Joan Rivers Dead at 81, a Comedian and Cultural Icon

Rivers began her career in New York City in the late Fifties, performing as an actress in plays and doing stand-up at comedy clubs. She established herself as a comedian who broke all cultural limits and taboos; an iconoclast unafraid of making jokes about serious matters. Over her six-decade career, she added Emmy-award-winning talk show host, bestselling author, playwright, director, jewelry designer and “red-carpet laureate,” among other professions, to her résumé.

In her early days, Rivers scored appearances on Jack Paar’s Tonight Show and a regular gig on Candid Camera, but her career took off after her first appearance alongside Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show in 1965. Eventually, she became the permanent guest host on that show for three years.

While Rivers would become a mainstay on numerous talk and variety shows, including the Ed Sullivan ShowThe Carol Burnett Show and Hollywood Squares, her relationship with Carson, whom she called a mentor, was the most instrumental to her career. She remained a regular guest and fill-in host on The Tonight Show into the early Eighties; around the same time she released her hit comedy album, What Becomes a Semi-Legend Most?.

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