45 interesting facts about Joan Rivers: first female co-host on late night TV, collects Fabergé eggs

Joan Rivers is an American actress, comedian, writer, producer and television host. Here are 45 interesting facts about this funny lady.

1. Joan Rivers was born on June 8, 1933 in Brooklyn, New York.

2. Her full name is Joan Alexandra Molinsk.

3. She was raised in Brooklyn, New York, and her family later moved to Larchmont, in Westchester County, New York.

4. he attended Connecticut College between 1950 and 1952 and graduated Phi Beta Kappa fromBarnard College in 1954 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English literature and anthropology.

5. She has a series of odd jobs which includes working as a tour guide at Rockefeller Center, a writer/proofreader at an advertising agency and as a fashion consultant at Bond Clothing Stores.

6. Her agent Tony Rivers advised her to change her name, so she chose Joan Rivers as her stage name.

7. Rivers worked as a fashion coordinator for Bond Clothing Store and as a publicist for Lord and Taylor.
   
8. Rivers was part of "Jim, Jake, and Joan" a comedic musical trio in 1964.
9. She often performed stand-up using the stage name Pepper January.
10. She received A Harvard Hasty Pudding Award for "Woman of The Year" in 1984.
11. She had her own show in 1986, "The Late Show Starring Joan Rivers" on Fox. The talk show didn't run for more than a year before being cancelled. The show fueled a falling out between Joan and Johnny Carson.
12. Joan Rivers received her Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1989.
13. She has performed for the Queen of England. "You're a little more careful. And I did slip, and I said the word 'f--.' And I said it and I turned to her in the box and I said, 'Behead me now.'"

14. Rivers' first marriage was in 1955 to James Sanger, the son of a Bond Clothing Stores merchandise manager. The marriage was annulled on the basis that Sanger did not want children and had not informed Rivers before the wedding.

15. During the late 1950s, Rivers appeared in a short-run play, Driftwood, playing a lesbian with a crush on a character played by a then-unknown Barbara Streisand. The play ran for six weeks. Barbara and Joan shared a kissed for the production.

16. She dated some interesting people. "I was bringing home Woody Allen before he was Woody Allen, Richard Pryor before he was Richard Pryor, Lily Tomlin before she was Lily Tomlin. These are weird people walking up the driveway. This is not a nice boy from Yale. You ever shake Woody's hand? Put your hand in a glass of water and then shake your hand. Woody was very weird and very brilliant, but they didn't see that far."

17. Her second marriage was on July 15, 1965, to Edgar Rosenberg, who committed suicide in 1987.

18. In an interview with Howard Stern, Rivers said she had several extramarital affairs when married to Rosenberg. According to Rivers, she had a one-night sexual encounter with actor Robert Mitchum in the 1960s after an appearance together on The Tonight Show.

19. Their only child, Melissa Warburg Rosenberg (now known as Melissa Rivers), was born on January 20, 1968.

20. In the late 1960s, Rivers landed her own program called "That Show" with Joan Rivers (also known as The Joan Rivers Show), which featured guests like Florence Henderson, Soupy Sales and Jerry Lewis.

21. She also continued to appear on Carson's program as well as The Ed Sullivan Show.

     

22. Johnny Carson believed in her potential to make it big. "He was the one that said, "You're going to be a star" the first night I worked. He was an amazing man and an amazing mentor."

23. She had a small part in the 1968 film The Swimmer with Burt Lancaster.

24. Working behind the camera, Rivers co-wrote a 1973 television movie called The Girl Most Likely To which is currently now on Netflix.

25. In 1983, she signed a contract making her the permanent substitute for Johnny Carson. Rivers hosted The Tonight Show on a weekly basis as Carson often went on vacation and worked many shortened weeks.

26. She directed her first film Rabbit Test in 1978, which starred Billy Crystal in his film debut as the world's first pregnant man.

27. Rivers is 5 ft 2 in (1.575 m) tall.

28. According to Rivers, Carson was so infuriated by her decision to leave his show for her own, without consulting him first, that he never spoke to her again. Rivers has maintained that she left The Tonight Show because of a conflict with NBC, not Carson, whom she's called a father figure as well as "the man who handed me my career."

29. In her book, Bouncing Back (1997), she described how she developed bulimia and contemplated suicide. Eventually, she recovered with counseling and the support of her family.

30. Rivers also established herself as an entertainment commenter, serving as host of the E! series Live from the Red Carpet from 1996 to 2004. She was known for making jokes of all celebrities and never held back.

31. She played herself in the second-season finale of Nip/Tuck.

32. Rivers appears regularly on television's The Shopping Channel (in Canada) and QVC (in both the United States and the UK), promoting her own line of jewelry under brand name "The Joan Rivers Collection".

33. In 2012, RIvers protested against the warehouse-club Costco because they would not sell her New York Times best-selling book, I Hate Everyone ... Starting with Me. She handcuffed herself to a person's shopping cart and shouted through a megaphone. The police were called to the scene and she left without incident and no arrests were made.

34. What's her biggest regret in life? "ABC offered me a daytime talk show. I turned it down, and they gave it to somebody named Oprah."

35. Off screen, one of Rivers' hobbies is collecting Fabergé eggs.

36. Rivers is infamous for the amount of plastic surgery she has had done. Her first procedure was an eye lift which she did in 1965 in a bid to further her career.

37. She has one grandson, Melissa's son Cooper (born Edgar Cooper Endicott on December 1, 2000) who is featured with his mother and grandmother in the WE tv series Joan & Melissa: Joan Knows Best?

38. Joan says she was not a popular girl at school when she was growing up. "I was not an attractive child," she reveals. "When I didn't use my Girl Scouts uniform as a uniform, I used it as a tent. I watch the television show Glee. That wasn't my high school. In my high school, the fat girl was not popular. In my high school, the homosexual was running. But not running and dancing - he was running for his life. I just find that most of us went through very rough times growing up."

39. In 2010, she was the subject of an acclaimed documentary, Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work.

40. She currently serves as host of Fashion Police on E!, which allows her to continue to critique celebrities on the red carpet.

41. Rivers has published 11 books and her latest one was I Hate Everyone...Starting With Me which was released in 2012.

42. She is a registered Republican.

43. One of her favorite desserts is Tapioca Pudding.

44. Joan Rivers net worth is $150 million.

45. What would she like to be next? "In my next life, I'd like to be the world's greatest opera diva."