Rivers , who was Jewish , was also criticized for making jokes about the Holocaust and later explained , " This is the way I remind people about the Holocaust . I do it through humor " , adding , " my husband lost his entire family in the Holocaust . " Her joke about the victims of the Ariel Castro kidnappings similarly came under criticism , but she again refused to apologize , stating , " I know what those girls went through . It was a little stupid joke . " She received multiple death threats throughout her career . Rivers accepted such criticism as part of her using social satire as a form of humor : " I 've learned to have absolutely no regrets about any jokes I 've ever done ... You can tune me out , you can click me off , it 's OK . I am not going to bow to political correctness . But you do have to learn , if you want to be a satirist , you ca n't be part of the party . " As an unknown stand-up comedian out of college , she struggled for many years before finding her comic style . She did stints in the Catskills and found that she disliked the older style of comedy at the time , such as Phyllis Diller 's , who she felt was a pioneer female comedian . Her breakthrough came at The Second City in Chicago in 1961 , where she was dubbed " the best girl since Elaine May , " who also got her start there . But May became her and fellow comedian Treva Silverman 's role model , as Rivers saw her as " an assertive woman with a marvelous , fast mind and , at the same time , pretty and feminine . " It was also there that she learned " self reliance , " she said , " that I did n't have to talk down in my humor " and could still earn an income by making intelligent people laugh . " I was really born as a comedian at Second City . I owe it my career . " In early 1965 , at the suggestion of comedian Bill Cosby , Johnny Carson gave Rivers , whom he billed as a comedy writer , her debut appearance on his show . Cosby , who knew Rivers from their early stand-up days , described her as " an intelligent girl without being a weirdo ... a human being , not a kook . " Sitting alongside Johnny after her monologue , she displayed an intimate , conversational style which he appreciated , and she was invited back eight more times that year . '' Time '' magazine compared her humor to that of Woody Allen , by expressing " how to be neurotic about practically everything , " but noting that " her style and femininity make her something special . " Rivers also compared herself to Allen , stating : " He was a writer , which I basically was ... and talking about things that affected our generation that nobody else talked about . " '' The New York Times '' critic Charles L. Mee likewise compared her to Allen , explaining that her " style was personal , an autobiographical stream-of-consciousness . " Rivers ' image contrasted starkly with Carson 's stage demeanor , which was one of the reasons he made her co-host according to critic Michael Pollan , who compared their style of humor : Where Carson is scrupulously polite , Rivers is bitchy ; where he is low-key , she is overheated ; where he is Midwest , Waspy and proper , she is urban , ethnic and gossipy . Carson conducts interviews as if he were at the country club ; Rivers does hers at the kitchen table . In her personal life , she had fewer of those neurotic or intense character traits , according to Ralph Schoenstein , who dated her and worked with her on her humor books . He said , " She has no airs . She does n't stand on ceremony . The woman has absolutely no pretense . She 'll tell you everything immediately . Joan is n't cool — she 's completely open . It 's all grist . It 's her old thing — ' Can we talk ? ' " According to biographer Victoria Price , Rivers ' humor was notable for taking aim at and overturning what had been considered acceptable female behavior . By her bravura she broke through long-standing taboos in humor , which paved the way for other women , including Roseanne Barr , Ellen DeGeneres and Rosie O'Donnell
Ariel Castro kidnappings
Ariel Castro kidnappings
Joan Rivers