Joan Rivers

Joan Rivers was an American comic, actress, producer, writer and television host who began in Greenwich Village comedy clubs and rose to prominence as a guest on The Tonight Show in 1965. In 1986 she broke ground as the first woman with a late night network talk show, The Late Show with Joan Rivers, later hosted The Joan Rivers Show, and earned a Daytime Emmy in the outstanding talk show host category. Her blunt, self-deprecating style made her a pioneer of women in comedy. She appeared in The Swimmer (1968), voiced Dot Matrix in Spaceballs (1987), and starred in How to Murder a Millionaire (1990). From the mid-1990s she was known for red carpet celebrity interviews, and she co-hosted Fashion Police from 2010 to 2014. She received an Emmy and a Grammy and was nominated for a Tony Award. A 2010 documentary, Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work, focused on her. She died in 2014.