Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work Page #2

so we have to open somewhere

in April.

For the next few months,

I am really focusing

just on my play.

It means a great deal to me

because it tells my life story.

- So she calls me up one night,

and she goes,

"Billy, it's Joan.

"Listen, I wrote a script

a couple years ago.

It's in the drawer."

Now, I actually saw a reading

of it a year earlier,

and I enjoyed it.

So I said,

"I think you should do it."

Hi, Joanie.

Hi, Billy Boy.

- Hi, Billy.

- This is Billy.

Hi, Seany.

I'm a little schvitzy.

- Schwitzy?

How you doing?

- Schvit.

- Schvit.

- Schvit.

- Schvit.

- Schvitzy.

- Schvitzy, schvitzy.

The name of the show is

A Work in Progress

by a Life in Progress,

you know, episodes

from her life,

how she got

to where she is now.

We're going to take this

to the Edinburgh Festival,

and then we're going to do it

in London's

glittering West End.

The ultimate goal?

I think Joan wants to play it

in her hometown.

- "I have very few hairs

left on my head,

"and each one has a name,

like last week, we had to sit

shiva for Bernice,"

or, "We buried Bernice,"

or, "We cremated Bernice."

- Yeah, "cremated"

I think is good.

- I hope that the play

is a huge success.

I think the play

will remind them

I'm an actress.

I'm a writer.

And if we get great reviews,

it will open up

a million other things.

"One of my earliest memories,

I must have been,

"tops, six years old.

"My mother took me to see

Paul Robeson in Othello,

"and I remember smelling

the smells of the theater,

and I thought,

'This is where I belong."'

I was in every school play.

I was in everything

you could do at college.

There was never a discussion

in my own head

of where I was going,

and it was always acting.

Always going to be an actress.

- Were you-were you-you were

straight acting or comedy?

No, no, comedy, never.

I just knew that I could work

as a comedian at night

and make money to make

the rounds as an actress.

And that's the only reason

I went into comedy.

Sometimes I sit at home,

and I think to myself,

"Joan, yes, you're a diva.

You're a diva.

"Penthouse, limo, furs.

Ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff."

But a diva can get lonely.

And I say this to my staff,

I say, "Staff..."

I don't know any of their names,

because they're like you people.

They come.

They go.

Sometimes I say to them,

"Staff, I'm lonely.

Who's going to f*** me tonight,

staff?"

Oh!

That's their reaction.

Yes, yes, yes.

This is delicious, huh?

This is Kevin,

who runs my house,

also without asking me anything.

Thank God.

That is Debbie,

his wife, over there,

who really is the brains

behind Kevin.

We thought you should know.

It's true.

It's bacon, you idiot.

This is my apartment,

and it's very grand.

This is how Marie Antoinette

would have lived

if she had had money.

- You try to explain to people

before you go to her house,

"What you're about to see,

nobody lives like this.

"Maybe the queen of England,

but besides that,

nobody lives like this."

- I live very, very, very well.

That's to start with.

I enjoy my creature comforts.

And I know I have to work

for it.

I could stop and live carefully,

but that's ridiculous.

I don't want to live carefully.

So I would rather work

and live the way I live

and have a wonderful time.

- When I hear the numbers

from her accountant,

because, you know,

behind our client's back,

everyone's whispering.

So they called me,

and they said,

"Billy, you've got to pull

another rabbit out of the hat."

"How many rabbits would you like

out of the hat?

I don't have that many

more rabbits in my hat."

- When I first hit

on the Carson show years ago,

my manager then was a man

named Jack Rollins,

and he said, "You're going

to be an industry.

When people hit,

they become industries."

And that's really what-

I'm a small industry.

- This week's checks

for you to sign.

- Oh, good.

Okay.

I have an agent.

I have a manager.

I have a business manager,

a PR lady,

two assistants,

and a lawyer.

We forget the lawyers.

There are then

certain relatives

that I'm totally supporting,

certain friends.

Most people that work with me,

if they have children,

I send the children

to private schools.

It goes on and on

and on and on.

I'm dancing as fast as I can.

Are you on speaker?

- Okay.

So where do we start?

- Yeah, I would love to,

because I'm very short on money.

Trust me, we need it.

- Okay.

- Okay.

Okay, okay.

- Bump up the offer,

and you'll do your comedy.

- Yeah, bump up the offer

and they get one-

bump up the offer,

and they get Joan on stage.

Bump up the offer some more,

and they get Joan doing

a survival lecture and onstage.

Mm-hmm.

Bump up the offer some more,

and they also get

the red carpet lecture,

the survival lecture.

- And don't forget there's

the 125 grand worth of charm!

Just...

You know the dates

we're holding for QVC,

right, Billy, pretty much?

- Yeah.

- Let me ask you one last thing.

Do you think it's in bad taste

to say about Obama's wife,

who I think is so chic,

Michelle,

that she is-your remember we-

in the old days,

in the Kennedy era,

there was Jackie O?

Well, now, in the Obama era,

it's going to be Blackie O.

- Oh, no.

- Oh, no.

- Okay, just-I thought it was

a great joke, okay.

These are all my jokes.

These are jokes

over the last 30 years.

These are just-

every time I write a joke,

I try to remember

to get it on a card.

"Why should a woman cook?

"So her husband can say,

"'My wife makes

a delicious cake,'

to some hooker."

And you wonder why I'm

still working at this age.

People think

it comes so easily.

They have no idea

that what you're doing

is a terrifically

difficult thing to do.

And I prepare

like a crazy lady.

I mean, here I am.

I mean, everything is just...

Everywhere you look,

there are jokes.

Everywhere-jokes to be filed,

jokes to be written,

jokes that I thought

of something.

I mean, my life is just...

jokes.

"Vagina farts.

My vagina farts are so loud,

my gynecologist wears earplugs."

"Are gay men proud

of their excessive body hair,

like Madonna's daughter?"

Maybe.

"Amazing Race.;

Mel Gibson chasing Jews

into the showers."

As some of you can tell now,

I'm seven and a half months

pregnant.

And you want to know the truth?

You know how lousy

you feel at night?

When I'm undressed,

my husband looks at me

and mentally dresses me.

You know how cruel that can be?

When I started comedy,

I was very wild for the time,

but different times.

The last line

in my original act was,

"This business,

it's all about casting couches,

"so I want you to know,

my name is Joan Rivers,

and I put out."

And you would hear

the audience-

such a sweet little, silly line

from a girl who was,

what, 28 years old,

you know, dressed up,

trying to look nice.

The audience,

half of them laughed.

Jack Lemmon saw me

and walked out.

He said, "That's disgusting."

So for my time,

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