011 Stiletto Comic Transcript (Joan Rivers)

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Michael: This person is a woman. She died in 2014, age

Scott: 81, mother Teresa,

Michael: not mother Teresa in her twenties. She works in the publicity department at

Lord and Taylor, and was a fashion coordinator for the bond clothing stores.

Alison: I have no idea.

Scott: Um, Elizabeth Taylor.

Michael: Not Elizabeth Taylor in the early sixties, she joined the Chicago based second city troupe whose improvisational approach.

She said reinforced her confidence.

Scott: Tina fey not seen a thing that the second, this, that

Michael: she was described as a brassy jewish American princess from Flatbush, Brooklyn,

Alison: Gilda Radner.

Michael: Not Gilda Radner. She was one of America's first successful

female standup comics, and then aggressive tradition that had

been almost

exclusively the province of men.

Alison: Now I'm realizing, you said she died at 81? Yeah. So the courses that scene of big, well, and what's her name? Carol Burnett. She's not dead, right?

Michael: It's not Carol Burnett, but that's a very good, okay.

She was vivacious even as a nipped and tucked octogenarian.

Scott: Oh, oh, okay. Um, oh man. Yeah, but my Chung crap, um,

Michael: Oh,

Alison: Joan Rivers.

Michael: Today's dead celebrity. This Joan Rivers,

Scott: Joan friggin river. I think one of the points of these frigging quizzes is to work up tension and tension was worked. So thank you very much, Mike tomorrow.

welcome to Samsung.

Michael: I'm Michael osborne.

Amit: And my name is Amit Kapoor.

Michael: And on this show, we go through a series of categories about multiple aspects of a famous person's life. We want to figure out the things in life that we would actually desire and ultimately answer the big question. Would I want that life today?

Joan Rivers died 2014, age 81 category one, the first line of the obituary. Joan Rivers, the raspy loud mouth who pounced on America's obsession with flab, facelifts, body, hair, and other blemishes of neurotic life, including her own in five decades of caustic comedy that propelled her from nightclubs to television to international stardom died on Thursday in Manhattan.

Bravo. How's my tank. Yeah, they got a lot in

there.

Michael: They got a lot in there. I really liked the word caustic.

Amit: I read me just the first like five words.

Michael: Raspy loud mouth who pounced on America's obsession with flab, facelifts, body, hair, and other blemishes of neurotic life. That prepositional phrase was a little

Amit: funny.

Yeah. Raspy loud mouth who pounced that much. I didn't like. I mean, just that alone, raspy loud mouth. Who pounced, just picture this. The like devil rabbit

Michael: does seem like a wild, annoying animal.

Amit: Yeah. But I think this is an example of why we choose the New York times. First-line of the obituary is our first category frequently.

They sum up what seems very hard to sum up. In a sentence that is unrecognizable as a sentence because it's so damn long

Michael: I have in the past critiqued some of the New York times obituaries as being too long. I think I want to back off of

Amit: that. Yeah. That's the magicianship of

Michael: it. I think. Yeah. I like that.

The word neurotic is I think, uh, I think it's appropriate. I think five decades is great. Caustic. I mentioned a second ago. This is a really good one. I'm if you want to give you your score. Yeah, I'll go. That's what I was going with. The critique I had was this positional phrase and other blemishes of neurotic life.

I don't know what that means.

Amit: The replacement. What was the, what did it proceed?

Michael: Here's how it goes. Raspy loud mouth pounced on America's obsession with flab, facelifts, body, hair, and other blemishes of neurotic life. I have to, I just have to think about that. What the fuck does that mean? Blemishes of neurotic.

Amit: Yeah. I don't think neurotic was necessarily adjective

Michael: there. Right. They had to get that word in there. Yeah. So that's the thing for me. Otherwise, I'm happy to give this a nine. Yeah. Because they want

Amit: it. Well, they will. And let's go back to that in a second. Cause they wanted to say blemishes. Right? Cause that was, you know, so much about the superficial or the, well, I mean just her red carpet commenting, you know, it was all about these joking things about people's appearance.

But, yeah, I'm glad you picked up on that. I didn't pick up on that immediately.

Michael: Should we go on to category two? Yep. All right. Five things I love about you. This is where Amit and I worked together to come up with five reasons why we're talking about this person. I got a lot here, but I would suspect there's going to be some overlap.

Do you want to start us? Do you want me to say.

Amit: Um, if you've got a lot, then

Michael: you start us all right. Complete devotion to standup comedy and remaining relevant for five decades. She took the stage for over 50 years and worked to keep her act funny and relevant and even got more and more relevant towards the end of her life in some way.

That's incredible. I cannot think of another comic who's had that kind of longevity. George Carlin may be kind of approaches. Like there is a true devotion to the art of stand-up comedy here that, uh, that I absolutely love and that I absolutely admire. And, and to

Amit: do it over a course

Michael: of five decades, I think that's the thing.

Cause you could say this about anybody who, you know, has the balls to get up on stage and, and render them some selves vulnerable and. Bomb and go through like the pain that, that must be, but to do it over and over and over again for 50 plus years, I love that.

Amit: Yeah. And for a woman, it's absolutely pioneering, but I think we've got, you said Carlin did it arguably Carson and Leno did it, or Leno is doing it.

I mean, by the time Seinfeld hangs up. Yeah, he probably would have done it too. And then there's all these young guys, you know, they're in their thirties and forties that are your superstars now, your Chappelle's and John Malaney is and so forth. They hang on another two or three decades.

Michael: Yeah. I mean, I had a whole lot of other things packed into devotion to stand up comedy.

I mean, commitment to. Free speech. She said over and over again. And I think Anthony Jeselnik tweeted this. She would never apologize for a joke. So there was like deep unapologetic, brash comedy, however you feel about it. And there's criticisms to be had, but. There's a unique commitment, not just to the art form, but to like a particular in your face fearlessness about it.

That it's not just the longevity. It's the longevity combined with persistent fearlessness. Yeah. Um,

Amit: I think your entire one thing can just be summed up by the word commitment. Yeah. The performance and commitment to the.

Michael: So that's one. You'll give me that one. Yeah, I

Amit: think my first one is a derivative of yours.

I just wrote the first woman to host a late night talk show, but I don't think that can stand on its own after you have said that. So I liked the pioneering aspect of it, but I think we can lump that in with yours, so.

Michael: Okay. Take a second. Do you want to be a pioneer in life? Cause the question is not. Do we admire her for being a pioneer?

The question is, do you want to be a pioneer in some form or fashion and what you choose to do in your life? Absolutely. So that's the quality that you're

Amit: calling out? Yeah. I mean, I think as a woman in the fifties and sixties, there was a lot of change to be had still, but I can often look at the world and be like, it's all been done.

And I, I have a feeling that that mentality goes on for. Like before the industrial revolution, people were like, well, it's all been done or we possibly didn't do next. So I'm gonna fly to the fucking moon. Yeah. Right. So to, yeah, to be a pioneer in anything to, to go that far and become a late night host, that's pretty

Michael: incredible.

It is incredible. So are we including that as number two or not? It's that we can put that as number two. Okay. Firstly, is that in house? Pioneering? Yeah. Pioneering. Is it much or no? This is a little meta to our show, but she loved obituaries and she chose celebrities as targets. This is a very

Amit: mad, it's very famous and gravy.

So in some way, she's inspired you more

Michael: than I would have thought she had a real obsession with fame and poking at the sort of absurdity of it. And then I read this biography, I read a hers cheap, popped about loving obituary. She just thought they were.

Amit: It's kind of funny. I mean, she's like a little bit of the opposite of our very first episode on Robin leech.

How so? Because. Take on celebrity was look at this, let's admire this fawning. Yeah. And hers is like, let's look at this. Let's

Michael: poke at it. Yeah. This is what a big joke. This is. Yeah. All right. What do you got? Yeah,

Amit: I'll go. Mother-daughter relationship. Oh, that she did a lot with her daughter. She worked alongside her daughter.

They did projects together, shows together. And I just feel like you don't see that very much. And from the clips I saw, like I sensed a special. Partnership. I can't think of too many others that have that sort of mother daughter professional

Michael: performance bond. Very obviously very close for a reasons. I think we'll get into as we go along, they bonded up, but, uh, let's wait.

I like that. It wasn't

Amit: meant just to be sweet though. I just think it's unique and I think it's life validating. But I liked the display of it. Like Ken Griffey Jr. And Ken Griffey, Sr. Playing on the same team at a certain

Michael: point. You just like seeing that father, son pairing out there. Yeah.

Amit: On the same team at the same time.

That's what I liked.

Michael: Same team. Same time. Is that because it speaks to like DNA qualities or Ken Griffey, Sr can say to Ken Griffey Jr. I am. I'm ready to pass the mantle. Just about some

Amit: way in some way, it's more of like a follow in the footsteps type of imagery that I'm getting. All right.

Michael: I'll try and go to my number five, please.

Okay. Late in life, she became friends with a woman named Marjorie stern when she was like in her sixties and they became like best buds. This is after Joan husband has died. The way that their friendship is described is adborable It's just like the two of them were hilarious. The story that I read that stuck out to me was in 2008, 2009, around the time of the Bernie Madoff scandal, Joan Rivers is in a restaurant and she goes to the waiter and says, when Ruth Madoff comes in, don't mention her husband.

She's so embarrassed. And then later when her friend comes in, she says, Ruthie over here. And like everybody in the restaurants, like looking and she has no idea what's going on. Which I love that kind of prank, but there was like shit like that. Like they pulled pranks on each other and like hung out in a way that was just really sweet.

But I like the idea that you can still make friends at age 68 with somebody who becomes your bestie.

Amit: I like that a lot. And the great, yeah. I've been searching high and low how to make friends after 35.

Michael: Yeah. It's weird. That, that gets hard. Right? That's bullshit.

Amit: Yeah

Michael: One thing that I also had on my list that I don't think is going to make it.

She had a real love for the little guy to hurt random acts of kindness throughout her life are pretty amazing. There's a lot of stories of her helping out a waiter at a, you know, some random restaurant while she's on tour. And her life is littered with that kind of stuff. We'll just sort of interesting for somebody who's described as caustic in their obituary.

Amit: Yeah. So you're number five though. It was essentially the friendship late in

Michael: life friendship, like ability to make friends throughout life. Yeah. And

Amit: so I, mine was kind of in that ability to make friends in that she. Like prince Charles. Um, I mean, I think it was a real friendship. She was one of only four Americans, I think, invited to the Charles Camilla wedding.

She was genuinely friends with Nancy Reagan and I don't know who all she was friends with. Exactly. But her contemporary. In the village in New York, in the sixties, spanned from Dillon to Simon and Garfunkel to

Michael: Richard prior. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think this is something you and I have talked about both on and off Mike, about how something we would love to measure in our categories on this show is relational wealth.

How well you do with those closest to you, friendships, marriages, that sort of thing. And it's a hard thing to measure, but in as much as you can kind of glean it, it's cleanable here. There's a lot of evidence that. Knew how to do friendship, correct? Yeah. All right. Should we go onto the next one? Yep. All right.

Category three. Malcovich Malcovich. This category is named after the movie being John Malcovich Where characters take a little tube into John Malcovich his brain and get to experience firsthand. What's going on behind John Malcovich his eyes. Amit If you could take a tube into Joan Rivers, brain at some point in life, just to see what it would be like.

Is there a moment that's interesting to you?

Amit: Yeah, I think it is the moment that Johnny Carson hung up on her. Yeah. So the backstory was Johnny Carson was essentially her mentor and close friend, and she got an opportunity to host the late night show, opposite him.

Michael: When Fox got launched as

Amit: a network, basically to host a show that would compete with his and he heard about it otherwise.

And was very pissed. She called him, she was just calling to let him know, to ask for his congratulations, to let her know that they're playing safe or whatever,

Michael: I

think she was trying to mend fences,

Amit: but

he hung up on her and she was banned from the tonight. Show it really until like the Fallon years.

Michael: That's right.

Amit: But what I'm talking about is the moment you get hung up on. By one of your closest friends and mentors at the time that your trajectory is peaking. It's one of the highest highs and one of the lowest lows of her professional and personal life simultaneously.

Yeah. I mean, Carson was a king maker, right?

He was one of the reasons that Joan Rivers, his career existed, if not the reason there were other funny women coming up in the fifties and sixties. And they didn't have the Carson blessing and he bestowed that blessing onto her, the dedication

of the book. I know it's very sweet of you. Don't

Michael: read it just to Edgar, your husband who made this book happen.

And we just book happened to Johnny Carson who made it all happen? Well, that's very

Amit: sweet.

Michael: She had this incredible run throughout the sixties and seventies into the eighties and did not inform him ahead of time that she was going to take this show that was going to compete with his time slot. So when that phone goes, click, she's just sitting there. What terrified?

Amit: I don't know. I mean, I don't want to experience it, but I want to know what it's like to have the highest high and lowest low at the same time.

It's gotta be terrible.

Michael: It's a great one Amit I got one I'm really excited about. Okay. All right. So she came up with among others linear. Who thought audience members don't know any. Bruce was a very controversial comic in the early sixties who was kind of speak truth to power type. And some regard is like one of the most pioneering and important stand-up comics of all time.

Actually, this is worth pointing out. And do you, have you watched marvelous mismatch? Mrs. Mason, only a little bit based on Joan Rivers. I know, I didn't know that either makes all the sense right now. I haven't made that explicit and Melissa has actually called this out, like the show runners, like you need to give some credit here, but yeah, it's loosely based at least on Joan Rivers.

So Lenny Bruce admirers, young Joan Rivers comic before she's had her Carson breakthrough. And one night after she bombs, he slips her a note that says, You're right, they're wrong. And she loves this note and she takes harden it and she carries it around in her bra apparently. And just like, she's a huge admirer of Lenny Bruce.

And so that's not quite the moment. A few years later, sometime in the 1960s, she's having a conversation with George Carlin and she tells him, Lenny, Bruce gave me this note that said, you're right. They're wrong? And George Carlin said, oh, he gave me the same note. I want to know what went through her mind at that moment.

I mean, I think like it's funny and you're still grateful, but you realize you're not quite as a specialist. You thought you were,

Amit: um, that's all, that's why I almost never like copy and paste a joke if I like, think of something very funny and I'm going to text you, I won't copy and paste the same

Michael: thing with somebody else.

So you won't copy the tux over and just like stick it in to another person.

Amit: I try not to originality counts. I think if it's something,

Michael: if it's something special that you're trying to reach, I mean, you know, I, I still like, it is what she needed to hear at that point in her career. Yeah.

Amit: But mean maybe George needed it, like with the exact same level of desperation and Lenny was the king maker who could, who mended to arts and that's it.

And maybe it's a beautiful moment actually. When these are the only two times Lenny Bruce ever wrote the note. But what you're saying is like, what could go through your head is, oh, Lenny's just handing this out, like Halloween candy. Yeah, totally. Or it could be this beautiful moment of like Lenny had this thought twice in his life.

These two great minds and comic geniuses have crossed.

Michael: Uh, yeah. Anyway, I want to know what's going on in their mind at that moment. That's a good one. I thought you'd like

Amit: that. Yeah. And so before we close out Malcovich though I have to say. I really want to know what it's like to be center square on Hollywood squares.

Uh, I mean, I think I really did dream about that, what that would be like to just get called and you're just so important. Cause you complete the tic-tac-toe. Yeah. And she was a consistent, like for almost three years. She was like the most common center square. Joanie you're watching balls go back and forth at speeds of up to

Michael: 160 miles an hour and watch sports jogging.

Is that your earliest association with, so when did Joan Rivers like enter into your consciousness, then? It was it Hollywood squares. It was baseballs for me. She was the voice

Amit: of. Dot who kind of looked like her, right? The

Michael: C3 PO female version. And that was right around the time that her show got canceled to.

Shall I go on to category four? Yeah. All right. Marriages. How many also, how many kids and is there anything public we know about these relationships

Amit: we're going to call this category, love and marriage. Can we call it love and marriage just for this episode? And we'll see if it sticks for them

Michael: category for love and marriage.

How many marriages also, how many kids and is there anything public about these relationships? Start us off. All right. Two marriages. First 1, 19 55. Joan was 22 at the time. His marriage lasted six months before as a Nolde. Did you catch

Amit: why that marriage ended?

Michael: Yes. Uh, there was no. It was obviously a mismatch.

I don't think that there was any abuse. There was just like very clear to both parties. This was not meant to be, she had somebody who was, she was hot for before, who was like a poet wasn't going anywhere. And I forget exactly what husband number one did, but it was something very boring and very stable and very encouraged by her parents.

And it just was. Yeah, I

Amit: think he was a store guy, but what I read, whether there's fruits this or not, was that she got a Nolde and the reason was she did not that she stated she did not realize that he did not want to have children

Michael: that actually made you come across that. I do think I saw that somewhere.

I'd need to look it up again, but that sounds right.

Amit: So how does anybody get married without that conversation?

Michael: And 1955. I didn't know men, just the women before they got married to them. Uh, that's a horrible thing,

Amit: but maybe you're, maybe it's also just so implied in 1955, they're going to follow along this path.

Michael: It is true. It is absolutely. Unforgivable, certainly by today's standards to not have that conversation ahead of time. That's not something you discover after you say I do.

Amit: Yeah, but I'm just saying why wouldn't they have had the conversation? Is it just because it was so implicit in the fact that you get married in the fifties?

That'd be my gonna do.

Michael: That'd be my guess. Yeah.

Amit: Now do people always have that conversation? Was it very clear when you, how long have you been married now?

Michael: 15 years. Okay. I've been with Allison's

Amit: 22 years. Okay. So 15 years there was, there were seven to eight years between meeting and marriage. Yeah. Okay.

Were you all clear on your desire to have children? Oh,

Michael: No. What we were clear on is that we would be able to talk about it. I wasn't totally there yet. Alison wasn't totally there yet, but it was clear that we were going to be able to arrive at a shared understanding of what was best for us. It was not like we're, you know, you want to have kids and you don't.

I mean, no, neither of us were stuck in our ways. That's my recollection of it. She probably. I was clear on the fact that she would want to have kids at some point, then I understood at the time, and maybe there was a subconscious part of me that thought I'll probably get talked into this when the time is.

Right.

Amit: Yeah. But I think that's the difference between 1955 and 17 years ago or 15 years ago, which was actually roughly 2005. Yeah. In a 50 year period. I don't think you could have had that ambiguity and passed go. I think you guys had to be completely aligned.

Michael: Yes. But there are other things you're looking at.

Amit: Correct. But if you're making a public statement about the reason that your marriage is an old, right.

Michael: Yeah. I don't know. I don't know what to make of this. Exactly. I

Amit: think we make of it that they wouldn't have even gotten through the marriage part. If this were a few decades

Michael: later, six months, they shouldn't have been right in the first fucking place.

And that.

Amit: Uh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's very, what was the like short-term Kardashian wedding?

Michael: Uh, as a

Amit: matter there was like the 10 day wedding or something.

Michael: I don't know about this. This was, it was awhile ago. I'm pretty naive when it comes to the. Kardashians I'm afraid. Oh really? Michael

Amit: you're too good for celebrity gossip.

Are you?

Michael: It was a mean thing to

Amit: say now it was Metta.

Michael: I get it. I get it. No, I just, the Kardashians had never been particularly interesting to me until I saw the OJ documentary and realized that their father was right there with OJ. All right. Should we get on to husband number two? Okay. Cause there's the more important one in terms of her story.

So Edgar husband, number two. Married in 1965, Joan was 32. He committed suicide in 1987. When he killed himself, she was 54. His suicide is, as the story goes, tied into her late night show being canceled. So she quote unquote burns Johnny Carter. Or at least that's how Johnny Carson felt about it. She goes to work with Fox.

Her husband, Edgar had been very involved in Joan's career. He was a producer on that show. It was sort of his first real, my producer opportunity. And it turns into a shit show. At some point, Fox says, Joan, you've got to get rid of him. It's either him or you lose this altogether. And she says, well, I've got to stick by my husband.

It gets canceled three months later, he kills himself. When I read the story initially, I'm like, it can't be that simple. This man didn't necessarily kill himself because of John's career. But when you get into the story, it was certainly more than a confounding factor. Obviously there was depression leading up to it, but it may, really does sound like he.

I was devastated by what had happened with her career. And at that point, looser essentially bankrupt in her career's in the toilet, she herself for what it's worth also had moments of suicide ideation,

Amit: which she talks about very publicly. The other things that I learned from this marriage, it didn't sound very good.

Otherwise, like, it sounds like

Michael: there was transactional and business. Yeah. And

Amit: there were public affairs and I don't know how public the affairs were, but there were affairs that were known. She was playing around. Maybe he was also, but apparently she wasn't very silent about it in her later years.

Michael: Um, I've heard that some of the shit she said though, may be just like her trying to draw attention.

And it's not necessarily clear if that those extra marital affairs are real or not. Yeah.

Amit: That is a sort of a public criticism that came a lot, came up a lot in my research. Yeah. But anyway, so that's something to say, like there's one way to view a marriage of 22 years ending. In such an ugly, catastrophic way, but it also wasn't like, it didn't sound like it was all

Michael: roses.

Yeah. I choose been pretty public about that too. I mean, I, they married four days after they met and they met on the Johnny Carson set. Okay. It was a business partnership in a lot of ways. And the business was Joan Rivers. And as time went on, they were both pretty clear about that. I mean, she had nice things to say about them.

She said he was funny and brilliant, but it doesn't sound like it was a. Like a lot of fun. Yeah. But

Amit: like, is that, I mean, there, there was commitment there, right? She said, you are not firing my husband. I'm just taking with my husband, John

Michael: Rivers, some weird traditional values throughout her career. Yeah. I mean, I think that, and I think this is one of them.

I think that once you're married, whatever you feel like you stick in this thing and you make it work. I actually think that has something to do with why she got Carson's blessing. I think that for Johnny Carson, she was just risky enough as a comedian, but also conventional enough to fit into a mold that he would be willing to bequeath empower, bestow, whatever you want to call it.

Right. I think she was very shaped by the culture of the 1950s and sixties and was drawing outside the lines in just the right places for somebody like Johnny Carson to say, America, you should love this woman the same way I do. Yeah. I got a little off topic with the marriage thing, but I think that the way her marriage plays out and that, I don't know if this is relevant to the fact that she never got married again, but.

Her priority was always career. I mean, I think families in there, we already talked about Melissa, but I think that she had a work ethic, like no other and was all about having her calendar filled that could set over and over again. Yeah. I

Amit: did come across one account. I don't know if this is true. I kind of hope it's not that she had asked him for a separation, like days before he committed suicide

Michael: and the 2010 interview I heard with her, she said, I'm still pissed off.

Because that's how this works. Yeah. Yeah, definitely immediately after this cause he was in Philadelphia and this was when Melissa was in college at Penn. And the last thing I saw Melissa say that the last thing he said to her was I'll see you tomorrow, which never happened. And she sounds to this day, I deal with abandonment issues, which makes all the sense in the world.

Yeah, really sad and really tragic and like leads to one of the lowest of low points and Joan Rivers, which is life, I think, in

Amit: anybody's life to be on the other side of a suicide, or whether it's as a partner or spouse, parent friend just has to be horrifying and terrible and

Michael: confusing and like, cause like how do you deal with that?

Anger, your grief stricken and you're

Amit: angry and you're pissed off. Yeah. I think it's a horrible thing for anyone to have to deal with. Yeah. Okay. So before we close out this category, I want to throw in a personal tidbit and I'm going to just expand the category to. Love dating and marriage. Okay. So I worked for match.com in the mid 2000s You know this right?

Michael: Uh,

I knew this, but I haven't heard you talk about it much.

Amit: Well, I worked

there, I worked in marketing. There was an instance in 2006 that Joan Rivers had like made a statement that she is on match.com. And she made it as a joke. I think like then she said that she went on there and nobody even responded to her.

It was like part of her act.

Michael: Yeah

Amit: But I think it was something that we like tried to capitalize on as a company, just cause it was like the first time a celebrity is actually like admitting to using it online dating then was very different than it is now

in terms of

Michael: Yeah hadn't been normalized.

Amit: Yeah. So she was a key figure

Michael: in like

Amit: in that little part of my career, just that excitement of her even like making that statement, whether it was even a joke or

true.

or not

Michael: That's almost a good Malcovich moment when she fills out her profile. And it's the publish button unmatched. I go, yes,

that's great.

Anyway, let's go on category five net worth. What did you

Amit: find? 150, very big ones.

Michael: 150 million. Yeah. That's enormous. That's

Amit: enormous. Enormous. I was so intrigued by it because I tried to like, look for the source of it.

QVC, QVC. That's what they, that's what they attributed a lot of it to. They said like over $50 million and proceeds or royalties from QVC,

Michael: Jamal comes from QVC because she's bankrupt in 1987 or 88. When our show gets canceled on Fox and struggles to find work for about a year and a half. One of the first things she does come to is QVC.

Amit: Products as she lends her name too. That's correct. They're like dresses

Michael: or something jewelry as a lot of that. I think I've never watched QVC. It's sort of like home shopping network.

Amit: Yeah. So that's my car. Do you even know anybody who's ever bought anything

Michael: off QVC? Not to my, no, but then why would I, I mean, if I'm not buying it, I'm not looking over the shoulder of my, no, I don't know.

Yeah. I just,

Amit: I didn't realize it was capable of. Just amassing these fortunes, but

Michael: I mean, the other thing is like, so, okay. I think that QVC goes a long way. I think she also, she wrote 12 books. She was working all the fucking time. That's

Amit: the other thing, working all the time, all the time.

Michael: So I don't know so much so that you could make a case that there's a workaholic.

Thing. Like she was the Energizer bunny. She did not stop. She would never stop. Um, and did not stop until her dying day in the year she died. She did 60 performances or

Amit: something. Correct. But never like a leading role in a blockbuster film or

Michael: anything like that? No, but she wanted that. She was actually, her aspirations were always for acting and for the stage.

Yeah. And she tried, she did do a play. Nineties that was based on Lenny Bruce's mother, a woman named Sally Mar you actually got a lot of great reviews on Broadway, but one of the things I saw was that as she got more and more plastic surgeries, she became on castable. That's what some of the Hollywood agents said anyway, sort of makes sense.

Who was

Amit: the woman that played Lucille and arrested development? Uh,

Michael: Jessica

Amit: Walters, I feel like Joan could have been cast for that.

Michael: Yeah, that's a really good call.

Amit: Okay. So 150 million. That's a truckload of money

Michael: of

Amit: money. Um, so what, because she was such a hard worker nonstop

Michael: for me. That was the goal.

There was nothing humble about it. Like she was after a fortune.

Amit: Yeah. And it seems like she was very. To very involved in aids causes depression, suicidality causes

Michael: aids in particular because her early audience, especially in the post Carson years, she, well, actually I think it was actually true throughout her career.

Gay audiences really felt a kinship towards Joan

Amit: Rivers because she has this like diva ish. Totally.

Michael: Yeah. And so early on aware of the severity of the aids epidemic and was like a super early activist. So yes,

Amit: charitable woman. Yeah. And this is the note I wanted to make earlier is that her estate, a lot of it went to her daughter and grandson, but she also made sure that all of her staff were well taken care of into their lives.

Michael: Yeah. Yeah. Everybody who was part of the Joan Rivers empire that I saw just had unbelievably nice things. I mean, I think some of the agents got burned here and there, but in terms of the support staff, she was incredibly generous and like made time for autographs and made time for the small person.

Amit: So the spending of the wealth, if that is true, I like that.

I struggle with a fantasy of being rich because I don't know what exactly I would do with it. 50 million is a lot. Yeah. I would fly first class. Right. But I would have many of them. I don't know if I would do that. I'm a renter.

Michael: I would rent many,

Amit: many rental places, but the point is like, what seems to be to me, like the most rewarding would be like giving somebody a hundred thousand dollar tip for good service.

Yeah. Just add random

Michael: intervals. I mean, yeah. I do think that this is somebody for whom there was an ever-present unfulfilled. Whole inner soul, you know, and I don't think the accumulation of money did it. I do think the seeking of laughter through validation was part of what that was all about. You know, she could tell herself along the way I am setting up Melissa and her grandson coupe.

For good things here. I don't know. I it's funny. There are other people, dead celebrities who might've had 150 million as a net worth who I would have had more conflict around here. I felt like it was okay. Given the accomplishments of her life, given the work ethic, given the variety of things she was doing from QVC to hosting late night.

To celebrity apprentice to be in a standup rail road comic to the very end at the voice work, all of it, you're working that much. And you really love what you do. I felt okay about this number.

Amit: Yeah. And she won celebrity apprentice. She did

Michael: pretty impressive. Did you watch it now? Yeah. Okay. Category six, Simpsons, SNL or Hollywood walk of fame.

This is a measure of how famous somebody was. We include both impersonations as well as guest appearances on both Simpsons and SNL. I've got this all organized here. Do you want me to

Amit: take it? Yeah. And I'll, I'll jump in with some commentary because for once I actually have like, fairly comprehensive notes on this one.

Oh, good.

Michael: Okay. Well, so I'm starting with SNL. Uh, Sarah Silverman did an impression of her in 2014 after. There are five different people who didn't impersonation, who I found on the SNL Wiki of Joan Rivers. They include Sarah Silverman on a gas dire, uh, McKayla Watkins, Terry Sweeney, who was the first gay man on SNL and David's bed.

Oh, wow. Yeah, a lot of people and personnel, Joan Rivers, and she hosted in 1983. And she goes that,

Amit: I think we've never had a host before. Is that right? I don't think we've talked about anybody that's hosted before. I was an ugly

Michael: kid and thank God I grew up in New York, California. They would've put me in a bag and throw me in the Pacific because you are looking at the ugliest child ever born in Larchmont, New York.

I want you to know, oh, the doctor looked at me and said, she's not done yet in me.

For some sense. I found a 2011 episode called 10 cent solution where she does the voiceover herself. She's on it. She's the guest, but it's not

Amit: her. Right. Uh, is that the same one that she's, so maybe it was another one. She was like Crusty's agent, but not as

Michael: Joan Rivers. Oh, I'm not clear on that. Do you know what the name of that upset is?

I

Amit: didn't write it down, but either way she was on the Sampsons possibly multiple times that year. And I think she did a few follow-ups as well.

Michael: All right. And then she does have a Hollywood star. Okay. 1989. So she is clearly famous. Did you watch the 2010 document? I think I asked you this, you did ask me now.

I didn't. It's good. I remember watching it when it came out and it's definitely one of those documentaries that whatever narrative you had of this person, it resets it, it changed her legacy and her story. I mean, I really do think that the way we think of her now by and large we're shaped by that documentary.

I think that there's a little bit of a change in narrative who she was post-MI too, because of some of the. Jokes that were really like fat shaming and punching down that term gets used. So I don't know. I think our legacy is still being shaped a little bit. And then I read somewhere, one of the remembrance pieces had this, like, didn't realize how important.

Present. She was until she died. It's almost like she becomes an ALS celebrity at death, but what sort of like playing the role of B Lister for 50 years leading up to that? Yeah. All right. Last category and the easily knowable information fan favorite over, under what is the life expectancy for the year they were born.

And did they beat the house odds? 1933. For women, life expectancy is 65 years. Joan Rivers died age 81. So she beat it by 16 years. That's a healthy beat. That's a healthy beat. She actually 65 born in 1933. That's a high number. I didn't think. Yeah, that was my take two. It's 61.7 or something for men 65.1 for women.

So beat it. Didn't grand slam it. Do you know much about the nature of her death?

Amit: It was an operation or something that she didn't recover from.

Michael: She went in to get her vocal chords checked out and there was anesthesia and the doctors didn't monitor it. There's actually a malpractice suit that got settled.

If you read the play by play, like the doctors really screwed up like that wasn't, that was an appropriate malpractice suit. So she went to sleep and never woke up and had no idea that, you know, I got to say in a way, part of me thought like this isn't a bad death to not know it's coming to not suffer.

She made it very clear. If I can't do standup comedy pull the plug, she was obviously afraid of age. If you look at the plastic surgeries and hear how she talks about age. Yeah. I mean, it's sad, sudden tragic, awful 81. I don't

Amit: know it's painless, but she didn't get to say goodbye to the ones that she probably wanted.

Right. But

Michael: we can't plan for death. You know, I could think of worse deaths.

Amit: Yeah. But it's certainly better than a sudden

Michael: gory death. Right. Right. And I mean, you know, she was in a coma for a few days and then just never came in on it.

Amit: Yeah. And I mean, and like the whole point of this category, she lived a respectably the long life,

Michael: 16 years past the over-under in terms of desirability.

And where and why.

Amit: And that's like, she didn't fade

Michael: into, Hey, I didn't get the thing that she was most afraid of was age. I think she wouldn't have the energy to do stand up that she wouldn't be relevant to pop culture anymore. She got to ride the ride. To a desire to destination, even if it didn't, you can't plan for how it's all going to end of course.

But like, I don't know. I wonder if, if she was here today yeah. How she would feel about it. My guess is like, man, not bad given all

Amit: the shit I was worried about. Yeah. I mean, somebody very spiritual may have called it a divine intervention. Right. She wanted to go get her vocal cords fixed. So she didn't descend into

Michael: oblivion, her raspy, you know, white rabbit, but devil rabbit devil rabbit.

Well, I am, I mean, the fact that it was on our vocal chords and her voice was everything. I mean, there is some, I'm not saying spiritual intervention, but I think if you wanted to fill in the blanks there, one could make that

Amit: case. One could make that case.

Michael. I've got a question for you. Yeah. If you could take today's dead celebrity to any retail store,

Michael: what would it be? Ooh, I think I would take them to half press books on half price. Right. Absolutely.

Amit: Explain yourself, sir.

Michael: Well, I love shopping for books with people shopping for books. It always stimulates interest in conversation, right?

You browse the different aisles and you see, you know, different topics come to mind. Have you ever read this author? I've ever read that book. It's just a good place to talk and wander and discover. So yeah, absolutely half price books is an awesome venue to connect with people, to discover. Books that you've long forgotten about or that you haven't read.

And it's all a great

Amit: price. And you know what? Half price books is celebrating 50 years of buying and selling books, movies, and music. There are over 120 stores and you can find out more@hpb.com.

Michael: All right. Shall we get to the inner life questions? First of these categories, man, in the mirror, what did they think of their own reflection? Yeah. So this was the tough one you thought. So I didn't think so. I think it's a pretty clear

Amit: and obvious. No, because of all the plastic surgery,

Michael: because of how she talks about her own face in her own body and her own perception of herself throughout her career.

I think that she did. Feel better about how she looked after every plastic surgery, but she had to go to some pretty extreme intervention. And at some point it becomes a

Amit: punchline. Yeah. So I, I agree with you outright. Why I was going to say it was a tough one is because she, she was very pretty. You know?

Yeah. She was a symbol. She was attractive. And so she did a nine. So though. Yeah. But not knowing anything about her story, somebody faced with this category of question of, did they like their own reflection? You'd be like, well, of course he did. She was beautiful, but clearly not.

Michael: That's interesting. You described her as pretty, she wouldn't have described herself that way.

Uh, yeah, I thought it was very pretty, definitely not the ugly duckling. She portrays

Amit: herself to be. Yeah. And female comedians, you know, it's hard for that. Like even Amy Schumer kind of had that thing. You know, she, she portrayed herself as this kind of ugly ducking in a lot of early stuff, but so many people thought she was.

Really good looking. Yeah, absolutely. And I think some of the other female comedians stay to Sarah Silverman. Certainly she hasn't really try to play the ugly duckling thing, but certainly just a very good looking

Michael: person as well. Fed put in that category too. Absolutely. Downplays like are attractive. She is.

Amit: Yeah. But those people, I would say do like their reflection, some of those that we mentioned. Yeah.

Michael: Or at peace with it. And who knows. I mean, I do think that she at least tried to tell herself she made peace with her reflection with each plastic surgery, which she did 70 plus times. I think. I mean, it was, it was a

Amit: regular, well, we were just talking about in totality.

That's right. Okay. So we're wherever we're an agreed.

Michael: I think so. Okay. So next category outgoing message. You have reached voicemail box. Don't feel bad if you recognize many weeks ago, how do we think she felt about her own voice when she heard it on an answering machine or an outgoing. I kind

Amit: of think she liked her voice.

I think she liked it too. The raspiness of it, it was very unique and

Michael: distinguishable, the great New York accent. I mean, it's got that, you know, punctuated, I'm going to use it, you know, and it's like the instrument for her onstage. Yeah. She's physically funny in a sense, but like most of it is coming out of that voice.

Amit: I agree. Is there any case you could make for her not liking her outgoing

Michael: man? If part of why she is so critical of her own self-reflection, which she is very public about. And very obviously is is that she doesn't think it's sexy. Her voice is not sexy either. I think so. Maybe that's the case. Why she might not like the sound of her own voice, but I don't even know if she would agree with that.

I mean, I'm saying it's not sexy only because it's. It's not like voluptuous

Amit: what some people would,

Michael: could I can't. I mean, I think it's kind of, I like it. I find humor attractive too. So I am more attracted to her because of how fucking funny she is. Yeah. Times. But

Amit: what you're saying, you're saying if there is a case against her liking her own voice, it's that.

The insecurity was around

Michael: sex. All of her, correct. That's the case I would make for it. And I would still say she

Amit: liked the sound of her own. I think she did too, because if there was insecurity there in the physical appearance or all the other things that she was self pitting on in a joking way, you know, her voice was like her vehicle out.

It was like the life raft in which she could still float above that's.

Michael: Right. Okay. Next category, regrets, public or private. What we really want to know is what, if anything kept this person awake at night on the public front, we've already talked about the Johnny Carson fiasco, but I think she even said she would have handled that differently.

She wished she had been the one to tell Johnny and ask for a blessing. That really sounds like the godfather. It totally is do that. And by the way, Johnny Carson, a very problematic figure. Have you looked into much of this? Philander and a complete prick behind the scenes. Not a good dude or at least not by today's 2022 standards.

I got one other. Okay. In that 2010 documentary, I mentioned Joan Rivers piece of work. She said, my life is an actress's life. I play a comedian. She said that while tearing up, I think she always wanted to be an actress. I think that she found validation. Okay. Fortune and comedy and in stand up comedy in particular, I wonder very much if she, and this is a little bit of private regret, perhaps if, if she wouldn't have maybe been, I'd taken a different strategy to having an acting career.

In retrospect, rather than keep going back to stand up,

Amit: because what she's saying is this whole like caustic piercing runway humorist is this

Michael: is a character I play. Yeah. But then they make you think of the Shakespeare quote about like all the world's a stage and we're just actors. I mean, everybody is playing the part of themselves, but how did

Amit: deeply you are doing it?

How far this character that you're portraying strays from that. That can be

Michael: difficult. Do you think that's an inevitable part of a public famous or at least performative life

Amit: for a comic or you're saying anybody

Michael: and blue? Well, I don't know. I think it's kind of true for politicians that less true for sports figures and entrepreneurs, but certainly politicians and actors, actresses, anybody in kind of the entertainment industry.

And let's just call it politics. Part of the entertainment industry. I think that your narrative is part of what you're trading on, so that like you're a successful actor or actress who can slot into variety of roles, or you're a successful individual who can represent a populace. That's what that Shakespeare quote means to me that we're all playing the role.

We're trying to write our stories. We're trying to like control our own narratives.

Amit: Yeah. So I don't think it's inevitable. I think you have to work. Pretty hard for it not to be, because I can think of a lot of examples that, that, you know, you see, it comes to mind somebody,

Michael: uh, Clooney, you think he's living an authentic life.

I buy it. Yeah. Right, right. And one of the interviews I listened to. She was asked, like, do you prefer life on the stage? Or like real life? I wasn't then I'm bungling the question, but it was like, what she was saying is that I am at my most best self on stage. Yeah. That's where I get the validation that I I'm seeking everywhere else.

I mean like that experience when it's good is perfect. And there's nothing that compares. Because there's the thing like this gal's full of contradictions and to the extent that she's playing a character part, I don't know. Maybe that's just how she felt in that moment in front of the camera, in front of the documentary, whether she feels that as a deep regret, I don't know.

Well, I didn't have anything else in the regrets category. Should we go on?

Amit: Yes, let's go on.

Michael: All right. Good dreams, bad dreams. This is a question about, is there a look in the eye, something that Pence at pain, trauma, inner peace or not? I

Amit: think bad's an easy answer given what it all we've said about the self-image issues and the planning of the character.

And however she. And also seemed really resilient and she talked very publicly as well about like how close she herself got to suicide, you know? So I think there's so much resilience. There's a lot of self knowledge. There's some clarity that. I in the end said good dreams.

Michael: Wow. That's a strong case for good dreams.

I don't think I'm going to change my answer. I think I'm resolved with bad dreams, but I liked your case for it.

Amit: Yeah. You know, they say, so she, she talks about this situation that she almost killed herself, like with a gun in her lap and

Michael: those often died

Amit: and yeah. Yeah. So I don't want to get much into that, but I've heard a lot and read a lot that.

People who fail suicide generally. Don't try again. Yeah. They do wake up with some sort of clarity or sometimes a renewed Clement into life. I'm not saying that that's what happened to her, but that whole idea, and the fact that she lived through that could speak to that character

Michael: strength. Yeah, I agree.

And I certainly agree wholeheartedly that resilience is a defining and very desirable character trait. So whatever the answer to this question is, we're in more agreement, even if we have two different answers. Yeah. Great. All right. Second to last category cocktail. Or cannabis has a question about which one would we most want to do with this person smoke a joy to have a drink or a pound.

Some coffee is, may be about trying to access their inner life, or it may be a good hang. What did you come up?

Amit: Good. Hang cocktail. I want her to make me laugh. I want her to make fun of me. I just want to be entertained.

Michael: Pretty good. Uh, I want. I would love to, I'd love to hang out Joan Rivers and smoke a joint or hanging out with Joan Rivers and have some coffee.

I also went cocktail. I want truth serum though. I would like to, I want to laugh with her, but then I want like the walls to come down and know a little bit what she really thinks. One of the things I think I'm most curious about is the unapologetic caustic humor. I mean, she went after Elizabeth Taylor with fat jokes for years and years.

And she's now blasted for that, like for making women feel bad about being fat or being overweight. And this is one of the great contradictions I've heard of that. I mean, she sort of balked at being called a feminist and it was in some ways also a pioneer, right. And that she also like called out women for not adhering to a certain.

Uh, standard of objectivity and how they looked, especially when they were Elizabeth Taylor and had the power to do so. I have a hard time signing off on that, but she would not apologize for a joke. She was adamant that these are jokes and I can make jokes. And comedy is sacred and free. Speech is sacred.

And this space on this stage where my goal is to make you laugh. Like you cannot tell me what I cannot say, no matter what I admire that I just, I would like to get her drunk enough to know if there's a ding in the. Yeah. You know, all right. We've arrived. The VanDerBeek named after James VanDerBeek, who said in varsity blues, I don't want your life.

Amit

. Do you want Joan Rivers is life.

Amit: This was a really hard one. I

Michael: do not know. Even now I thought I'd have a lane. I am a writer

Amit: on the fence. Yeah. I'm feeling that too. So let me talk it out. I do have an answer now. I do have an answer, but I want to talk it out. Okay. The things I'm most terrified of would being on the other side of that suicide.

That alone in a lot of lives could be enough for me to say, I don't want it. My soul probably couldn't handle it, but we're talking about her life, her soul. So that much is problematic for me. Yeah. However, I think some of the words that we use at the very beginning commitment, tenure, pioneer, like this is a legacy life.

Like without her, you don't have, you know, we talk about Sarah Silverman and all, but you probably don't even go way up the chain to we'll be Goldberg and Rosie O'Donnell. Yeah. So she was a change maker. Someone else might've. Stepped in eventually and did the same thing, but she was one of those chains of the world type of people.

That's also not a reason that I want her life. So despite what you said about, she's an actress playing a comedian. Even if that's true, you see her on the runway, you see her at Hollywood squares, she looked like she was having fun, like up until the end. You know, when I made that match.com reference, she was like 76 years old, like still making jokes about this.

And you made this point. I was like, she made a new best friend at 68. I love that. I love the not fading away. And most importantly, they're having fun through it all because, uh, there was. Be things that blindside everyone and can ruin a life, but the still having fun with it right up until the end. That's the reason for me to say yes, I want your life.

Michael: I don't think I could capture my thinking any better. I think that pain is inevitable. I think that to live through a suicide or the suicide of a spouse, of course, I don't want that event. But you don't get through life without pain somewhere. I don't know how to weigh that against the other things. I wish I understood better what put her on this course where she needed the validation through humor and through the stage.

I wish I understood the depth of that, like sort of, or pain, wherever that came from. I don't know if that would make me change my answer either though, because there are just too many qualities here that I want. I want to be resilient. I want to be fearless. I want to be laughing. Seeking truth through humor.

I want to be a leader and a pioneer. I want to have that kind of work ethic. I want to be able to practice random acts of kindness. I want to be close with my children, despite some clear and obvious pain and some real big setbacks. I want this life. So I think we're both. Yes.

Amit: Two yeses on the Interbake.

Wow.

Michael: I did not expect to arrive here. I got us.

Amit: I don't think I did either. Really? Yeah. That's our pact, right? Yeah. We just take into account each other's perspectives and what we learned during the course of the quarter. And then take on the VanDerBeek interesting

Michael: to me, how important the friendship thing really weighed here too.

It's not in the biography. I read of her, this friend that she develops in her late sixties, you know, it's almost, it's not a chapter that's highlighted in the same way, but it, there was something about it. That's like, I don't know, man. I want to be able to make friends for the rest of my life. That more than anything else.

You know, one of the biggest pieces of desirability. And I don't think you can do that unless you have attractive qualities like resilience and fearlessness, you know, that's the kind of thing that invites friendship. Yeah. That's what I took away here. I guess we're at the part of the gates

Amit: Joan's

Michael: chariot has pulled up.

Joan's chariot has pulled up St. Peter's waiting, and you have an opportunity to make a pitch for why you should be let into the positive afterlife, whatever that afterlife may be. You're doing this. You want me to do

Amit: this? You can do it.

Michael: I think this is pretty simple. I understand that I pissed a lot of people off, but I was after.

Humor and everything I did, Peter. I figured out a way to take my pain and laugh at it and show others what an incredibly. Comforting powerful strategy that is for dealing with the inevitable pains of life. And I stayed committed to that for all my years. And I stayed committed to friends and family and strangers and everything I did.

You might not always agree with it. I might have made you mad, but I tried to be as welcoming as I possibly could, given that I think that this is the only way to get through. For that alone, please. I mean,

thanks so much for listening to this episode of famous and gravy. If you're enjoying our show, please go to apple podcasts to rate and review us. It really does help new listeners to find the show. We would love to see you on Twitter. Our Twitter handle is. Famous and gravy. We've got lots of fun stuff there on our Twitter feed.

Also, please sign up for our newsletter on our website, famous and gravy.com. Famous and gravy was created by and me Michael Osborne. This episode was produced by Jacob Weiss, original theme music by Kevin Strang. And thanks also to our sponsor half price books. Thank you for listening. We'll see you next time.