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Legendary comic gives fans inside skinny
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| | | | Joan Rivers. Photo by Craig Robins (click for larger version) | | |
February 25, 2009 | 04:22 PM
They each had their own reasons for coming to see the legendary comedian last Friday.
"I actually wanted to see what she looked like in person — with all her plastic surgery," said Steve Marrone, of West Babylon. After getting close, he reported, "You could tell she's had some stuff done, but she looks all right."
Steve Abeles, of Centerport, said he admires her sustainability. "She's been there as long as I could ever remember."
His wife, Andrea, added, "She's just full of life."
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| 'I like to take an audience right down to the truth. Very often they get a little upset and that's when you say, "Can we talk?"'
— Joan Rivers |
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About 300 fans packed Book Revue in Huntington to see the famously funny Joan Rivers.
Touted as a "force of nature" and "one of the hardest working celebrities in the world," Rivers — also an actress, director, talk show host, author and jewelry designer — was promoting two new books: a murder mystery and a guide to plastic surgery.
At 75, the ageless comic, decked out in designer duds, dished dirt on show business to a rapt audience feasting on her every word. Among the personalities she praised:
• Donald Trump, whom she got to know during "Celebrity Apprentice," is "smart as a whip … a joy and a pleasure," said Rivers.
• Robert Mitchum fascinated her most. "He was a poet," she said.
• Nicole Kidman, she credited with having a surprisingly great sense of humor. "Go figure. She's 172 feet fall. She wore a red dress to the Academy Awards two years ago — with a white face — she looked like a bottle of ketchup."
• Tom Hanks, Will Smith, Dustin Hoffman: funny and fun to be around.
• Julia Roberts: lovely.
• Howard Stern: a mensch. "He didn't leave the wife. The wife left him, because he's a workaholic."
Some superstars fared less favorably in Rivers' estimation.
• "Tommy Lee Jones: horrible. Russell Crowe: ick," she said.
Still, most celebrities are nice, she added: "They're not always the brightest, but they're nice." Contemporary talk show hosts? All boring, she said. For high quality talk, she harkened back to the era of Johnny Carson's 'Tonight Show.'
"Carson: the best in the world. ... There was nobody who could feed you lines like him," Rivers said.
Noting the irony of calling "Slumdog Millionaire" a feel-good picture, she said, "The guy's raped and tortured but it's better than the good Nazis. … In 'The Reader' she kills 300 Jews. But she learned to read."
On romance, "I would have loved to be with Bernie Madoff. I would have said, 'Sweetheart, we can make enough money. You don't have to rob them all.'"
And of her grandson: fabulous, of course. "I've yet to meet anyone who thought their grandchild was less than perfect. I want to know where all these beautiful children go. They grow up to look like us."
Rivers also revealed the keys to her enviable energy: coffee, M&M'S and naps.
What might be most crucial to her success? "I get up every morning and love what I do. And that makes a big, big difference," she said.
Of her new books, she said, "Go f— figure; they are getting great reviews."
She co-wrote "Murder at the Academy Awards," (first in a series to be followed by murders at the Emmy, Tony, Cannes and Porn Awards) with Jerrilyn Farmer, whom she called an excellent mystery writer: "I added the humor and the ambience. It's all about what goes on in the gift room ... backstage — all the horror and the in-fighting. … Everything I wanted to talk about on the red carpet is in this book."
Her collaboration with Valerie Frankel, titled "Men Are Stupid … And They Like Big Boobs: A Woman's Guide to Beauty Through Plastic Surgery," is "really a serious book, but I wrote it funny, as if I'm talking to you — because I'm funny. … If you want to put a chin in, go to the chapter on chins. If you want to raise your breasts, it will tell you every thing you want to know."
To research the guide, which offers helpful information on the gamut of cosmetic surgery options, she and her co-writer interviewed 25 plastic surgeons. "They are so boring, these men," she said.
In spite of the title, which she claims is something Marilyn Monroe once said to her, Rivers recommends plastic surgery as "something you should do for yourself."
"But society is based on looks," she said. "And anyone that says that's not so, is an idiot. If you think big boobs make you look nice, put them in."
Men should have work done too, she said. "I hate a turkey neck on anyone."
Always up front about her own plastic surgery, which she began in college with her nose being "thinned, not fixed," Rivers added a postscript to anyone who doesn't think they need it. "If you are happy with the way you look, that's wonderful. How lucky you are."
Growing up in a funny family in Brooklyn and at Larchmont, Westchester, Rivers said, "Funny is inherited. I think it's all DNA."
Though her dad, a doctor, was good-humored, he did not encourage a life in show business. The young Rivers wanted to be an actress, but others, noting her innate wit, steered her toward comedy: "I did it almost as a stopgap."
Her trademark "Can we talk?" came from her stand-up days: "I like to take an audience right down to the truth. Very often they get a little upset and that's when you say, 'Can we talk?'"
Despite all the jokes at other people's expense, she said she has no regrets, not even about her endless ribbing of Elizabeth Taylor: "I was the first one to say when the woman was up to 200 pounds, that she's fat. She can't get out of the f— car."
After all the insults, all is forgiven, she said: "The woman's got $100 million and still thinks she's gorgeous. We should all have her ego."
Still, life has not always been fun for the funny lady. Fired from Fox TV and devastated by her husband Edgar's suicide, Rivers was approached by QVC and reluctantly accepted an offer to sell jewelry on the home shopping channel.
"You have to keep reinventing. … If you want to keep afloat in the business, you never turn anything down."
She added, "I think life is an adventure."
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