Saint Joan

Imelda Marcos, Mira Milosevic, Cruella de Ville. In the popular imagination not one of that delectable bunch can compete with Joan Rivers in the scary stakes. Her barbed wit famously sharp, her withering put-downs terrifyingly precise, she can lay fair claim to being both the funniest, and the most frightening, woman in comedy. And there we have the two facts that anyone who is even slightly acquainted with Rivers will know. But in recent weeks a third has been added; that she was ejected from the studios of ITV’s Loose Women for a casual utterance of the F-word.

In an age where it is deemed acceptable for Big Brother contestants to masturbate with beer bottles, Rebecca Loos to masturbate a pig, and Piers Morgan to be given air time, for a 75 year-old woman to be forcefully escorted from the set of a daytime chat show is no mean feat.

“They still owe me my goody bag!” screams Rivers down a phone line from a casino hotel in Reno, Nevada. “That truly destroyed me… for a week. But seriously, I was beyond shocked at the reaction. Before I came out they had just showed a man with an erection and a cowboy hat over his penis, and then they were worried because I said a word? That is crazy. It wasn’t the women on the show, they were perfectly lovely. The order to get me off came all the way from the top.”

Of course, true to form for a lady as well versed in the rituals of showbiz as Rivers, what shocked her more was the way the show failed to harness all the free publicity her slip up had provided. “The one mistake they did make, those idiots, was that they should have had me back on the show the next day! They would have had some ratings. It got to the point that the whole world was talking about that. I was going through security in Ireland and I beeped, and the security man said ‘that is what should have happened to you on the show.’ But as soon as I get my goody bag I’m going back on.”

It is sometimes said that to be truly respected you must be feared. But though her ability to reduce grown men to tears is well documented, it is Rivers’ charm that is often underplayed along with her beguiling array of talents. When not swearing in front of Her Majesty the Queen at a Royal Variety Show in Liverpool last year, Ms Rivers keeps up a hectic schedule of writing books, running her own line of cosmetics and jewellery, and acting. It is the latter skill she will be showcasing at the Fringe this year where she will premier her self-penned autobiographical play Joan Rivers: A Work in Progress by a Life in Progress before transferring to the West End and then Broadway.

“I do a lot of things, and people ask me if, at my age, I’m ever going to stop. But what would be the point of that? Nobody is just the one thing. I think we all have many personalities and, for example, when people find me intimidating, that is just one side of what I do.” Surely though, the risk of being on the end of a particularly acerbic one-liner might discourage, say, her neighbours coming round to borrow sugar? “I don’t think the smart ones find me intimidating. When I’m harsh I think I’m just representing what a lot of people feel themselves. At the end of a show people come up to me and say, ‘you say what I think.’ Maybe some of the people who watch me are too inhibited to say what I say but they are sure thinking it.”

Born Joan Alexandra Molinsky in Brooklyn to Russian Jewish parents in 1933, Rivers began on the New York circuit around the same time as the legendry Lenny Bruce, another Jewish comic noted for his shocking routines and foul mouth. But being a woman presented its own challenges, with Rivers recalling how one agent told her she “had everything needed to be a star, except for looks and talent.” Rivers though is quick to stress that it was her own drive, rather than her background that shaped her career. “I’m quite ashamed to say that I was never beaten, my mother and father got along, I was never molested by a relative. So I had a good childhood and I’m so ashamed of it now. But when growing up I never just decided I wanted to be funny. You can’t do that. You just are or you aren’t. You can’t choose to be a good comic, or a good writer or a good painter. You can learn you craft but talent is either there or it ain’t.”

Aside from her other projects, it is her ability to remain shocking as a stand-up that marks her out from the numerous other American comedians who cross over into light entertainment, something Fringe-goers will be able to witness when she takes time out from the play to squeeze in four nights of comedy at the White Belly this August. Compared to the 1960s, a decade when it was still possible for a comic to be arrested for what they said on stage, nowadays she says there are few taboos left to play with. “My friend, the comic George Carlin, came up with the last seven words you aren’t allowed to say on television years ago, and now every single one has been used. There is nothing left to shock in some ways. But comedy is much stronger now, because all of the stupid rules that there were over political correctness have been challenged. Comics are now leaping out and saying everything. I think that is very healthy.”

Besides winning her many fans, Rivers’ big mouth has also got her into trouble over the years, the Loose Women incident just being one in a long line of humorous malapropisms that punctuate her fifty year long career. This doesn’t however mean she hasn’t learnt to pick her targets shrewdly. “I always say harsh things to weak people. I would never say anything harsh to Mike Tyson. To George Forman, all I’m going to say is hello. I only go for people who I know can’t beat me up.”

Indeed, anyone at the Fringe who can’t box should watch their back. “I just don’t like celebrities who don’t treat people who work for them and with them nicely. When I do the red carpet these people are always charming to me, and charming to the people that are interviewing them, but watch how they treat their PR person or their hairdresser; that tells you who they are. I always remember this business can be taken away from you in a second, so you’d be a fool not to keep your feet on the ground.” And with that you have Joan Rivers: frightening, frighteningly successful, but still humble. Edinburgh, you have been warned.