Rivers Joan - The Book of Joan: Tales of Mirth, Mischief, and Manipulation

ALSO BY MELISSA RIVERS Red Carpet Ready: Secrets for Making the Most of Any Moment Youre in the Spotlight

Copyright 2015 by Melissa Rivers

All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Crown Archetype,
an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group,
a division of Penguin Random House LLC,
New York.
www.crownpublishing.com

Crown Archetype and colophon is a registered trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Rivers, Melissa, 1969
The book of Joan : tales of mirth, mischief, and manipulation / Melissa Rivers.First edition.
1. Rivers, Joan. 2. ComediansUnited StatesBiography. 3. EntertainersUnited StatesBiography. 4. Rivers, Melissa, 19695. Television producers and directorsUnited StatesBiography. 6. Mothers and daughtersUnited StatesBiography. I. Title.
PN2287.R55R58 2015
792.760280922dc23
[B]
2015006127

ISBN 978-1-101-90382-7
eBook ISBN 978-1-101-90383-4

Book design by Elizabeth Rendfleisch
Map by Meredith Hamilton
Jacket photograph: Courtesy of the author

First Edition

v3.1

For my Mother,
whom I think about every day, and for my Father,
who, as of this past September,
is no longer resting in peace

Contents

Melissa, Helen Keller once said,
Life is a great adventure, or its nothing.
Of course, she said it to a coffee table but still,
you get the point.

Borrowed Time

I never thought Id be sitting in a hospital making a decision about turning off a ventilator. I guess in my head I knew it was a possibility, as we all know we may face that kind of decision for a loved one someday. I just didnt know Id have to make it so unexpectedly. Just last night my mother and I were on the phone, laughing and joking about an old friend shed run into. It was a typical, checking-in-with-each-other kind of call. I had no way of knowing that it would be our last conversation.

What I wanted was for her to sit up and say, Ooh, that was a nice nap. What time is hair and makeup? What I needed was five minutes so I could tell her all the crazy, hilarious things that had gone on around her for the last week. We were probably the only two people in Mount Sinai who wouldve seen the humor in all this madness. But since I didnt get those five minutes

In our family we always laughed our way through pain, so I decided to write a book that would have made her laugh. At least once a day she used to turn to me and say, Can you believe this shit? And Id say, Yes, Mommy, I can.

Mommy, I hope youre somewhere readingand, God knows, editingthis book, but the thing I hope most of all is that youre smiling.

She Works Hard for the Money

One of the questions Im most often asked is Did your mother always work so hard? I wish I had an answer. According to her cousin Alanthe only relative worth speaking to or acknowledgingYour mother was like this before you were born. She wanted to be sure she was one step ahead of everybody else. It used to make your grandmother crazy. Wed sit down to play a game of Monopoly, and by the time we were once around the board, shed co-opd three hotels and was trying to foreclose on one of our cousin Charlottes properties. I think this is one of the reasons I finally settled in Vermont. The family gatherings were way too intense for me.

My mother was a comedian, actress, writer, producer, jewelry monger, tchotchke maker, spokesperson, hand model, Celebrity Apprentice winner, and self-appointed somewhat-goodwill ambassador to twenty-seven Third World countries that were unaware they had a goodwill ambassador. (It was a power move on her part, not unlike the time she named herself block captain of her block in New York, which had no block association. (I think this was a nod to the Eisenhower yearswhich I never fully understoodwhen many suburban neighborhoods had block captains who were in charge of getting people into the local bomb shelters during nuclear attacks.) The woman was indefatigable. James Brown may have been the hardest-working man in show business, but Im pretty sure my mother was the hardest-working woman. Even at eighty years old, she was on the go, from gig to gig, show to show, all the time. She was always working, always moving; she was like Sisyphus with jokes. A typical week for her last year was:

MondayStart working on weekly episode of Fashion Police in the morning and during the day. Drive down to Philadelphia for the QVC show (and work on her new book or a TV or movie script in the car on the way down).TuesdayMore work on Fashion Police and meet with her various agents, biz people, jewelry designers, etc. Nighttime performance at the West Bank Caf in New York City.WednesdayEarly morning flight to Los Angeles for Fashion Police meetings all day and night.ThursdayArrive at E! studios at 5:00 a.m. to prepare for Fashion Police taping at 8:00 a.m. Afterward, press obligations and business meetings. A quick dinner of Chinese food with Cooper before catching the red-eye back to New York City.FridayTravel to whatever city she was appearing in that night and then give a ninety-minute performance.SaturdayTravel to whatever city she was appearing in that night, do another ninety-minute show, then travel back to New York.SundayNot unlike for God, a day of restand by rest, I mean, reading scripts, writing a book, doing the Sunday New York Times crossword puzzle in ink,

Just writing that tires me out.

I remember a conversation we had after one of our Very Long Thursdayswed shot an episode of Fashion Police , and then taped scenes for Joan & Melissa: Joan Knows Best , and at night we did four interviews for In Bed with Joan. At the end of the night, after the camera crew and production team had finally left, I went downstairs to her bedroom. She was lying in bed in her bathrobe, and I started telling her that she needed to slow down. I told her that it wasnt healthyphysically, mentally, or emotionally, especially at her ageto keep working these hours. I told her that I was worried about her and Cooper was worried about her, too. I was pouring my heart out, thinking I was getting somewhere, as she hadnt interrupted me. I looked over and saw that her eyes were shut. I thought that she had fallen asleep and hadnt heard a word Id said. So I nudged her and said, Mom? She shushed me and said, Melissa, please! Im practicing visualization techniques and Im seeing myself as the face of Depends.

)

And that was a light week. She still found plenty of quality and quantity time to criticize me.

The correct answer is Amah. Shes probably trying to shove in Cashundertable.

The Need to Succeed

I dont know, or pretend to know, what happens to us after we die. Nobody really does, except the dead, and theyre not talking. (At least not to me, but I have AT&T; I can barely get living people on the phone.) I also dont know if theres a heaven or hell (although I have been to Winnipeg in winter) or an afterlife. But what I do know is that if there is an afterlife, my mother is coming back as a pack animal. Its the only other one of Gods creatures that was born and raised to work as hard as she did. The thing is, though, she never thought of it as work, because once she knew what she wanted to do, there was no stopping her.

I think both nature and nurture had a role to play in my mothers tireless and never-ending work ethic. Her parents were both Russian immigrants who were uprooted from their countries and came to the United States with nothing. I believe the immigrant mentality of working hard to get ahead was taught to my mother and her sister, my aunt Barbara, by their parents. So when my mother became a parent, there was no question she was going to be a working motherand she became one long before it was fashionable or, as times have changed, necessary. Although, truth be told, she considered work a necessity, like water, air, food, and bespoke living room furniture.

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