DAVID GREENE, HOST: Joan Rivers died yesterday. She was brash and outspoken, often offended people but never held back.</s>DON GONYEA, HOST: The trailblazing comedian got her start on "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson," where she was a frequent guest host and established her signature catchphrase.</s>JOAN RIVERS: Can we talk?</s>DON GONYEA, HOST: Rivers always defended using comedy to tackle tough topics. She took on sexism, even as the women's rights movement was just coming into its own. And she never shied away from making herself the butt of the joke.</s>JOAN RIVERS: I bought the book "The Joy Of Sex," OK? And I got - did you read that chapter 11? - where you wrap yourself up totally in Saran Wrap?</s>JOAN RIVERS: Oh, yeah, great. And I lay down on the dining room table. And my husband came home, and he says, leftovers again?</s>JOAN RIVERS: Oh, you don't know.</s>DAVID GREENE, HOST: Then there was the red carpet, where Rivers coined the phrase, who are you wearing? Her own appearance, of course, evolved over time.</s>DON GONYEA, HOST: In June, she told Weekend Edition's Scott Simon how she became the plastic surgery poster girl.</s>JOAN RIVERS: I had a friend who was a plastic surgeon, so he would do little things. I never had, like, a full thing. So I would go in maybe once every two or three years, and he'd do a little here, a little there - tweaking, like you tweak a car.</s>DON GONYEA, HOST: Rivers never slowed down. Up until the end, she had a weekly TV series, a web show, was still performing stand-up and promoting her latest book. Joan Rivers was 81. This is NPR News.
Comedian Joan Rivers kept audiences laughing through a 50-year career that included bankruptcy, getting banned from The Tonight Show and mourning her husband's suicide.