Biografie

The cigarette with holder that she was famous for using in her stand-up routines in the 1960s and 1970s was only a prop for the act. She was a lifelong non-smoker.

Before Joan Rivers succeeded as a stand-up comedienne, she wrote jokes for Diller.

She was a housewife in a San Francisco suburb with five children and an underemployed husband who eventually convinced her to make money with the talent she regularly displayed in PTA skits.

In her later years after several cosmetic procedures, she posed semi-nude for spicy pictures proposed to be in Playboy magazine, similar to those published of Joan Collins, to prove that women can still be sexy in their 50s and 60s. The photos were not published in the magazine, but one is included in her autobiography "Like a Lampshade in a Whorehouse".

Had a ten-year affair with lawyer Robert Hastings (whom she described as "the love of my life") until his death on May 23, 1996.

A stand-up comic is judged by every line. Singers get applause at the end of their song no matter how bad they are.

It's a good thing that beauty is only skin deep, or I'd be rotten to the core.

Always be nice to your children because they are the ones who will choose your rest home.

Aim high, and you won't shoot your foot off. I bury a lot of my ironing in the backyard.

My house used to be haunted, but the ghosts haven't been back since the night I tried on all my wigs.