I WAITED WITH great anticipation for the new documentary Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work. After all, Rivers wasn’t just a comedian I admired, she was my former boss. I worked as a producer on both her nightly and daytime TV shows in the ’80s.
The film had garnered good reviews on the festival circuit, probably due to Joan’s insistence that the documentary not be a puff piece. She wanted an intimate portrait, warts and all, which would be a real trick for the queen of cosmetic surgery.
This dichotomy has always been at the centre of Rivers’s world: physically she’s all artifice; but emotionally she’s an open book. And the film does not disappoint in its portrayal of a fierce and funny workaholic in the winter of her career.
And what a career! A lucky spot on The Tonight Show in 1965 put her on the showbiz map. She worked constantly as a stand-up, after that, breaking new comedic ground for women in the process.
Over time, her material grew more biting and more relevant to a nascent feminism that was spreading across the land. Her persona was one of a tough, no- nonsense broad who reduced the battle of the sexes to a struggle between beauty and money.
In 1986, after a permanent guest host stint on The Tonight Show she joined the fledgling Fox network. The show, which I worked on, never caught fire, and Joan was dumped nine months later. Shortly after, her beloved husband and mentor, Edgar Rosenberg, committed suicide.
The subsequent series of ups and downs in her career was punctuated by a successful but short-lived daytime TV series, a wildly successful career as a QVC pitchwoman and her controversial red-carpet Oscar commentaries, which the industry loathed and the public adored.
The film follows her through one complicated year (2008) in which she sees both triumphs and disappointments. She prepares a one-woman show that she workshops. The reviews are bad, so the project is aborted. Grudgingly, she becomes a contestant on Celebrity Apprentice; she becomes the hit of the show. And she severs her relationship with Billy Sammeth, her manager of more than 30 years.
What the film reveals is her unparalleled work ethic.There are scenes of her looking despairingly at her schedule book, at pages too empty and white for any comfort. She needs to be needed every minute of the day. It’s not just the money, although she does live in a manner fit for Marie Antoinette; it’s also the refusal to give up.
The movie confirms my impressions of her from 25 years ago. She was very good to work for. She loved creative people and gave them lots of latitude. She was regal but completely open about her insecurities, which is the odd combination that has resulted in legions of lifelong fans.
I always get a charge when I see her. The time I spent with her in L.A. was my favourite year. The production was in disarray from day one, but she protected all of us from network politics and let us have fun doing our job. After all the plastic surgery, the fancy outfits and the ridiculous lapdog she carried around everywhere, what I really remember was her kindness.
