Still Talking (35 page)

At the end of April there was a short gossip item in People magazine quoting “one insider” as saying, “She’s not as nitpicky or as bitchy as she was before,” and that Edgar “sits forlornly on the couch … which would be sad if he hadn’t been so nasty.” We thought we knew its source-Jeff Yarborough, who was a stringer reporter for

People in Los Angeles and a very good friend of Barry Diller.

I asked Fox to send the magazine a letter denying the story, and it refused. But People magazine had hit my one vulnerable button when it hurt Edgar. On the air I did a takeoff on it and ended by saying, “What does it matter about People? I just read it on the toilet,” and tossed the magazine over my shoulder. Like everything else, that monologue had been combed through and approved by the Fox lawyers. But the next day Fox ordered me to apologize publicly to People.

I refused. So Fox wrote its own letter, which was published-“We feel it is important that you know that those remarks were Miss Rivers’ alone and were neither approved nor endorsed by Fox Broadcasting Company. We apologize on behalf of Fox for the tone of those remarks and for any implication of a general lack of standards in your magazine’s reporting.” They were now publicly humiliating me, cutting all ties. The relationship was finished.

We were fired as of Friday, May 15. Peter Dekom called us at home. Amazing as it seems, I still could not believe it had actually happened. JoAnn had run a smooth ship; the ratings were going up. I felt like a woman being divorced, signing away the house and still thinking, He’ll come back and say he’s sorry.

The news had to be kept secret until a settlement was made and we could put out a polite joint release. Once it hit the papers, finding guests would be almost impossible. The affiliates were not told. They would read it in the newspaper along with everybody else.

For a week I had to go to the studio to do the show, had to put on a cheerful face and be up. I felt so duplicitous. These were my friends, and this show was their livelihood. Jason Dyl, with AIDS, would be out of a job. Rumors flew. The staff was terrified.

There was a lot of lawyer posturing, Fox saying, “Sue! You’ll get nothing.”

Kevin Wendle came around to Courtney Conte asking for dirt on us to build the network’s case.

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Our lawyers told me I would probably win a lawsuit, but we would be in litigation for three years, Fox would appeal, and there would be more years, costing a million dollars or more in fees. While we waited for the payoff, Fox would have the use of the money it owed me and could write off legal fees as a corporate expense. Every rotten thing the network executives could think of to say about Edgar would be said.

This, finally, was what made me decide to close the door and settle. My husband could not take much more. He was already panicky, calling in teams of lawyers, grasping at straws, agitated, smoking again. I thought if we sued Fox, he would be dead of a heart attack in six months.

We hired Mickey Rudin, a tough, famous lawyer who knew Diller. Even then I thought maybe he would get on the phone and say, “Barry, are you crazy?”

and save the show. But what happened the day we met with Rudin was one telephone call to Diller. Mickey said, “If you want to drag it out, we’ll drag it out. Now what’s the number? … That’s too low … Okay.” That was that.

The number was somewhat over $2 million, including damages for defamation and emotional stress. It was a lot of money, and nobody will feel sorry for me. But still I was staggered, devastated. For that money I never would have left Carson and given up the foundation of my life, lost my status, lost fans, been forced to live forever with the perception that my show was a failure.

I thought I had an airtight contract. I thought we had sewed up Fox for $15

million. I thought, no matter what happened, I could live out the rest of my life in comfort. Well, that is not show business. One of my lawyers explained that when contracts are negotiated, the poor performer just wants the deal, wants to perform. The studio knows the whole time that the contract is only paper. If the deal unravels, it would never pay one hundred cents on the dollar. Edgar was smarter than I was. When we were negotiating the original deal, he said, “In case something goes wrong, we want the fifteen million put in es-

crow.” Rupert Murdoch was outraged. “We are honorable men,” he said.

The settlement was signed on Thursday, and the news hit the press Friday morning, May 15. When the affiliates read the news, there were angry calls to Fox, which placated them by promising a new, wonderful show they would love. At last Kevin Wendle had a free hand. He took over as executive producer and installed Ron Vandor as producer. They had Courtney Conte fire twenty-four people in one day. They cut back the lighting, fired our superb director, David Grossman, and began taping the show in the afternoon. Their plan-perhaps inspired by the week of my substitute hosts-was different star hosts every night, who theoretically would bring on as guests their star friends.

I still had one farewell performance. I remember it in flashes, the standing ovation when I said I would be back, the tears on the cameraman’s face, Pee-wee Herman trashing the set, the pain in Edgar’s face, JoAnn, so upset, such a wonderful producer. The Fox executives were so worried what I might do, they had a tape of an old show at the ready and Ron Vandor in the control room poised to put it on the air.

The good memory came the next day-a full-page ad in Variety, a letter signed by all those people who worked so hard for the show. On Late Show stationery, it read, DEAR JOAN, WE THINK YOU ARE TERRIFIC! WE LOVED WORKING

ON THE SHOW WITH YOU AND ARE PROUD TO HAVE BEEN A PART OF IT.

Today, when Barry Diller’s name is mentioned, people expect to see fury in me. Instead, I feel a terrible sadness-and that is one final thing that makes no sense. But my intuition always told me-and still tells me-that Barry and I could have been friends and worked well together. After Fox, whenever we met-always by accident-we’d move toward each other for an instant-then, just as quickly, pull back.

Then, two years ago at NATPE, the annual convention for independent stations, I was in the Tribune Corporation

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booth promoting my new show. Suddenly my mouth dropped open. At the end of along line of people waiting to meet me stood Barry Diller. Ten minutes later, when he reached me, he took my hand. “I wish you luck,” he said.

“I know you do,” I said. “I know you do.”

16

…

s the days went by, I became more and more angry rl that I had been forced to choose between my husband and my show. I was furious at myself. In my turmoil of grief-my panic thinking-I was deciding very, very deep in my heart that if Edgar had not been involved, I could have made the show work.

I saw myself throwing away everything I had wanted since the day I was conscious in order to save this man’s pride. Too, somewhere in myself, I was looking to Edgar to save me-I had always looked to him-and he had failed. I had always been the juvenile in the relationship, and now, suddenly, I was the head of the family who had been given the reins after the horse was dead and told to drag it into the barn.

I felt lost, like a child with nobody to pat me on the head and say, “Just keep pushing, honey. We’ll come out of it.” What I had always feared was true, was indeed true. I had become my work. When there was no work, I felt as if I did not exist.

Every time I drove out the gate of Bel Air, turning left meant going into town, a failure, turning right meant heading toward someplace in the Midwest, where nobody knew me-gaining a few pounds, wearing no makeup, growing my roots out, and becoming a waitress. It would be easy. People would say, “Boy, you remind me of Joan Rivers,” and I would answer, “Yeah, I’m her cousin.”

I wanted some time of isolation to be quiet about Fox, to get some distance, to take the edge off the bitterness. De tails about the show, now in Kevin Wendle’s hands, just 250

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stirred up the old anger, increased my grief. But friends and well-meaning staffers kept me informed of events, and a gloating side of me did want to know everything but found no comfort in “I told you so.”

While Barry Sand from David Letterman readied his new permanent late-night program, Fox kept The Late Show going each night with a different host. The first week included Carole Bayer Sager and Suzanne Somers-who one reviewer said made me look like Ted Koppel. During succeeding weeks Fox had such names as Marla Gibbs, Jack6e, Martha Quinn, Estelle Getty, Malcolm-Jamal Warner, Frank Zappa, Joan Lunden, Martin Sheen. The show’s ratings slipped to 1.1.

I believe the press thinks in terms of winners and losers, and puts energy and point of view into their stories by glorying with winners and analyzing losers. Overnight they became my champions. In Newsday Marvin Kittman wrote, “I still think the Joan Rivers Show … would work … I still think they will look back with tears in their eyes at Joan’s huge ratings.”

In August, to keep the time slot alive for Barry Sand, Fox brought in Arsenio Hall for thirteen weeks. During that time, Howard Stern, the flamboyant radio personality, was a guest on the show. He blasted Fox for the firingon their own network-and Carson for making me appear disloyal.

Howard told me his outspokenness about Fox cost him plenty. His support meant a great deal to me then, as it does now.

Arsenio had his own telling experience with Fox. He later recounted, “Never once did any executive come and see me. In fact, I was at the Ivy restaurant in Los Angeles one night when I spotted Rupert Murdoch waiting for his car. I introduced myself, and he started fumbling through his pockets for a ticket. He thought I was with valet parking. I told him, `No, Mr. Murdoch. I do your show,’ and he mumbled, `Nice to meet you.’ “

In early August Fox announced The Wilton North Report, and at a press conference, Barry Sand explained that the show would be like “buttermilk .

. . something you may not like at first but which you grow to love, depend

on, as time goes by …. Formats with a host behind a desk and celebrity guests,” he said, “wind up at the bottom of the ocean. At the bottom of the Nielsen ratings are sitting a lot of talkshow hosts, among them Joan Rivers. I thought America was ready for something different. “

The show debuted in mid-December 1987. It wanted to be a late-night soft-news magazine version of Spy magazine. The reviews were horrendous, affiliates began to cancel. It was pulled after eleven shows.

A year later Mr. Barry Sand came to see me at the Westbury Hotel in New York. Now he wanted me to know how much he would like to be the producer of my new Tribune show, with its desk and couch and celebrities. “Sit down,”

I said. “Just throw those papers off the couch. Can I get you something?”

I had to smile.

Next Fox tried to get Arsenio back, but, I understand, offered less money than he had received earlier. He signed for his own talk show with Paramount and the rest is history.

None of the young men who complicated my life are still employed by Fox.

Wendle, using his favor with Diller, usurped the duties of Garth Ancier, who departed to be head of TV programming at Disney. Eventually Wendle himself left Fox. He now works for Quincy Jones Productions. Ron Vandor is station manager for KADY in Oxnard, California.

I admit to taking some satisfaction from the final comparison of ratings.

In Miami, for example, my Late Night averaged 4.3, Arsenio 1.5, The Wilton Report 1. In Chicago it was 5.8, 3.3, 1.3. In New York, 6.9, 3.6, 2.1. And so forth.

A year after I was canceled, Fox gave up and returned the late-night slot to the affiliates-losing millions of dollars and five nighttime hours of programming. They never got that time back and they’ve never had a successful nightly show since.

The irony is-as I’m writing this book, Fox has bought a syndicated show starring my friend Dennis Miller. They’ve scheduled him in my old night slot. The double

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irony is that the syndicator is the Tribune Corporation, which owns my daytime show. So here I am, touring the country to promote Dennis, wishing him well-working indirectly for the Fox network.

After the firing, I was damned if I was going to be destroyed and let the industry be able to say, “… and she never recovered.” After the train wreck, you just get those casualties out and push the cars back onto the track. I went to work on my career-made appointments, went through my Rolodex starting with A. I asked my new agents to negotiate with Hollywood Squares and Hour Magazine. I lunched almost daily at Le Dome, the restaurant on Sunset Boulevard. Yes it was me at the table with one of my old scripts clothed in a new binder. I was seeing writers, producers, going, looking, trying, putting a thousand little boats in the water hoping one would come back with an offer.

In August 1987 one offer did come through, at least one that allowed us four expense-paid days in England with a five-day vacation in Ireland, where I was going to fulfill a fantasy. Like a child, I looked forward to kissing the Blarney stone.

I appeared on the Barry Humphries show. He is a female impersonator who plays the role of Dame Edna Everage-a national treasure. But I was too strung out to be in control, my timing was off, and next to Barry-who is a friend and wanted me to do well-I looked like an unfunny fool.

This confirmed my sense of failure, my terror that I could no longer make it as a comedienne. My booking agent called with the news that the ticket office in North Tonawanda, New York, where I was performing the next week, was doing no business, and was giving away tickets to fill the hall. I told myself, “As a last resort, I can always go down to Florida and entertain old people in condominiums. “

When I made the mistake of worrying aloud to Edgar,