Joan Rivers on "A Piece of Work" and Why Leno Isn't Funny

I'm here with Joan Rivers who's a piece of work title of your documentary Joan Rivers it's real pleasure to meet you your documentary went over huge last night at the premiere is fantastic the amount of excess you know the what you gave the access that you gave them it kind of is unprecedented and so vulnerable so funny and so real and covering your entire journey in Hollywood as an actress comedian and everything how did what made you decide to let let them in uh well I never say no to anything just about and the filmmakers especially Rick Easter her mother's my good friends when she said gee my daughter might like to do something with you I said absolutely fine and then once we got started I wanted to do a documentary that was real if you know what I mean isn't like a puff piece mm-hmm and so I just gave her full access because I knew already was getting into and it was it worked out very well very funny and the moments that they caught are great when that guy is heckling you and the audience out like I have a deaf kid how can you just describe as someone that's been onstage so much and you say in the documentary about how you you're most comfortable in that moment what goes through your mind when someone's heckling you like that in that tiny environment ah well you have three things you worry about one you have to get them to be quiet because they're moving the show for everybody that's your heckle up to you have to answer them back and make sure they're taken care of without destroying them totally and three how do I get my audience and where am I going to go from here and how can I switch it to something totally different so so many things are happening at the same time um and one of the one of my favorite moments in that in your in the movie is when you're sitting around there having a meeting with your staff and I can't even sakes I can't give it justice and I know you know what I'm going to talk about when you talk about Jackie O and you're asking them well you know you you tell because they're jokes and to be any kind of a joke right which I am I'm a writer originally you have to let your mind just go when you think is this funny is this money this money is too wild will people get this and there was one joke it was very on the fence so I asked my staff what do you think and they all laugh and they all go no absolutely not and they were right mm-hmm and at what moment do you add you always listen to them works I know a lot of times people said Jones too far it's too much but for you what where do you know when to listen and when you just know I mean I don't ask them that much what they think is funny when I'm really on the fence right so they I will ask it I will listen them cuz I respect what they have to say mm-hmm I've got a smart a smart group around me thank God now when you when you're writing your jokes that you write most of your jokes write all of them I write all my jokes I buy every now somebody sends me a joke of course if it's good I buy it right be a fool not to gee lady in Wisconsin thinks blah blah blah that's great the check goes right after her uh but I write out all my new jokes on cards and when I perform they all go down on the stage so I could see what I want to try mm-hmm and that but that's not when you're actually that's when you're rehearsing no right doing performance I have pictures of me in Vegas 25 years ago and I've never changed there the cards on the stage um can we talk a little bit about Johnny Carson I remember as every kids I know but what is interesting to me everyone cares now because I mean yes can we talk about that yes the NBC implosion yeah I remember as a child watching my father always watch The Tonight Show and I remember watching you always and you credit Johnny with giving you a career gave you nobody I was too wild and nobody would allow me to go on television I was bored through the course at Joe seven times and finally they put me on not as a comic as a girl writer and in the worst spot the last one and he said on the air you're gonna be a star so I became very much his child and his he was my mentor for 20 years I was on that show always and we had an amazing report know he was the best Street man in the business but don't you think I think it was unfair that he blackballed like why wouldn't he allow you to have on show I mean that's basically part of a subject in the documentary they talked with briefly about going over your career when you when Barry Diller said Fox we want the Joan Rivers show how would you not take that opportunity only a fool would not take their own show after 20 is of course uh Johnny got me forget it was a killer it was very competitive I suddenly went from being his darling and his guest hostess to someone coming right up against him and that's business suddenly and all whatever made him Johnny Carson came out and I was blackballed from from late night still up what do you think hat what do you think about what happened to the conan luckiest thing that ever happened to him if it's not that funny the numbers were going down he would have ended up a failure and let go and they would have with Jimmy Fallon in this place what happened was he is now the guy that was hurt he's the good guy that didn't want to ruin the integrity of The Tonight Show he's walked away with 40 million dollars not tragic and every other station that wants in for late-night oh it's such a win for this guy and what about for Jay do you think Jake and I on an idea I'm a lot of things happen I think it's very negative for him I think people got a good look at him and realize he ain't funny what's funny at 11:30 when you're tired you want to go to sleep you don't want to be annoyed in a way you can fall asleep - Jay Leno doesn't matter because you didn't miss anything it was kind of a tough ativy yeah I'm at 10 o'clock you wait wait this guy isn't funny what am i doing right who is this guy I think that was negative and also the all the rumors about he's not being liked very much uh came up to the shelters only they do and it all surfaced that he ate this wonderful warm sweet lovable guy he has very small Christmas card list mm-hmm how's your Christmas card list none they are dead oh and maybe two Christmas cards I write to myself okay oh look they're still alive yeah I love those guys I love when they keep sending their ugly children are you growing up and getting uglier yeah it just makes me like I had the whole discussion about that like can you send it and then when your kids start to get ugly just stop saying I am freaking out don't send them anymore cutoff is what 10 and under how high to Cooper Cooper Ted dilatory is very cute he's just a fine right I think it we have two more years and the pimples start then Harve a little mustache yeah how about Christmas cards um so you this movie in a sense as a celebration of you and just any or Drive and one of the things that I appreciated so much about this is when you talk about show business and how and actually Melissa I thought this was a great quote when she talked about the career as like a sibling absolutely like your it was the career and how you it's not an eight-hour day it's so it's it's 24 hours anyone in any business that is truly successful and I have friends that are fashion designers I have friends that are artists they don't stop they don't say gee 5 o'clock time to go there's no such thing you work and you're constantly thinking about and that's great yeah I know it's great for you and you're in the glows and in the ups and the downs and it's obviously examined in the movie when you've been at the top of pinnacle of success and then not yes and not at all and you talk about the really sadness for you is an empty calendar total and there's a very funny line like I need my sunglasses yeah yeah how do you sustain yourself during those times when when the public isn't responding to you or your shows been canceled or you just move slowly just what else can i do what else gotta come up with maybe there's another book I can I'll write a new script so I got an idea for a movie can I give it move forward I don't allow myself I give myself 24-hour pity party and then I just move on um were your parents like that my parents were first-generation immigrants and so they were very ambitious in other ways you know my dad was a doctor worked his way through Medical School I mean was a whole of it it was that wonderful vitality that comes in America that generation that we're here and we can get educating our children to be better than we are and that's what my parents came out of so for you to do hat because you have you talked about your sister who's was the youngest youngest at the time a woman graduate of Columbia Law School right and you very hated that you were and when I went crazy what you wanted to be an actress I was a Barnard Phi Beta Kappa and so when the actress was like in those is to a point did you make it a look at yeah uh I said to my dad I wanted my dad every time a prostitute would come into the office she wouldn't say I'm a hooker her dad was a doctor I said uh she was saying an actress so I said I want to be an actress that was it they were you idea of mind but I said I want to be an astronaut I want to be a brain surgeon or does it go for it at what point did they reconcile with your acting and comedy uh when I got into second city and I was the star of Chicago you know yeah for a minute and a half and they came out to see me they thought maybe but my mother would ask people the audience do you really think she's good she they just didn't know do you really think she's she's good she was just ask people I was so sweet because they just didn't have anything to connect with they didn't certainly once you got to Carson that well when they lived how I once said to Elvis Presley what's the saddest thing that happened he said my mother didn't see me star and I got it immediately both my parents lived to see me successful and it's all apparent once that your child's okay in that for you a very touching moment you you talk about how you really wanted to have respect as an actress yeah not a comedian but now at 75 676 166 that you uh you realize that as a comedian you still have a career and you'll have an endless career words if you were enacted rheumatic actress you wouldn't know you'd be maybe doing a sober I don't even know what there's no more soaps anymore work I have so many friends that are actresses that aren't working that's awful will go somewhere and we're all walking together and they'll ask these women that was stars movie stars stand back and I'll take a picture of me if you're common and you've got six good minutes you'll work to you're dead thanks got a minute it's my dog at six cover and Hitler came back with six good minutes somebody would say you know there's another side to him yeah oh yeah you can make people laugh yeah it's great it's great have you ever have you ever felt bad any of the red carpet stuff that you did that you basically invented I mean can I almost say that yes realistically somebody said how Melissa I made walking into a building into an event absolutely but it created it's true because there there's now it's a slang a red carpet and now which I found so interesting I was at this party I was actually talking to Julianne Moore and she was saying about how is she's so such a great actress and she's fantastic and Tom Ford's movie the single man and she was saying how award now these shows become almost an audition like you have you look good these are so few parts that walking that red carpet and presenting at the Oscars or presenting at the Golden Globes becomes its own job yes whereas before it was like oh I don't want to do that now it's it's it's such a rat race and it's also so controlled now because you have right off tami of the PR lady and if I dare say I didn't like Nicole Kidman's dress I won't get the PR ladies for people behind me right you know so you can't say anything to them and you can't ask them anything can't talk to Brad and Angelina about anything you know you can't say you're still drinking blood no yeah I can say that and so it's no fun it's much more difficult did you have fun though when you in the beginning it was great yeah beginning it was nobody else on the carpet at us and you'd see them my first interview with John Travolta and it was like what are you doing here how I I'm back you just have you know come as a Tarantino film and it was wonderful people talk to you about things now all they tell you is they have a lucky charm where they were when they were they found out they were auditioned and they loved everybody on the cast and you want to go oh your nose is growing back mm-hmm yeah it's so boy yeah I interviewed rohnke Laila who I'm yellow I think yes mr. president yes and it's it rajee's got a great documentary here about you know smash the camera in his obsession with Jackie O and Redford and Newman and all these people and he caught we were talking about the difference of celebrity culture and he said that the stars now don't have the same magnetism like now and you know they don't have the same magnitude it's just it's so diluted and that's what that one part you go on and like who are you who are you and like how are you yeah they all look alike none of them have that star print in the old some do and you worship the ones that do who are you some of your favorites Oh George Clooney movie star movie star he walks in a room and you know he's in that room ah Denzel Washington walks in movie star uh Halle Berry knows who she is knows what she's carrying around with her uh you used to be Julia Roberts but she's getting too much folksy now mm-hmm well you're gonna walk that right I even like Sophia Loren mm-hmm because old poro thing I mean just you know didn't know where she was it was the glass no I know I just still I have the movie style hello and she was waving yeah you don't know where else where am I sitting yeah by here for my in a movie I knew I was to feel oh honey you are not a movie star mm-hmm I think Bill Maher's movie star too for me bill yeah you have to know you I'll tell youse a movie star uh Joan Collins walks into a room you could like her you cannot like her she's there and watch out mm-hmm and I always say good for her she's 80 or so yeah she is I think I mean at least yeah whatever is especially good yeah good for that just great for that um so are you dating anybody yes but I don't discuss it at this age is disgusting yeah I shouldn't say am i dating because of this age she could be dead yeah yeah you know dear Jennifer oh yeah never make a date too much in advance just you know good yeah pick me up at five if you can how what are your plans now this movie it's it's fantastic the other thing I have to mention is you whether you are a fan of yours or you're not a fan of yours just that the whole film just takes you to in so many different places and it's just that that floor-to-ceiling wall in your house of basically the Dewey Decimal System of jokes something I mean that's got to go into the Smithsonian I mean that's incredible and I still have I don't trust computers when I have jokes I know that little old Dewey Decimal System there's still our little file cards my jokes I never want to hear them computer crashed we've lost 29 years of jokes don't what are you that when did you first realize that you were funny I was on a fishing trip with my father and three other I know exactly would three other doctors and I was telling him a story as maybe fourth grade and they were laughing and I knew they weren't laughing at me I knew they were laughing with me I thought ooh that's it and yeah and then from then on always noise fine I was never the class clown I was always a class width is a different thing mm-hmm always the clay so I always had with a good table cuz all the in girls knew I would do the joke mmm-hmm and that kept means that can be very happy in school and um so what are your plans now you've got the documentary right so thank you guys for sale and in competition and a for sale here isn't it anxiety I have a new show with Melissa Cole mother knows best coming out on we have another show called how'd you get so rich which is coming back on TV land always doing concerts and haven't stopped you with the concerts and I do the red carpet fashion reviews anything I can think of what do you want I'm I can do it that's what I'm what is your most lucrative endeavor god bless QVC and that's a guy he's wearing my QVC 20 years good band much would you estimate you've made on QVC over 20 years I don't know what I've made because I just get you know percentage but they made a half a billion dollars in jewelry sales it's amazing they'll show me the figures that I'll go they once said to me think of a stadium one time we saw 42,000 pairs of earrings was a special and they said think of a stadium of Chicago whatever it's called in Chicago and think of every woman in that stadium all wear your earrings and you like I said that's 42,000 ladies mm-hmm it's amazing it's amazing and you'll do you're still up for anything so out Versalles endorsements oh we're on you play here's your worship where do you draw your line of where you will not play no Lenny Bruce my IRA once said there's a Christian Science reading room you'll make it funny mm-hmm that's great well Joan thanks for stopping by after fledging your lovely to know it's great thanks great at saying cell I hope everyone sees it okay yes

Channel: Vanity Fair

Views: 414,190

Keywords: Joan, Rivers, Replacement

Id: ulT-EkZTKj8

Length: 19min 24sec (1164 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 22 2012