One of the first female standup comedians to hit it big, Joan Rivers has weathered many storms in close to 40 years in show business. Although she has a hugely successful jewelry line on QVC and won a Daytime Emmy Award in 1990 for Best Talk Show Host, she is probably best known for her red-carpet commentaries and fashion critiques on the E! Network. At times she's appallingly misinformed, frequently calling celebs by the wrong name; at times she's brutal, once implying the reason the Titanic sank was because Kathy Bates was onboard. Still, she is compulsively watchable.
Broke? and alone?: Rivers will be back in Los Angeles, appearing live in her one-woman show Broke and Alone in L.A. at the Canon Theatre for seven appearances, beginning Nov. 11. After a sold-out L.A. run in April, she has been touring the world; she called from her dressing room in Canada to speak with Back Stage West. "I'm adding new stuff but it's essentially the same show as before," she noted. "They hadn't booked it long enough the first time, and I can only do it for a week. I also have my jewelry line and I'm on QVC all the time, I have other commitments, I'm writing a Broadway show, and I have the E! stuff, so I like to do a week in a town and then get out." Asked what people can expect from the show, she replied with a laugh, "More of the same. Obviously, I'll be talking about Governor Arnie and J.Lo and Ben. It's whatever's going on." Is she glad J.Lo and Ben are still together? "I'm just happy because I already sent them the gift," cracked she. "I'd be very pissed because I don't like to waste $10."
Judging from her full work schedule and entrepreneurial skills, the title of the show doesn't seem very appropriate. "Broke and alone are good words for everybody, including me," she replied magnanimously. "Everybody feels broke and everybody feels alone."
Despite being so busy, she still finds theatre appealing. "You're right on top of the people," she explained. "There's nothing like an audience that's going with you. Television is wonderful, but you don't know whether people like it until after it's done. This is right there, I love the immediacy of it, and it is so phenomenal."
Who do you think you are?: Many wonder how Rivers went from standup comedian to couture critic, but she has a background in fashion. "All through high school and college, my summer jobs were always in department stores and merchandising. When I first got out of school, I went into merchandising and realized I wanted to be in show business. So it's always been lurking."
Her relationship with E! began only because she was happy to take a free trip to Los Angeles. "They said to me, 'If you come out and do this for E!, you can get a free trip out.' That meant I could see [my daughter] Melissa for nothing, so I said great. Melissa was working for MTV at the time, and they wanted to pair me with somebody else, and I said I'd love to do it with my daughter. So that all started with the two of us and just blossomed into this amazing thing that has a life of its own now."
When she began, there wasn't much flash to the proceedings. "Nobody was doing fashion, there was really no red carpet. A couple of people stood there and said hello. You just went in and the paparazzi did your picture. The fashion talk just happened because I was truly interested in what they were wearing. I just asked because I love clothes. And now it's become such a major thing and everybody's got a stylist. It's turned into such an event, and it wasn't eight years ago, trust me."
Has she ever had run-ins with celebs whose style she mocked? "Only ones you don't care about," she said bluntly. "Kathy Bates, who cares? Edie Falco, who cares? Cher, who cares? Just grow up and get over it." But weren't Rivers and Cher once close companions? "We were friends. But Cher of all people, who is the most publicity-conscious, took offense at something I said. I just thought, Oh, stop it. But when you go through menopause, I think you really do change."
Breaking the blacklist: Rivers made headlines in 1986 when, after being the regular guest host for Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show, she opted to pursue her own late-night talk show. To this day she doesn't understand why Carson was so offended. "All I could think of, after all these years, is that Johnny obviously felt I belonged to him and felt it was a betrayal," she said. "And I still don't know why. My contract was up, I called him ahead of time... I still don't get it. But again, I move forward, I move on, I never dwell on anything."
According to Rivers, she was blacklisted on late-night television for 12 years, which ended when David Letterman offered her an appearance on his program last year. She has only kind words for Letterman and his staff. "They knew what they were doing when they broke it, and it was very dear of them to do it."
But does she miss doing late night talk shows and, specifically, The Tonight Show? Not a bit. "Then I wouldn't have had E!, I wouldn't have had three times on Broadway, and I wouldn't have my jewelry company. I looked for new avenues, and it was wonderful. Hey, you just move on."
Seeking a sitcom: With so many careers under her belt, there's only one medium Rivers would like to tackle. "I've never done a situation comedy," she said. "I would love to be like the third or fourth person down on one. I'd love to be like Doris Roberts' neighbor on Everybody Loves Raymond. So you have none of the pressure. You come in, you say six lines, you get your laughs, and you go home." While she did make a couple of appearances as Kathy Griffin's mother on the defunct sitcom Suddenly Susan, she said she has never been approached about a regular role on a series.
She might not have time. In addition to her touring schedule, she recently had the first reading for what she hopes will be a Broadway show next fall. In addition she recently provided her signature raspy voice to two animated features. "In Dave the Barbarian, I play a nasty queen and Melissa plays a wicked princess. We're really having a good time with that," she said. "I'm also in Shrek 2. I play a nasty lady doing a red carpet interview. It's very funny."
Oh, stand up!: "Unless there's nothing else you can do, don't do it," she said about becoming a standup. "Because it's tough and you really have to be funny. You see so many people who aren't funny, and you wonder why they're in it." How does a person know if they're funny or not? "Oh, you know," she replied firmly. "The audience lets you know so fast. I remember once I was working in the Village and somebody was onstage, nobody was laughing, and Rodney Dangerfield called out from the back of the room, 'Don't you know something's wrong?'"
--Jenelle Riley
"Broke and Alone in L.A., Nov. 11?15, The Canon Theatre, 209 N. Ca?on Dr., Beverly Hills. Tue.-Thu. 8 p.m., Fri.-Sat. 7 & 9:30 p.m. $50. (213) 480-3232 or www.ticketmaster.com, or (310) 859-2830.