Joan Rivers, RIP

JOAN RIVERS, irrepressible comedienne, TV host and author, died today following vocal-cord surgery in New York; she was 81. Brooklyn-born Joan Alexandra Molinsky crashed the male-dominated comedy scene with a 1965 Tonight Show appearance and built a stellar career on her barbed (some would say vicious) jokes about sex, race, religion, celebrities, plastic surgery (including her own), the Holocaust and an array of similarly sensitive topics. In recent decades she became a fixture before the cameras at red-carpet premieres and awards galas, delivering reliably catty commentary (often with daughter Melissa). But her career leading up to that zeitgeist perch included a Grammy nomination for Best Comedy Album; becoming the first female comic to perform at Carnegie Hall; writing and directing the film Rabbit Test; publishing the bestselling books Enter Laughing and The Life and Hard Times of Heidi Abromowitz, among others; an Emmy for her daytime talk show; Tony and Drama Desk noms for her play Sally Marr ... and Her Escorts; and being the subject of the documentary Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work. By any measure, Rivers—who spun an entire worldview around the catchphrase "Can we talk?"—was a pioneer. And she was fucking hilarious. (9/4p)