Comic passes away in hospital at 81

Joan Rivers has died in a New York hospital, a week after being admitted after she went into cardiac arrested and stopped breathing.

The 81-year-old comic’s daughter Melissa issued a statement saying: ‘It is with great sadness that I announce the death of my mother, Joan Rivers.

‘She passed peacefully at 1:17pm [6.17pm UK time] 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.'

She added that she and her son, Cooper, ‘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.’

Among those paying tribute were Ellen Degeneres, who tweeted: 'Joan Rivers will always be a pioneer. She paved the way for a lot of comedians. I’m very sad she’s gone.'

Louis CK said: 'She was a great comedian and a wonderful person. I never saw someone attack a stage with so much energy. She was a controlled lightning bolt. She was a prolific and unpredictable, joyful joke writer. She loved comedy. She loved the audience. She was a great actress and should have done that more. She loved living and working. She was kind. She was real. She was brave. She was funny and you just wanted to be around her. I looked up to her. I learned from her. I loved her. I liked her. And I already miss her very much. It really fucking sucks that she had to die all of a sudden.'

Mel Brooks said: 'Joan Rivers never played it safe. She was the bravest of them all. Still at the top at the end. She will be sorely missed,;

And Jenny Eclair added: 'The last thing Joan Rivers would want is to RIP -so I won't say that - she once told me we were both fortunate to be ugly enough to be funny.'

The E! network, where Rivers worked for more than 20 years, released a statement saying 'the world is less funny without her in it,' adding: 'For decades Joan has made people laugh, shattered glass ceilings, and revolutionised comedy. She was unapologetic and fiercely dedicated to entertaining all of us, and has left an indelible mark on the people that worked with her – and on her legions of fans.'

The comedian was rushed to New York’s Mount Sinai Hospital seven days ago after she stopped breathing and went into cardiac arrest during a routine medical procedure. She was having a check-up on her vocal cords that involved putting a scope down her throat.

The outpatient clinic is now being investigated, the New York State Department of Health has said.

Rivers was on stage just hours before the incident, performing a stand-up show at the Laurie Beechman Theatre. And she had been due to tour the UK later this year with a show entitled Quick...Before They Close The Lid (Seriously...this one could be IT!)

Rivers was born in Brooklyn, to immigrant Russian Jews, grew up in suburban New York and educated at Connecticut College and Barnard College, Manhattan.

She started comedy in the Fifties, and spent a decade ‘enduring humiliation and privation playing tawdry clubs, Borscht Belt hotels, and Greenwich Village cabarets’.

But her persistence paid off, and in 1965 got her first TV break when she appeared on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.

Within three years she was given her own daytime talk show – That Show With Joan Rivers – and by the Eighties she was the permanent guest host on the Tonight Show whenever Carson was away.

In 1986 she had an ill-fated six-part chat show for the BBC, taking its title from her 'Can we talk?' catchphrase, a registered trademark in the US. Today the show is mainly remembered for Peter Cook being wasted as her sidekick.

That same year, she was given her own late-night chat show on the new Fox network – but Carson was so upset by what he saw as her betrayal after a 20-year friendship that he banned her from his show forever. The two never reconciled before Carson’s death 2005, and it was only this year that the current Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon invited her back on.

The Fox show was followed by another self-titled daytime talk show, which ran from 1989 until 1994, and won her an Emmy award.

In 1987, she suffered personal tragedy when her husband Edgar Rosenberg, a British TV producer, killed himself, devastating Rivers, who developed bulimia and contemplated her own suicide. But she eventually turned the tragedy into typically uncompromising and uncomfortable comedy.

She took a diversion from comedy in 1990, launching her own line of jewellery for the QVC home shopping channel. It was widely seen as a tacky move, but it was certainly a lucrative one – achieving more than $500million of sales.

Rivers is also known for her bitchy commentaries about celebrity fashions on the red carpet before glitzy showbiz events, latterly with her daughter Melissa. In Shrek 2, she cameoed as an animated version of herself, parodying this role.

Rivers was an unashamed advocate of plastic surgery, which became a staple of her self-deprecating stand-up. She once joked: 'I’ve had so much plastic surgery, when I die they will donate my body to Tupperware.'

In 2002, she brought a one-woman show Broke And Alone to the Edinburgh Fringe, which then transferred to the West End; followed by another A Work In Progress By A Life In Progress, which played Edinburgh, the West End and Broadway.

And in 2010 she was the subject of a revealing documentary of her life, A Piece Of Work.

Click here to see some of the highlights of her career.

Published: 4 Sep 2014