In America Joan Rivers was probably the most successful woman to stand before a microphone and spin funny yarns. For her, nothing was off limits, not even her husband’s suicide or her own addiction to plastic surgery. Her comedy had a shock factor that no woman had dared to attempt before.
Her popularity spanned the Atlantic. In Britain she was never short of offers from chat show hosts — they liked the fact that there were no holds barred for Rivers and her acerbic thrusts. Virtually in the same breath that she used to discuss her own plummeting breasts, she would talk less than kindly about the Queen or the American first lady of the day. She told Mick Jagger, “Iron your face”. Then added,