"I said to my husband, 'Why don't you call out my name when we're making love?' He said, 'I don't want to wake you up.'" - Joan Rivers
It's no secret that Johnny Carson turned his back (personally and professionally) on Joan Rivers in 1986 after she announced she was going to host her own late night talk show on FOX that would compete with The Tonight Show. Since August of 1983, Rivers had been the first permanent guest host of the Tonight Show when Johnny was away.
In an article she wrote for People magazine, Rivers said that NBC offered her only a one-year contract in 1985 as permanent guest host. That made her nervous so she took FOX up on their offer of her own series, at a much salary higher than what NBC was paying.
In the documentary Johnny Carson: King of Late Night, Rivers said that she only called Johnny Carson to discuss the her new show after learning Carson was blindsided by the news when he saw the press conference on television. He immediately hung up on her.
October 9, 1986, with the first episode of The Late Show with Joan Rivers, she became the first woman to host a late night network television talk show. The show was broadcast live and only moderately successful, Rivers was eventually fired in May 1987. She remained a top draw on the Las Vegas Strip however.
“I’ve become the slut of the Strip,” she proclaimed in 1978. “I’ll work for anyone.” Joan Rivers headlined in Vegas for at least 43 years, since 1969, initially at Caesars Palace. She was co-billed at Caesars with stars like The Smothers Brothers, Diana Ross, Paul Anka, Garry Shandling and Ben Vereen from 1983 through 1991
Caesars Palace was the home base for the taping of her cable TV special, “Joan Rivers and Friends Salute Heidi Abromowitz,” in 1985.
This documentary highlights Joan Rivers' feud with Johnny Carson. Before the fallout, the two comics had quite a rapport when the cameras were rolling as you'll see.
In 1968, The New York Times television critic Jack Gould called Rivers "quite possibly the most intuitively funny woman alive".
“My husband says that as you get bigger you’re a bigger target. … When I was the outsider, everybody loved me, and now that I’m becoming a little bit of an insider, it’s all turned around.” — 1983, headlining Caesars after becoming Carson’s permanent guest host.
Stuff you might not find at other web sites - Vegas Legends collects obscure stories about the greatest entertainers of all time! With rare performances from the casino showrooms and from the world of Television.
