The Jewish community has lost one of its funniest and most beloved members. Joan Alexandra Molinsky (June 8, 1933 – September 4, 2014), widely known as Joan Rivers, was a truly talented and remarkable woman. Her remarks on the glitterati of “Tinsel Town” never failed to pull any punches. She was able to do so because her record of work stood for itself. As a woman who made history blazing trails in a male-dominated industry, Joan Rivers earned our respect.
Rivers died due to complications incurred during a routine endoscopy, leaving her friends and family shocked by the news, considering it was a “minor procedure.”
JLife was actually scheduled to interview her for our next issue. The whole team was delighted at the news and clamoring to be the one who got to interview her. Unfortunately, that interview will not be. More importantly, the world has lost a treasure with Ms. River’s passing. It is with heavy hearts that we say “Good-bye” to a legend.
Some may not have known this, but she was close friends with fellow Jewish funnyman, Howard Stern, appearing on his show several times over the years and matching his wit “tit-for-tat.” She had supported Stern when his own career had first been in gestation and then later in free-fall.
Perhaps it was Stern who summed it up beautifully by saying he could imagine her chasing Johnny Carson around Heaven with a baseball bat, referring to the estrangement that occurred after Rivers had left “The Tonight Show” to host her own, ill-fated talk show in the 1980s. At her funeral (that Stern was asked to officiate) he said more than once, voice clogging, that he “couldn’t imagine a world without Joan Rivers.”
Neither can we.