On Friday I posted a wonderful clip of then 71 year-old Joan Rivers doing an appearance on BBC host Michael Parkinson’s show. Today we roll back the clock thirty five or so years from that interview and watch the Joan that first appeared in front of national audiences. Above is a 1968 appearance on Ed Sullivan and below is a 1967 appearance on God-knows-what-show. (Appreciative as I am for people posting this stuff, it irks the hell out of me when no information or historical context is provided). Two personal Joan anecdotes: in the 1950s she briefly worked as a secretary for an Uncle of mine. He told me that she never shut-up, walked with him to Grand Central trying out joke material that she was working on and in general embarrassed him in front of clients. He let her go. And yet he was thrilled a decade or more later to see that ‘his’ secretary Joan had made it onto the Tonight Show. Second anecdote: About 15 years ago I had the distinct honor and privilege of interviewing Joan in her wonderfully over-the-top lavish apartment off Fifth Avenue in the 60s. At the time, author James Gavin and I were compiling interviews for a projected documentary on the history of cabaret, based on Jim’s marvelous book ‘Intimate Nights’. (Lack of funding stalled the project–but there’s always hope). Joan graciously accepted our request for an interview and was absolutely delightful and hilarious. At some point the interview grew increasingly informal and I told her my favorite of her jokes. It was an Elizabeth Taylor fat-joke. (She teased Taylor mercilessly on her ‘Tonight Show’ monologues in the late 70s when Taylor was seriously overweight). The one I mentioned was: ‘Liz Taylor is so fat they have to grease her thighs and dangle a donut in front of her so she can fit through the golden arches at McDonald’s.’ When Joan heard the joke she looked mortified and said: ‘I said that? Oh my God, I was so awful to her!’ And then she burst into wicked laughter that told me she remembered very well saying it and was proud to have written something that deeply insulting and memorably funny.