Say what you want about Joan Rivers, but she always had impeccable timing.
In a kind of cosmic joke she would have been the first to appropriate, the publication of “Joan Rivers Confidential” comes on the heels of the demise of her signature television series, “Fashion Police,” which has been limping along without her, in spirit if not in body, since she died a little more than three years ago.
The book is a behind-the-stage-door dive into the ephemera of a woman who ritualistically kept virtually everything — every ticket stub, every dry cleaning receipt, every Polaroid from a wardrobe fitting — from her half-century-long career.
Affectionately compiled by her screen-sharing daughter, Melissa Rivers, and her onetime producer and longtime pal Scott Currie the book also charts her love of fashion, evident from the very start.
“Before Joan, women were supposed to look like comedians, almost like clowns,” Mr. Currie said, citing Phyllis Diller with her wacky cigarette holder, crazy hair and the exaggerated long gloves. “That’s the way it was, and suddenly Joan burst on the scene, in a black dress and pearls.”
Many of her routines over the years dwelled on the tribulations of this self-described ugly ducking:
Quote:
“And do you like the dress by the way? I love this. I was a little worried ’cause it was off the shoulder and I have no boobs to keep it up. Do you know what it’s like to have no boobies? To have a man look down your dress and compliment you on your shoes.”
Ms. Rivers, born Joan Alexandra Molinsky, had a trademark style — L.B.D. and pearls — which would loosen up considerably in the 1970s, but she found her glamorous groove in the next decade. What with being named permanent guest host of “The Tonight Show With Johnny Carson” in 1983 and a move to Hollywood, she was wearing bejeweled column dresses and poofy-sleeved satin gowns every night, both on “Tonight” and on her own short-lived show on Fox. She was getting calls from the likes of Oscar de la Renta and Calvin Klein. Of course they made it into the act.
“Do you love this? Dress by Oscar de la Renta, body by Oscar Mayer.”
“She always had great sense of humor around her fashion,” Mr. Currie said. “But in the ’80s, she began to realize she was having fun with it. She did theme weeks. She did one with only black and white dresses.” Appropriately, the cover of “Confidential” is a glamour shot from the era by the photographer Harry Langdon, with Ms. Rivers decked out in a fluffy platinum coif and a Bob Mackie spangled dress with flower-bedecked shoulders worthy of Cher.
So it’s no surprise, really, that her next career-defining act would be to turn up on nascent Hollywood red carpets in the mid-’90s, shove a microphone in a star’s face and croak, “Who are you wearing?”
