Joan Rivers made a sizable crack in the glass ceiling for women in late-night TV. She regularly filled in for Johnny Carson on "The Tonight Show" between 1983 and 1986 and carried on her own, although short-lived, late-night series.
Rivers, who died on Sept. 4, attributed her success to her first appearance on "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson." The long-time host invited the comedianne more than 40 times onto the show before he permanently entrusted her with the guest hosting duties.
"[Carson] said, God bless him, 'You're going to be a star,'" Joan told current "Tonight Show" host Jimmy Fallon in March.
Fox network also took notice of Rivers hosting ability. The young TV network offered her a gig hosting her own late-night show in 1986. Rivers would become the real first woman in a late-night program, but her good fortune led to a falling out with friend and mentor Carson.
The revered late-night host claimed he learned of Rivers' new show through the media. She remembered calling him personally to tell him the news.
"'I'm leaving to do my own show.' First call, and he slammed the phone down," Rivers recounted to David Letterman in 2010. "And I called him again, and he slammed the phone down. And he never spoke to me again. Ever, ever, ever, ever."
She never got the chance to ask Carson personally about their falling out. She did pose the question to him while visiting his memorial during an episode of her E! series "Joan & Melissa: Joan Knows Best?"
"Instead of you asking me a question, let me ask you one," Rivers said during the emotional scene. "Why did you stop talking to me? For 20 years, you wouldn't talk to me. Because I left the show? Stupid, stupid."
"The Late Show" with Rivers lasted only seven months. Fox fired her, a couple months after they removed her husband Edgar Rosenberg as the day-to-day showrunner.
Rivers all but disappeared from late-night television after her show's cancellation. Then in 1995, she accepted Conan O'Brien's invitation to appear on his "Late Night" show.
Another 10 years passed before she started hitting the late-night circuit regularly again. She started with an appearance on "Jimmy Kimmel Live" in 2007 and then sat down with Jimmy Fallon on his "Late Night" program in 2009.
Her guest spot on Letterman's "Late Show" in 2010 gave her a chance to speak with someone present during the time of her departure from the "Tonight Show." His former NBC show aired after Carson's, and he was familiar with both sides of the story.
Fallon would have the greatest honor to welcome Rivers back to the show that started it all for her.
In the premiere episode of the "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon," Rivers participated in a celebrity-filled skit where each star gave Fallon a hundred dollar bill because they didn't believe he would ever host the program. Everyone that appeared before her gave the host his money and walked away, but Rivers broke and gave Fallon a kiss.
The comedy legend surpassed her contemporaries, Totie Fields and Phyllis Diller, and ushered in future generations of raunchy female comedians like Chelsea Handler and Sarah Silverman.
