Joan Rivers Is Dead at 81

Joan Rivers at an Oscar party in February.

Image: Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images for GLOBAL GREEN USA

Joan Rivers, the comedian and TV personality whose relentless humor and sharp tongue fueled a career that spanned more than four decades, died on Thursday, her daughter said in a statement. She was 81.
Rivers was rushed to the hospital in New York City last week after she stopped breathing during a surgical throat procedure — reportedly an endoscopy — at a clinic. Later that day, it was said that Rivers, mother to Melissa Rivers, with whom she co-hosted E!'s Fashion Police series, was placed in a medically induced coma.
Rivers, a Brooklyn native, got her start on the theater circuit, starring in a play with Barbara Streisand. But her big break came on The Tonight Show, where she often subbed for Carson.
Carson and Rivers had a close relationship but suffered a falling out in 1986 when Rivers left to host her own show, The Late Show with Joan Rivers. Their relationship never recovered, but Rivers is credited for opening the doors for many female comedians, particularly in terms of material.
Rivers fed on the shocked reactions when she'd tell jokes about abortion and other taboo subjects. Later, her love of plastic surgery also became fodder. "I've had so much plastic surgery," she joked once, "when I die they'll donate my body to Tupperware."

Even her husband's suicide in 1987 was not off limits. Years later — post-Celebrity Apprentice and pre-Fashion Police — Rivers explained this approach to NPR, saying she always found strength in laughter. "If you can laugh about it, you can live with it," she said.
Her no-restraints approach to humor, however, resulted in a fair share of backlash from both advocacy groups like the Anti-Defamation League and celebrities, who in the later years became her targets via E!'s Fashion Police.
The years that followed her husband's death were dark days for Rivers personally, who saw her show cancelled, her funds dwindle and her relationship with Melissa Rivers dissolve. Again, she turned to laughs and dove into work. "That's how you do it — that's how I do it. Everyone deals with it differently," she said.
She tried to teach others to do the same. In fact, in the mid-'90s she ran a series of grief seminars that preached laughter as medicine. The New York Times wrote about one session in which Rivers asked the entire audience — each there to learn ways to deal with their own tragedies — to turn to the person next to them and say "I'm so glad I'm not you." The room was "reduced to helpless laughter."
Around the same time, Joan and Melissa, who had reconciled by that point, began to making appearances on the E! network, co-hosting pre-award show coverage and becoming authorities on red carpet fashions. A brief stint at the TV Guide Channel aside, Rivers and E! maintained a relationship until her death.
Brian Hernandez contributed to this report.