In Memoriam: Joan Rivers 1933 – 2014

Iconic comedienne Joan Rivers passed away on Thursday, September 4, a week after suffering a cardiac arrest during an outpatient procedure at a private endoscopy clinic. She was 81 years old and had spent 50 years in show business.

In the almost 50 years since she burst onto the scene on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, Rivers ascended to the pinnacle of American showbusiness – even as she skewered its excesses with her scathing wit.

A workaholic, Rivers had been hosting an online weekly talk show called In Bed with Joan, and had just filmed a special award-show episode of E!’s Fashion Police before being taken ill. She was frequently performing live stand-up, and had finished the fourth season of Joan & Melissa: Joan Knows Best, the reality show in which she starred with her daughter. [..]

Rivers never made a secret of the surgical procedures that significantly altered her looks. Instead, they became a source of material for her act. “I’ve had so much plastic surgery, when I die they’ll donate my body to Tupperware,” she once said.

Her daughter, Melissa, released this statement yesterday:

In her 2012 best selling book, Ms. Rivers laid out the plans for her funeral.

When I die (and yes, Melissa, that day will come; and yes, Melissa, everything’s in your name), I want my funeral to be a huge showbiz affair with lights, cameras, action . . . . I want craft services, I want paparazzi and I want publicists making a scene! I want it to be Hollywood all the way. I don’t want some rabbi rambling on; I want Meryl Streep crying, in five different accents. I don’t want a eulogy; I want Bobby Vinton to pick up my head and sing “Mr. Lonely.” I want to look gorgeous, 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.

Her funeral will be held Sunday in Manhattan at Temple Emmanual-El.