“He said, right on the
air, God, you’re funny.
You’re going to be a
star,” Rivers said of
her first appearance
on The Tonight Show
with Johnny Carson. “It
was all over. Thirty-one
years of people saying
no. That is a long, long
time. And suddenly
it was all over. Ten
minutes on television
and it was all over.”

”

— JOAN RIVERS

“On December 1, 2000,
my mother finally met the
true love of her life, my son,
her grandson, Cooper. From
the moment they laid eyes on
each other, they were inseparable.
As was to be expected, drawers in
the joke file began to fill under the
headings ‘Grandson,’ ‘Grandmother,’
and ‘Cooper.’ One of my favorite jokes
was: ’When people say the baby got my
nose, I say, ‘The joke’s on you! I didn’t
get my nose until I was thirty-four.’”

Y J

O B

ER

ILL

Y M
NN

OH

She always believed in ‘Everyone,
just stop it; take a deep breath.’
She’d start her act by literally
walking out onstage with a string
of racial epitaphs. She said
‘Funny is funny. Stop being so
mean. Stop being nasty. Stop and
relax.’ I know she would be so
dismayed that there is so much
anger and hate out there. This is
a woman who spent her whole
life laughing at herself and her
world. Her comedy was so rel-
evant. She believed that laughter
is the common denominator in
every language.
JN: So you’re dating a nice
Jewish talent agent?
MR: Mark [Rousso] and I had
been very good friends for a long
time. His kindness and compas-
sion after my mother’s passing
made me look at him
in a different way.
JN: Give us an update on
your son, the athlete. You
know, University of Michigan
has a great lacrosse team …
MR: Cooper is 16, a junior and
he’s doing great. We are look-
ing at colleges right now and
Michigan is absolutely on our
list. I hope he goes there because
I love Zingerman’s.
JN: Did Cooper call your
mom Grandma or Nana?
MR: Cooper [to whom the
book is dedicated] still keeps
a picture of my mother and
himself on his nightstand. He
called my mother grandma even
though she tried to get him to
call her ‘your highness.’ •

OT
PH

jokes, individually hand-
typed on index cards. Did she
ultimately start using a com-
puter?
MR: Mom did most of her
writing by long-hand. She would
write on scraps of paper from
hotel memo pads or napkins
from wherever she was. She
became a very big emailer and
was current with business cor-
respondence, but she never tran-
sitioned from taking her jokes
to the computer. Her jokes were
meticulously organized, kind of
like the Dewey Decimal System,
in metal filing cabinets that I
kept after I sold her apartment in
New York.
JN: So would you say that
you take after your mother?
MR: I try to stay organized,
but my father was really the
compulsive one. My mom picked
it up from my dad. This book is
the history of her career, all told
through archival material that’s
never been seen before. You
realize that she was such a great
social commentator of pop cul-
ture throughout the years.
JN: Your mom was good
friends with Donald Trump
before and after she won
Celebrity Apprentice, but didn’t
know he was running for
president at the time of her
death. What do you think she
would say about today’s envi-
ronment?
MR: She would be terribly,
terribly sad that this is the world
that my son is being raised in.

O of Rivers’ thousands
One
o of scrupulously organized
n notes with jokes

jn

October 26 • 2017

43

ALL PHOTOS COURTESY OF JOAN RIVERS CONFIDENTIAL: THE UNSEEN SCRAPBOOKS, JOKE CARDS, PERSONAL FILES, AND PHOTOS OF A VERY FUNNY WOMAN WHO KEPT EVERYTHING, BY MELISSA RIVERS WITH SCOTT CURRIE, ABRAMS BOOKS, FALL 2017.

“

I thought I was a beautiful princess
until I entered the second grade at
Brooklyn Ethical Culture School. My
tonsils were taken out and everything
went wrong … the blond hair turned
brown, the nose grew, the body
inflated, and Little Miss Pretty
became Little Miss Piggy.