Rivers' passing comes after she went into cardiac arrest during vocal cord surgery a week ago 
  • She had spent the last few days in a coma and on life support 
  • New York Department of Health launched investigation into clinic where Rivers' ill-fated procedure was performed 
  • Funeral for Rivers will take place Sunday at Temple Emanu-El  
  • Legendary comedienne Joan Rivers died in a Manhattan hospital today, a week after she went into cardiac arrest during a routine throat procedure.
    In a statement, her daughter Melissa said the 81-year-old passed away peacefully, surrounded by her family.   
    The legendary comedienne was rushed to Mount Sinai Hospital a week ago after going into cardiac arrest during an outpatient procedure on her vocal chords at another clinic, which is now under investigation. 
    She has been at the center of American entertainment since 1965 when she broke out on the Tonight Show.
    The mother of one, daughter Melissa, and doting grandmother to Melissa’s son Cooper, has most recently hosted Fashion Police on the E! network. 
    'It is with great sadness that I announce the death of my mother, Joan Rivers,’ Melissa Rivers said in a statement released to the press Thursday.
    ‘She passed peacefully at 1:17pm surrounded by family and close friends. My son and I would like to thank the doctors, nurses, and staff of Mount Sinai Hospital for the amazing care they provided for my mother.
    ‘Cooper and I have found ourselves humbled by the outpouring of love, support, and prayers we have received from around the world. They have been heard and appreciated."
    ‘My mother’s greatest joy in life was to make people laugh. Although that is difficult to do right now, I know her final wish would be that we return to laughing soon.’
    A funeral for Joan Rivers will be held Sunday at Temple Emanu-El. 
    Earlier in the day, the New York state Department of Health revealed it is now looking into Yorkville Endoscopy - the clinic where Rivers underwent the ill-fated surgery.
    State officials said they are reviewing the case, but have yet to launch an official investigation.
    Spokesman James O'Hare said Thursday that the department is looking into 'the whole matter.' He declined to discuss specifics.
    Also today E! network announced that Ms Rivers' weekly Fashion Police series has been put on hiatus.
    The long-running program, which normally airs fresh episodes on Fridays, is on break this week and next, the network stated, 'as we await Joan and Melissa's return in front and behind the camera.' 
    Rivers' daughter, Melissa Rivers, is the show's executive producer. 
    Joan Rivers - who opened her routine with the trademark 'Can we talk?' - never mellowed during a decades-long career. She moved from longtime targets such as Elizabeth Taylor, whom she famously ridiculed as fat, to new faces, and continued to appear in clubs and on TV into her 80s.  
    Comedy was not only her calling, but her therapy, as she turned her life inside out for laughs, mocking everything from her proclaimed lack of sex appeal (‘My best birth control now is just to leave the lights on’) to even her own mortality.
    ‘I have never wanted to be a day less than I am,’ she insisted in a 2013 interview with The Associated Press. ‘People say, "I wish I were 30 again." Nahhh! I'm very happy HERE. It's great. It gets better and better. And then, of course, we die,’ she quipped.
    Rivers also talked about how she wanted her funeral to be in her 2013 book 'I hate everyone...Starting with me'. 
    In the book, she writes that she wants her funeral to be a 'huge showbiz affair' and to look 'better dead than I do alive'. 
    'I want to be buried in a Valentino gown and I want Harry Winston to make me a toe tag. And I want a wind machine so that even in the casket my hair is blowing just like Beyoncé's,' she wrote
    With her red-carpet query ‘Who are you wearing?’, the raspy-voiced blonde with the brash New York accent also helped patent pre-awards commentary - and the snarky criticism that often accompanies it, like cracking that Adele's Grammy wardrobe made the singer look like she was sitting on a teapot. Rivers slammed actors at the Oscars, Emmys and Golden Globes for E! Entertainment.
    In 2007, Rivers and daughter Melissa were dropped by their new employer, the TV Guide Channel, and replaced by actress Lisa Rinna. But they found new success on E! with ‘Fashion Police,’ which Rivers hosted and her daughter produced.
    No performer worked harder, was more resilient or tenacious. She never stopped writing, testing and fine-tuning her jokes.
    ‘The trouble with me is, I make jokes too often,’ she told the AP in 2013, just days after the death of her older sister. ‘I was making jokes yesterday at the funeral home. That's how I get through life. Life is SO difficult - everybody's been through something! But you laugh at it, it becomes smaller.’
    She had faced true crisis in the mid-1980s. Edgar Rosenberg, her husband of 23 years, committed suicide in 1987 after she was fired from her Fox talk show, which he produced. The show's failure was a major factor, Rivers said. Rosenberg's suicide also temporarily derailed her career.
    ‘Nobody wants to see someone whose husband has killed himself do comedy four weeks later,’ she told The New York Times in 1990.
    Rivers suffered cardiac arrest and stopped breathing during minor throat surgery on her vocal chords at a New York City hospital last Thursday.
    Her daughter flew from Los Angeles following the incident and has remained at her bedside.
    Despite being in a coma and on life support, Melissa had her mother's hair and makeup done daily.
    New York Post's gossip columnist and Rivers' self-proclaimed ‘forever friend’ Cindy Adams reported Thursday that Joan has been transferred to a larger suite decorated with flowers, plants and bows by celebrity event planner Preston Bailey, who had organized Melissa Rivers' wedding years earlier.
    Adams, who was spotted leaving the Manhattan medical center after visiting her friend earlier this week, also said that Rivers lay covered with a white faux mink blanket from designer Dennis Basso's collection and has a CD of the musical Oklahoma! playing in the room, according to Hollywood Life.
    Adams dished about Joan Rivers' upgraded hospital stay, which included a team of makeup artists, hairdressers and manicurists swarming around her to make sure the legendary fashionista looks her best. 
    According to the columnist, her nails were painted deep purple and white, and her toenails were green.
    Hospital staff even allowed Rivers' dogs, a Japanese Chin named Teegan and a Havanese, to be brought into her room so they could give their 'mommy' a kiss.
    The comedy stalwart had reportedly laughed about undergoing 'a little procedure' ahead of her operation last week.
    Her friend Jay Redack, who was turned away by security when he tried to visit her in hospital, was one of the last people to spend time with her and said she was in good spirits before the surgery.
    They had enjoyed dinner on Wednesday night after her hour-long stand-up session at the Laurie Beechman Theatre in Times Square.
    'She said her throat was bothering her for a long time,' he told the New York Daily News. 'Her voice was getting more raspy, if that was possible. She said she was just going in for a little procedure in the morning, that was it.' 
    Ms Rivers had originally entered show business with the dream of being an actress, but comedy was a way to pay the bills while she auditioned for dramatic roles.
    ‘Somebody said, "You can make six dollars standing up in a club,"' she told the AP, ‘and I said, "Here I go!" It was better than typing all day.’
    In the early 1960s, comedy was a man's game and the only women comics she could look to were Totie Fields and Phyllis Diller. But she worked her way up from local clubs in New York until, in 1965, she landed her big break on ‘The Tonight Show’ after numerous rejections. 
    ‘God, you're funny. You're going to be a star,’ host Johnny Carson told her after she had rocked the audience with laughter.
    Her nightclub career prospered and by late that year she had recorded her first comedy album, ‘Joan Rivers Presents Mr. Phyllis and Other Funny Stories.’ Her personal life picked up as well: She met British producer Rosenberg and they married after a four-day courtship.
    Rivers hosted a morning talk show on NBC in 1968 and, the next year, made her Las Vegas debut with female comedians still a relative rarity.
    ‘To control an audience is a very masculine thing,’ Rivers told the Los Angeles Times in 1977. ‘The minute a lady is in any form of power, they (the public) totally strip away your femininity - which isn't so. Catherine the Great had a great time’
    In 1978, she wrote, directed and co-starred in the movie Rabbit Test. It had an intriguing premise - Billy Crystal as a man who gets pregnant - but was poorly received. In 1983, though, she scored a coup when she was named permanent guest host for Carson on ‘Tonight.’
    Although she drew good ratings, NBC hesitated in renewing her contract three years later. Fledgling network Fox jumped in with an offer of her own late-night show.
    She launched ‘The Late Show Starring Joan Rivers’ on Fox in 1986, but the venture lasted just a season and came at a heavy price: Carson cut ties with her when she surprised him by becoming a competitor.
    Carson kept publicly silent about her defection but referred obliquely to his new rival in his monologue on the day her show debuted.
    ‘There are a lot of big confrontations this week,’ Carson said as the audience giggled expectantly. ‘Reagan and Gorbachev, the Mets versus the Astros, and me versus `The Honeymooners' lost episodes.’
    Her show was gone in a year and she would declare that she had been ‘raped’ by Fox; Three months later, her husband was found dead.
    It took two years to get her career going again, and then she didn't stop. Rivers appeared at clubs and on TV shows including ‘Hollywood Squares.’ She appeared on Broadway and released more comedy albums and books, most recently ‘Diary of a Mad Diva.’
    Rivers once joked that there was not ‘one female comic who was beautiful as a little girl.’ She was born Joan Molinsky in Brooklyn to Russian immigrants Meyer Molinsky, a doctor, and Beatrice. Rivers had a privileged upbringing but struggled with weight - she was a self-proclaimed ‘fatty’ as a child - and recalled using make-believe as an escape. 
    After graduating from Barnard College in 1954, she went to work as a department store fashion coordinator before she turned to comedy clubs. She had a six-month marriage to Jimmy Sanger.
    In recent years, Rivers was a familiar face on TV shopping channel QVC, hawking her line of jewelry, and won the reality show ‘Celebrity Apprentice’ by beating out her bitter adversary, poker champ Annie Duke. In 2010, she was featured in the documentary ‘Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work.’
    She never let age, or anything, make her sentimental. Earlier in 2014, she got inked: a half-inch-tall tattoo, ‘6M,’ on the inside of her arm representing 6 million Jews killed in the Nazi Holocaust. In 2013, she brashly pledged to work ‘forever.’
    ‘You never relax and say, "Well, here I am!"' she declared. ‘You always think, "Is this gonna be OK?" I have never taken anything for granted.’

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