Also Credited As: Joan Alexandra Molinsky, Pepper January
Born: on 06/08/1933 in Brooklyn, New York
Job Titles: Actor, Comedian, Radio host, Talk show host, Writer, Director, Fashion coordinator

Family
Mother: Beatrice Molinsky.
 

Joan Rivers Biography
A diminutive, blonde comedienne and writer, Joan Rivers was a trailblazer for female performers, winning laughs and creating controversy along the way. After working in publicity for a New York department store in the 1950s, Rivers had a short-lived marriage to the heir to a clothing store fortune. When the marriage fell apart months later, she left her parents' Larchmont, New York, home in a convertible, wearing Bermuda shorts, intending to be a serious actress. Instead, after studying drama, appearing in a few off-Broadway plays (including one with an equally novice Barbra Streisand), Rivers was told by an agent she should be doing comedy. Working with an act she would later say was stolen from TV variety shows, Rivers billed herself as "Pepper January, Comedy with Spice," and played seedy clubs and strip joints. This eventually led to nine months working with the Second City improvisational troupe in Chicago. She returned to New York and played such clubs as Max's Kansas City and The Bitter End in Greenwich Village, where the only other female comic around was Lily Tomlin. Much of Rivers' early act had an edge not unlike Lenny Bruce's--a socio-political emphasis. She also wrote for the TV show "Candid Camera," and for other women such as Zsa Zsa Gabor and Phyllis Diller.
In 1965, Rivers finally made it to "The Tonight Show", where the host, Johnny Carson, proclaimed to America with Joan at his side that she would be a star. That same year, she married Edgar Rosenberg, a Brit who would guide her career, and worked with her to refine her act for a wider audience. The emphasis became somewhat self-deprecating, the fat child turned flat-chested woman who couldn't cook and loved to shop. Her lampoon of the post-War housewife struck a chord, and she was soon a Las Vegas headliner. Yet, still, some might say, her career progressed slowly. With her unabashed upper-middle class Jewish background, she was not meant for the sitcoms or movies of the period, and an attempt at hosting a syndicated talk show in 1968 failed. Her screen debut was a bit part in a Burt Lancaster vehicle, "The Swimmer" (1968), in which he was a man swimming from pool to pool in a tony suburb and she a woman who comments on him as he passes through a party scene. Instead of starring in her own variety show, Rivers guested on those of others' into the 70s, while continuing to headline in Las Vegas and around the country.