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Joan Rivers

Joan Alexandra Molinsky (June 8, 1933 – September 4, 2014), known professionally as Joan Rivers, was an American comedian, actress, producer, writer, and television host. She was noted for her blunt, often controversial comedic persona that was heavily self-deprecating and acerbic, especially towards celebrities and politicians, delivered in her signature New York accent. She is considered a pioneer of women in comedy. She received an Emmy Award and a Grammy Award, as well as nomination for a Tony Award.

Rivers started her career in comedy clubs in Greenwich Village alongside her peers George Carlin, Woody Allen, and Richard Pryor. She then rose to prominence in 1965 as a guest on The Tonight Show. Hosted by her mentor, Johnny Carson, the show established Rivers's comedic style. In 1986, with her own rival program, The Late Show with Joan Rivers, Rivers became the first woman to host a late night network television talk show. She subsequently hosted The Joan Rivers Show (1989–1993), winning a Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Talk Show Host. From the mid-1990s, she became known for her comedic red carpet awards show celebrity interviews. Rivers co-hosted the E! celebrity fashion show Fashion Police from 2010 to 2014 and starred in the reality series Joan & Melissa: Joan Knows Best? (2011–2014) with daughter Melissa Rivers.

In addition to marketing a line of jewelry and apparel on the QVC shopping channel, Rivers authored 12 best-selling books and three LP comedy albums under her own name: Mr. Phyllis and Other Funny Stories (Warner Bros 1965), The Next to Last Joan Rivers Album (Buddah 1969), and What Becomes a Semi-Legend Most? (Geffen 1983). She was nominated in 1984 for a Grammy Award for her album What Becomes a Semi-Legend Most? and was nominated in 1994 for the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for her performance of the title role in Sally Marr ... and Her Escorts. In 2009, Rivers competed alongside her daughter Melissa on the second season of The Celebrity Apprentice, ultimately winning the season. In 2015, Rivers posthumously received a Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album for her book, Diary of a Mad Diva.

In 1968, The New York Times television critic Jack Gould called Rivers "quite possibly the most intuitively funny woman alive". In 2017, Rolling Stone magazine ranked her sixth on its list of the 50 best stand-up comics of all time, and in October the same year, she was inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame. She is the subject of the documentary Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work (2010).

Early life
Joan Alexandra Molinsky was born on June 8, 1933, in Brooklyn, New York, to Jewish Russian immigrants Beatrice (née Grushman) and Meyer C. Molinsky, a doctor. She had an elder sister named Barbara Waxler. Rivers spent her early life in Prospect Heights and Crown Heights in Brooklyn. At the age of eight, she created her first alter ego, J. Sondra Meredith. She attended the Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture School, a progressive and now-defunct school, and Adelphi Academy of Brooklyn, a college preparatory day school, where she was co-chair of her school, due to her past experiences in theatrical activities. Within two years, she performed in the School Cavalcades, and in 1949, aged 16, she was vice president of the Dramatic Club. She graduated from the Adelphi Academy of Brooklyn, in 1951, at 18. In her adolescence, Rivers relocated with her family to Larchmont, north of New York City.

Rivers matriculated at Connecticut College; it was a family legacy to attend the institution, as her sister had done. Rivers has stated in interviews that she was overweight throughout her childhood, adolescence and in college, and that it had a profound impact on her body image, which she struggled with throughout her life. After two years, she transferred to Barnard College, where she graduated in 1954 with a BA in English literature and anthropology.

Rivers repeatedly said, and it was reported in The Washington Post, that she graduated summa cum laude and as a member of Phi Beta Kappa; however, biographers James Spada and Leslie Bennetts found that these were fabrications, as with other statements such as sharing a lesbian kiss in a play with Barbra Streisand (they did both appear in a play named Driftwood, but were never on stage at the same time).

Before entering show business, Rivers worked at various jobs such as a tour guide at Rockefeller Center, a writer/proofreader at an advertising agency and a fashion consultant at Bond Clothing Stores. During this period, agent Tony Rivers advised her to change her name, so she chose Joan Rivers as her stage name. She stated that he stopped sending her to audition because of this.

1950s–1960s
During the late 1950s, Rivers appeared in a short off-Broadway play called Driftwood alongside Barbra Streisand. According to an interview with Adweek, the play ran for six weeks at the playwright Maurice Tei Dunn's apartment on 49th Street in New York. In the early 1960s, Rivers performed at various comedy clubs in Greenwich Village, including The Bitter End, The Gaslight Cafe and The Duplex. It was during this period that she befriended fellow comedians Woody Allen and George Carlin, often sharing meals with them. Rivers also had the opportunity to work alongside renowned musicians Bob Dylan, Barbra Streisand, Carly Simon, and Simon & Garfunkel in the Village.

Between 1963 and 1964, Rivers joined forces with Jim Connell and Jake Holmes in the cabaret act "Jim, Jake & Joan". Their appearance at The Bitter End in 1964 led to their inclusion in the motion picture Once Upon A Coffee House, marking Rivers' first credit in a feature film. However, the group disbanded soon after. Holmes later recalled an incident that led to their separation: "We were supposed to perform at a rally for Bobby Kennedy, who was running for New York senator in 1964. Joan showed up wearing a [Republican Senate nominee Kenneth] Keating button, and Jim told her to remove it. She refused, staunchly sticking to her political beliefs, and Jim said, 'Who needs you, anyway?' That was the end of Jim, Jake & Joan..."

Rivers also made a guest appearance on The Tonight Show, hosted by Jack Paar, which originated in New York. In 1965, she worked as a gag writer and participant on Candid Camera, where she played the role of "the bait" to lure people into humorous situations for the show. After seven auditions over three years, she finally made her first appearance on The Tonight Show with its new host, Johnny Carson, on February 17, 1965. Rivers considered this episode to be her breakthrough, as Carson famously told her, "you're gonna be a star." She became a frequent guest on the show and developed a close friendship with Carson.

Her profile skyrocketed in the following years, and she began to make frequent guest appearances on popular shows like The Ed Sullivan Show, The Mike Douglas Show, The Dick Cavett Show, and Girl Talk with Virginia Graham. She even wrote material for the puppet mouse Topo Gigio. In addition, she had a small role in the cult drama film The Swimmer (1968), alongside Burt Lancaster. Around the same time, she hosted a short-lived syndicated daytime talk show called That Show with Joan Rivers, which premiered on September 16, 1968. Each episode had a unique theme, and Rivers opened with a monologue related to that day's topic, then hosted celebrity interviews. The show also featured an expert on the subject and a celebrity guest. Early episodes featured prominent figures such as Johnny Carson, Jerry Lewis, Joel Grey, Don Rickles, and Godfrey Cambridge. During the mid-1960s, she released at least two comedy albums: The Next to Last Joan Rivers Album  and Rivers Presents Mr. Phyllis & Other Funny Stories.

1970s
By the 1970s, Rivers continued to be a prominent fixture on television. Along with her other guest-spots on the late-night circuit, she also made appearances on The Carol Burnett Show, had a semi-regular stint on Hollywood Squares and guest-starred on Here's Lucy. Rivers made her Broadway debut in the play Fun City, which opened on January 2, 1972, and co-starred Gabriel Dell, Rose Marie and Paul Ford. It ran for only nine performances amid a negative critical reception. Though a New York Times reviewer criticized the production as "frenetic to the point of being frazzled," he praised Rivers as "a deft comedy writer" and "a very funny lady". From 1972 to 1976, she narrated The Adventures of Letterman, an animated segment for The Electric Company.

In 1973, Rivers co-wrote the made-for-television movie The Girl Most Likely To..., a black comedy starring Stockard Channing as an ugly girl who becomes beautiful after undergoing plastic surgery, and takes revenge on people who previously mistreated her. The film, based on Rivers' story, became a ratings success and has been considered a "cult classic". She also wrote a thrice-weekly column for The Chicago Tribune from 1973 to 1976, and published her first book, Having a Baby Can Be a Scream, in 1974; she described it as a "catalogue of gynaecological anxieties". In 1978, Rivers made her directorial debut with the comedy Rabbit Test, which she also wrote and which starred her friend Billy Crystal in his film debut as the world's first pregnant man. The film flopped at the box office and was panned by critics. Janet Maslin of The New York Times concluded: "Miss Rivers has turned to directing without paying much heed to whether a whole movie constructed from one-liners is worth even the sum of its parts." During the same decade, she was the opening act for singers Helen Reddy, Robert Goulet, Paul Anka, Mac Davis, and Sergio Franchi on the Las Vegas Strip.

1980s
During the early and mid-1980s, Rivers found further success in stand-up and television, though the decade subsequently proved to be controversial for her. The year 1983, in particular, was very successful; she performed at Carnegie Hall in February, did the March stand-up special An Audience with Joan Rivers, hosted the April 9 episode of Saturday Night Live, and released the best-selling comedy album What Becomes a Semi-Legend Most?, which reached No. 22 on the U.S. Billboard 200 and was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album. By August 1983, Carson established Rivers as his first permanent guest host on The Tonight Show. At the time, she spoke of her primary Tonight Show life as having been "Johnny Carson's daughter", a reference to his longtime mentoring of her.

During the 1980s and 1990s, Rivers served on the advisory board of the National Student Film Institute. A friend of Nancy Reagan, Rivers attended a state dinner in 1983, and later performed at a luncheon at the 1984 Republican National Convention. In 1984, Rivers published a best-selling humor book, The Life and Hard Times of Heidi Abramowitz, a mock memoir of her brassy, loose comedy character, which was mostly jokes about promiscuity – of a type that would have been considered unacceptable even in burlesque a generation earlier. A television special based on the character, a mock tribute called Joan Rivers and Friends Salute Heidi Abramowitz: Tramp of the Century, later aired on Showtime. She later wrote her next book, Enter Talking, which was released in 1986, and described her rise to stardom and the evolution of her comedic persona.

In 1986, the move came that ended Rivers' longtime friendship with Johnny Carson. The soon-to-launch Fox Television Network announced that it was giving her a late night talk show, The Late Show Starring Joan Rivers, making Rivers the first woman to have her own late-night talk show on a major network. The new network planned to broadcast the show 11 p.m. to midnight Eastern Time, making her a Carson competitor. Carson learned of the show from Fox and not from Rivers. In the documentary Johnny Carson: King of Late Night, Rivers said that she only called Carson to discuss the matter after learning that he may have already heard about it and that he immediately hung up on her. "And he never spoke to me again. He took it as a complete betrayal," said Joan. In the same interview, she said that she later came to believe that maybe she should have asked for his blessing before taking the job. Rivers was banned from ever appearing on The Tonight Show for the rest of Carson's tenure and the entire runs of Carson's first two successors Jay Leno and Conan O'Brien out of respect for Carson. Rivers did not appear on The Tonight Show again until February 17, 2014, at the age of 80, when she made a brief appearance on new host Jimmy Fallon's first episode. On March 27, 2014, Rivers returned to the show for an interview.

The Late Show Starring Joan Rivers premiered on October 9, 1986, but Rivers' tenure was short-lived. When Rivers challenged Fox executives, who wanted to fire her husband Edgar Rosenberg as the show's producer, the network fired them both on May 15, 1987.

On August 14, 1987, Rosenberg committed suicide in Philadelphia; Rivers blamed the tragedy on his "humiliation" by Fox. Shortly after Rosenberg's suicide the magazine GQ published what was purported to be an interview with Rivers, written by "Bert Hacker". The piece quoted Rivers saying terrible things about her dead spouse. One quote was "Listen, when I think of the way he makes me crazy, I really wonder if they didn't execute the wrong Rosenbergs." In fact, Bert Hacker was a pseudonym used by former Nixon speechwriter and sometime comic Ben Stein, who had never met Rivers and simply made up the entire account. Rivers sued Stein for libel and won an undisclosed amount which was distributed to charities she designated. Rivers credited Nancy Reagan with helping her after her husband's suicide.

During the airing of her late-night show, Rivers made the voice-over role of Dot Matrix in the science-fiction comedy Spaceballs (1987), a parody based (mainly) on Star Wars. The film, directed and co-starring Mel Brooks, was a critical and commercial success, later becoming a "cult classic". After the Fox controversy, her career went into hiatus. Rivers subsequently appeared on various television shows, including the Pee-wee's Playhouse Christmas Special in December 1989. She also appeared as one of the center square occupants on the 1986–89 version of The Hollywood Squares, hosted by John Davidson. On September 5, 1989, The Joan Rivers Show, her daytime television program, premiered in broadcast syndication. The show, which ran for five seasons, was a success and earned Rivers the Daytime Emmy in 1990 for Outstanding Talk Show Host. Entertainment Weekly, in a September 1990 article, asserted: "The Joan Rivers Show is a better showcase for her funny edginess than her doomed 1988 Fox nighttime program was. The best thing about her daytime talker is that Rivers' stream-of-consciousness chattiness is allowed to guide the show — you never know where the conversation is going to go."

1990s
In addition to winning the Emmy for The Joan Rivers Show, Rivers starred in the made-for-television comedy How to Murder a Millionaire, which premiered in May 1990 on CBS. In the film, co-starring Alex Rocco and Telma Hopkins, she took on the role of a Beverly Hills matron possessed with the idea her husband is trying to kill her. Also in 1990, she started to design jewelry, clothing and beauty products for the shopping channel QVC. On this professional endeavor, Rivers said: "In those days, only dead celebrities went on [QVC]. My career was over. I had bills to pay. ... It also intrigued me at the beginning". The sales of Rivers' products exceeded $1 billion by 2014, making her one of the network's top sellers. In 1991, she wrote her next book, Still Talking, which described the cancellation of her late-night show and her husband's suicide. Until 1993, she received five additional Emmy nominations for her daytime talk-show The Joan Rivers Show — two for Outstanding Writing – Special Class and three for Outstanding Talk Show Host.

In 1994, Rivers and daughter Melissa first hosted the E! Entertainment Television pre-awards show for the Golden Globe Awards and, beginning in 1995, E!'s annual Academy Awards pre-awards show as well. Rivers and her daughter quickly became credited for revolutionizing the red carpet as a space to showcase designers' work and celebrity interactions. "Joan and Melissa were the first people who came out and made it more of a true conversation between star and reporter", E!'s Senior Vice President of production, Gary Snegaroff, remarked to Vanity Fair. "They asked about what [actresses] were wearing because that's what the magazines would cover after the fact, and turned it into a candid conversation on the carpet where anything could happen". Rivers and Melissa, at the time, both portrayed themselves in the made-for-television drama Tears and Laughter: The Joan and Melissa Rivers Story, which chronicled the aftermath of Rosenberg's suicide. It aired on NBC on May 15, 1994. The next year, she wrote her book Jewelry by Joan Rivers.

Influenced by the stand-up comedy of Lenny Bruce, Rivers co-wrote and starred in a play about Bruce's mother Sally Marr, who was also a comic and influenced her son's development as a comic. After 27 previews, Sally Marr ... and Her Escorts, a play "suggested by the life of Sally Marr" ran on Broadway for 50 performances in May and June 1994. The production received mixed reviews, but her performance was applauded by critics. The Chicago Sun Times found Rivers to be "compelling" as an actress while The New York Times wrote: "... [S]he is exuberant, fearless and inexhaustible. If you admire performers for taking risks, then you can't help but applaud her efforts". Rivers was nominated for a Drama Desk Award as Outstanding Actress in a Play and a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for playing Marr. Beginning in March 1997, Rivers hosted her own radio show on WOR in New York City for several years, and wrote three self-help books: Bouncing Back: I've Survived Everything ... and I Mean Everything ... and You Can Too! in 1997, From Mother to Daughter: Thoughts and Advice on Life, Love and Marriage in 1998, and Don't Count the Candles: Just Keep the Fire Lit!, in 1999.

2000s
Rivers was a guest speaker at the opening of the American Operating Room Nurses' San Francisco Conference in 2000, and by the first part of the decade, she continued to host the awards' red carpet for the E! channel. Between 2002 and 2004, she embarked on tour with her one-person comedy show Joan Rivers: Broke and Alone, which was presented in the United Kingdom (Edinburgh and London) and in the United States (Los Angeles, and Boston), to generally positive reviews. The Telegraph felt that her "hilarious assaults on fellow celebrities and tirades about the perils of ageing and plastic surgery are well worth the expense", while The Guardian remarked that "Rivers returned triumphant, a victorious heavyweight after a great fight, conscious that she is still the champion".

In 2003, Rivers left the network red-carpet show for a three-year contract (valued at $6–8 million) to cover award shows' red carpet events for the TV Guide Channel. Meanwhile, Rivers guest-starred as herself in several television series, including Curb Your Enthusiasm, Nip/Tuck, and Boston Legal,  and also voiced herself for a brief scene in the 2004 animated fantasy film Shrek 2. In 2004, Rivers was part of the formal receiving party when Ronald Reagan was placed in state at the United States Capitol. On December 3, 2007, Rivers performed at the 79th Royal Variety Show at the Liverpool Empire Theatre, England, with Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip present. She wrote and starred in the play Joan Rivers: A Work in Progress by a Life in Progress, which was directed by Sean Foley, and presented through 2008 at the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and the Leicester Square Theatre, to a mixed critical reception.

In 2008, Rivers was invited to take part in a comedy event celebrating Prince Charles' 60th Birthday titled, We Are Most Amused. She was the only American alongside Robin Williams invited to take part in the event. Other comedians included John Cleese, who served as the master of ceremonies, Eric Idle, Rowan Atkinson, and Bill Bailey. Those in attendance included Prince Charles, Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall and Prince Harry.

Throughout the decade, Rivers often appeared in various television game shows, including 8 Out of 10 Cats, Big Brother: Celebrity Hijack, and Celebrity Family Feud, in which she competed with her daughter against Ice-T and Coco. In 2009, Rivers and daughter Melissa were contestants on season eight of Celebrity Apprentice. During the season, each celebrity raised money for a charity of his or her choice; Rivers selected God's Love We Deliver. After a falling out with poker player Annie Duke, following Melissa's on-air firing (elimination) by Donald Trump, Rivers left the green room telling Clint Black and Jesse James that she would not be in the next morning. Rivers later returned to the show and on May 3, 2009, she became a finalist in the series. The other finalist was Duke. On the season finale, which aired live on May 10, Rivers was announced the winner and hired to be the 2009 Celebrity Apprentice.

Also in 2009, Rivers was a special "pink-carpet" presenter for the broadcast of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras parade, was roasted in a Comedy Central special, and her reality show, How'd You Get So Rich?, premiered on TV Land. The program, which ran for two seasons, followed Rivers traveling around the United States interviewing self-made millionaires. She also wrote two books in 2009: Murder at the Academy Awards (R): A Red Carpet Murder Mystery and Men Are Stupid ... And They Like Big Boobs: A Woman's Guide to Beauty Through Plastic Surgery (with Valerie Frankel).

2010s
A documentary film about Rivers, Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 25, 2010. The film follows Rivers for 14 months, mostly during the 76th year of her life, and made an effort to "[peel] away the mask" and expose the "struggles, sacrifices and joy of living life as a ground breaking female performer". The film was released in a limited release on June 11, 2010, and was acclaimed by critics for providing "an honest, behind-the-scenes look at [Rivers]' career — and at show business in general". Beginning on September 10, 2010, Rivers co-hosted the E! show Fashion Police, along with Giuliana Rancic, Kelly Osbourne, and George Kotsiopoulos, commenting on celebrity fashion. The show started as a half-hour program but due to its success with viewers, it was expanded to one hour on March 9, 2012. The August 26, 2014 episode of Fashion Police, about the 66th Primetime Emmy Awards and the 2014 MTV Movie Awards, was her last television appearance before her death.

In 2011, Rivers appeared in a commercial for Go Daddy, which debuted during the broadcast of Super Bowl XLV, and was featured as herself in the season two episode of Louis C.K.'s self-titled show Louie entitled "Joan", where she performed on stage and gave C.K. comedy advice. The A.V. Club's Nathan Rabin described the episode as a "funny and deeply moving exploration of the existential dilemma of the stand-up comic and a valentine to the artform." Also in 2011, Rivers and her daughter starred in the reality show Joan & Melissa: Joan Knows Best?, which premiered on WE tv. The series follows her moving in with her daughter to California to be closer to her family. The show ran for four seasons until 2014. On the December 4, 2011 episode of The Simpsons, "The Ten-Per-Cent Solution", Rivers took on the role of Annie Dubinsky, an agent trying to revive Krusty's career. Hayden Childs of The A.V. Club praised the choice of having Rivers guest star since she was able to "employ her trademark humor within the world of The Simpsons without hijacking the plot or satire". In 2012, she guest-starred in two episodes of two series: Drop Dead Diva and Hot in Cleveland.

Rivers released her 11th book I Hate Everyone...Starting with Me on June 5, 2012. It received generally positive reviews and made The New York Times Best Seller list for several weeks. The New York Times remarked that there were "more punch lines per paragraph than any book I've read in years", and Publishers Weekly felt that "Rivers is equally passionate and opinionated on every subject she discusses. Hilarious and undeniably original". On August 7, 2012, Rivers showed up in Burbank, California to protest that the warehouse club Costco would not sell the book. She handcuffed herself to a shopping cart and shouted through a megaphone. The police were called to the scene and she left without incident; no arrests were made. On March 5, 2013, she launched the online talk show In Bed with Joan on YouTube. In it, Rivers invited a different guest to talk to her in bed about different things including their past, their love life and their career.

Rivers released her 12th book, Diary of a Mad Diva, on July 1, 2014, which also made The NY Times Best Seller list. For the book, she posthumously won the Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album in 2015. Before her death, she filmed a part, along with other female comedians, for the documentary MAKERS: Women in Comedy, which premiered on PBS in October 2014.

Comedic style
During her 55-year career as a comedian, her tough-talking style of satirical humor was both praised and criticized as truthful, yet too personal, too gossipy, and very often abrasive. Nonetheless, with her ability to "tell it like it is", she became a pioneer of contemporary stand-up comedy. Commenting about her style, she told biographer Gerald Nachman, "Maybe I started it. We're a very gossipy culture. All we want to know now is private lives." However, her style of humor, which often relied on making jokes about her own life and satirizing the lives of celebrities and public figures, was sometimes criticized as insensitive. Her jokes about Elizabeth Taylor and Adele's weight, for instance, were often commented on, although Rivers would never apologize for her humor.

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 the price of 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 can'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 nevertheless 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 didn'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".

According to biographer Victoria Price, Rivers' humor was notable for taking aim at and overturning what had been considered acceptable female behavior. She broke through long-standing taboos in humor, which paved the way for other women, including Roseanne Barr, Ellen DeGeneres and Rosie O'Donnell. Rivers became closely associated with her catchphrase: "Can we talk?".

Personal life
Rivers was one of only four Americans invited to the Wedding of Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles on April 9, 2005. Rivers was licensed to carry a gun in New York City. She was threatened with the loss of the license after an altercation with a car rental clerk in 2002. She was a registered Republican.

Relationships and family
Rivers' first marriage was in 1956 to James Sanger, the son of a Bond Clothing Stores merchandise manager. The marriage lasted six months and was annulled on the basis that Sanger did not want children and had not informed Rivers before the wedding.

Rivers married Edgar Rosenberg on July 15, 1965. Their only child, Melissa Rivers, was born on January 20, 1968. Joan Rivers had one grandson, Cooper, born Edgar Cooper Endicott in 2000. Along with his mother and grandmother, Cooper was featured in the WE tv series Joan & Melissa: Joan Knows Best? Rivers was married to Rosenberg until his suicide in 1987, four days after she asked him for a separation. She would later describe her marriage to Rosenberg as a "total sham", complaining bitterly about his treatment of her during their 22-year marriage. In a 2012 interview with Howard Stern, Rivers said she had several extramarital affairs when married to Rosenberg, including a one-night stand with actor Robert Mitchum in the 1960s and an affair with actor Gabriel Dell. In the 1990s, she was in an eight-year relationship with the commissioner of the New York State Office of Parks and Recreation, disabled World War II veteran Orin Lehman of the Lehman family.

In her book Bouncing Back, Rivers described how she developed bulimia nervosa after Rosenberg's 1987 suicide, and the subsequent death of her psychologist, with whom she had developed a close friendship, of an AIDS related illness. Additionally, Rivers' relationship with her daughter had been strained at the time, as Melissa blamed her for her father's death. According to Rivers, the confluence of events resulted in her contemplating suicide in her California home. "I got the gun out, the whole thing," she recalled in a 2008 interview. "And [then] my dog came and sat in my lap...and that was a big turning point in my life. My little, stupid dog, a Yorkie, who I adored, literally came and sat on my lap. ...and literally, he saved my life. Truly saved my life." Rivers eventually recovered with counseling and the support of her family.

In a 2002 ITV biography, Rivers reveals that she is the great niece (on her mother's side) of singer Happy Fanny Fields. She says that, "(Fanny) was the star of the family; she came over to the United States and married very, very rich and became very grand. But, she was the one person Noël Coward wanted to meet when he hit the United States."

Philanthropy
As a philanthropist, Rivers supported causes which included HIV/AIDS activism, and in May 1985, she appeared along with Nichols and May at a Comic Relief benefit for the new AIDS Medical Foundation in New York City, where tickets at the Shubert Theatre sold for as much as $500. She supported the Elton John AIDS Foundation and God's Love We Deliver, which delivers meals to HIV/AIDS patients in New York City. In 2008, she was commended by the City of San Diego, California for her philanthropic work on behalf of HIV/AIDS, where the HIV/AIDS community called her its "Joan of Arc".

Additionally, she served as an Honorary Director of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. She also supported Guide Dogs for the Blind, a non-profit organization which provides guide dogs to blind people. She donated to Jewish charities, animal welfare efforts, and suicide prevention causes. Among the other non-profit organizations which she helped were Rosie's Theater Kids, Habitat for Humanity, Human Rights Campaign and the Boy Scouts of America.

Cosmetic procedures
Rivers was open about her multiple cosmetic surgeries and had been a patient of plastic surgeon Steven Hoefflin since 1983. She had her nose thinned while still at college; her next procedure, an eye lift, was performed in 1965 (when she was in her 30s) as an attempt to further her career. When promoting her book, Men Are Stupid...And They Like Big Boobs: A Woman's Guide to Beauty Through Plastic Surgery, described by The New York Times Magazine as "a detailed and mostly serious guide to eye lifts, tummy tucks and other forms of plastic surgery", she quipped: "I've had so much plastic surgery, when I die they will donate my body to Tupperware."

Death
On August 28, 2014, Rivers experienced serious complications and stopped breathing while undergoing what was scheduled to be a minor throat procedure at an outpatient clinic in Yorkville, Manhattan. Resuscitated an hour later, Rivers was transferred to Mount Sinai Hospital in East Harlem and later put on life support. She died on September 4 at Mount Sinai, never having awakened from a medically induced coma. The New York City Medical Examiner's Office said that she died from brain damage caused by a lack of oxygen.

After nearly two months of investigations, federal officials said on November 10 that the clinic made a number of mistakes both before and during the procedure. Among those were the clinic's failure to respond to Rivers' deteriorating vital signs, including a severe drop in her blood pressure, possibly administering an incorrect anesthetic dosage, performing a surgical procedure without her consent, and other medical-clinic irregularities.

On September 7, after the cremation of Rivers' body at Garden State Crematory in North Bergen, New Jersey, a private memorial service took place at Temple Emanu-El in Manhattan. The service was attended by an estimated 1,500 people. The guest list included Rivers' many celebrity friends and public figures such as Howard Stern, Louis C.K., Whoopi Goldberg, Barbara Walters, Diane Sawyer, Joy Behar, Michael Kors, Matthew Broderick, Sarah Jessica Parker, Rosie O'Donnell, Bernadette Peters, Kathy Griffin, and Donald Trump. The musical performances included Hugh Jackman singing "Quiet Please, There's a Lady On Stage", as well as the New York City Gay Men's Chorus singing show tunes. Talk show host Howard Stern, who delivered the eulogy, described Rivers as "brassy in public [and] classy in private ... a troublemaker, trail blazer, pioneer for comics everywhere, ... [who] fought the stereotypes that women can't be funny." Daughter Melissa read a comedic note to her mother as part of her eulogy. Some of Rivers' ashes were scattered by her daughter in Wyoming.

On January 26, 2015, Melissa Rivers filed a malpractice lawsuit against the clinic and the doctors who performed surgery on her mother. The suit was settled for an undisclosed amount in May 2016, with the doctors accepting responsibility for Rivers' death.

Reactions and tributes
Upon Rivers' death, friends, fans, family and celebrities paid tribute. Numerous comedians recognized Rivers' influence on their career, including Kathy Griffin, who considered Rivers her "mentor", noting, "She brought a fearlessness and a brand of humor into our homes that we really need." Chris Rock said "she was the hippest comedian from the time she started to the day she died". Describing her as a force in comedy, he added, "No man ever said, 'Yeah, I want to go on after Joan.' No, Joan Rivers closed the show every night." Other comedians recalled working with her on stage and television decades earlier: stand-up performer Don Rickles said "working with her and enjoying the fun times of life with her was special". Carol Burnett called Rivers "the poster child for the Energizer Bunny".

Numerous talk show hosts, including David Muir, Graham Norton, Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, Oprah Winfrey, Sally Jessy Raphael, Wendy Williams, Geraldo Rivera, Regis Philbin, Arsenio Hall, Ellen DeGeneres, and David Letterman, paid tribute to Rivers, often including video clips of her appearances. Letterman called her a "real pioneer for other women looking for careers in stand-up comedy. And talk about guts." Conan O'Brien discussed Rivers' legacy with fellow comedian and lifelong friend Chris Hardwick on Conan, while Seth Meyers recalled Rivers' appearance on his talk show, saying, "I have not sat next to anyone who told more jokes faster than Joan Rivers did when she was here." On The Daily Show, host Jon Stewart noted her contributions to comedy: "There are very few people in my business that you can say are, or were, actually groundbreaking talents. Joan Rivers was one of them." Radio host Howard Stern, who delivered the eulogy at her funeral, devoted an entire one-hour show to Rivers. Stern sought help from comedian Louis C.K., another friend of Rivers', before giving the eulogy. When Stern spoke at the funeral, he began the eulogy with, "Joan Rivers had a dry vagina", a joke that was intended, and reportedly received by guests, as a humorous honoring of Rivers' comedic sensibility. Sarah Silverman paid tribute to Rivers while hosting Saturday Night Live; in one sketch, she portrayed Rivers in Heaven. Long-time friend, comedian, fellow talk show hostess and television personality Whoopi Goldberg tweeted: "My friend Joan Rivers has passed away". She said: "Once again to quote Billy Crystal...There are no words." Comedian Louis C.K. released a statement saying, "I looked up to her. I learned from her. I loved her. I liked her.  And I already miss her very much. It really fucking sucks that she had to die all of a sudden." Amy Schumer, speaking at the 2014 Glamour magazine "Woman of the Year Awards" ceremony in Carnegie Hall, paid tribute to Rivers, calling her the bravest female comedian.

Political figures giving tribute to Rivers included former First Lady Nancy Reagan, who said she was one of the "funniest people I ever knew". Upon hearing of her death, Charles, Prince of Wales and his wife Camilla said she was "utterly irreplaceable". Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu noted that besides bringing laughter to millions of people around the world, she was "proud of her Jewish heritage". Donald Trump attended her funeral and tweeted that she "was an amazing woman and a great friend". After her mother's death, Melissa Rivers said she received a letter from President Barack Obama in which he wrote, despite being a frequent target of Rivers' jokes: "not only did she make us laugh, she made us think".

In a subsequent interview with The Huffington Post, Melissa Rivers cited Courtney Love's public tribute to her mother as her favorite, adding: "I loved seeing that outpouring from these women, especially the ones who took the heat on Fashion Police, because it meant they got it. It meant they loved her. It meant they saw the humor."

Rivers' influences
Joan Rivers was strongly influenced by Lenny Bruce. As a female comic, Rivers felt indebted to, but also very distinct from, other female standups and comedians including Phyllis Diller (a close friend and companion), Fanny Brice, Sophie Tucker, Pearl Williams, Belle Barth, Totie Fields, Jean Carroll, Minnie Pearl, Jackie "Moms" Mabley, Johnny Carson, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Bob Newhart, Woody Allen, Don Rickles, Imogene Coca, Elaine May, Carol Burnett, and Gracie Allen. Rivers's early comedy in particular was influenced by vaudeville, Borscht Belt, and proto-feminist comedy of the early-1900s.

In the 1960s and 1970s, Rivers was in a comedy circuit with Lenny Bruce, Woody Allen, Richard Pryor, George Carlin, and Dick Cavett. Though she counted them as peers and friends, she never felt included due to sexist practices within the industry.

Comedians influenced by Rivers
Mainstream comedians and contemporaries who have claimed that Rivers was an influence on them include: Kathy Griffin, Sarah Silverman, Margaret Cho, Whitney Cummings, Chris Hardwick, Joy Behar, Amy Schumer, Whoopi Goldberg, Chelsea Handler, Louis C.K., Roseanne Barr, Greg Proops and David Letterman. She is considered a pioneer of women in comedy by many critics and journalists.

Books

 * (self-help/humor)
 * (humor)
 * (autobiography)
 * (autobiography)
 * (non-fiction)
 * (self-help/humor)
 * (self-help)
 * (self-help)
 * (fiction)
 * (non-fiction)
 * (humor)
 * (humor)

 Audiobooks

All are authored and read by Joan Rivers, except where noted.

Other honors

 * On July 26, 1989, she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, in the 7000 block of Hollywood Boulevard.
 * On March 1, 2013, Rivers and her daughter, Melissa Rivers, were honored by the Ride of Fame and a double decker tour bus was dedicated to them in New York City.
 * In a Netflix special released in May 2022, The Hall: Honoring the Greats of Stand-Up inducted Joan Rivers into the National Comedy Center in Jamestown, NY. In June 2023, Melissa Rivers announced that a Joan Rivers career archive (including the joke file featured in Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work) would be housed at the center, premiering in 2025.

title: Joan Rivers


text:
Talk:Trial by ordeal

Apologetical statements
Is it me or are the statements in the first paragraph seem a little bit too apologetical to others too? What on earth makes you believe that trial by ordeal lasted longer elsewhere than it lasted in Europe. For one thing I don't know anything that resembles such a practice in middle east. There were executions without trial, torture so on so forth but I never heard of trial by ordeal. Does the author have a problem admitting there may be meaningless and violent things in comperatively recent european history? After all the whole article is about the practice as it is done in europe but the introduction puts the blame on every culture. How do you know if such a thing existed in Hawaii or not for example?

---

Didn't trial by ordeal survive on the books in England a lot longer than it was actually used? I know trial by combat did. --Daniel C. Boyer 18:16 12 Jul 2003 (UTC)

 * My understanding is that since the traditional ordeals were supervised by the Roman Catholic clergy, and probably got most of their probative value from the practice of auricular confession, that they fell into disuse with the Reformation. Unlike trial by combat, I don't know of any instances where surprised judges learned that it was still called for.  I have Pollock and Maitland at my office, and I can check there on Monday.  -- IHCOYC 00:34 13 Jul 2003 (UTC)

 * Am I correct in saying that trial by combat was only outlawed in the reign of George III (though it had not been practiced for quite some time)? --Daniel C. Boyer 16:47 13 Jul 2003 (UTC)

 * You are. The case of Ashford v. Thornton ruled that it was still part of English law in 1818.  Now I suspect that the answer to your question has to do with the Roman Catholic Church's decision not to allow priests to participate in the early thirteenth century.  Since I strongly suspect that the involvement of the priests was more than merely passive, and that the priests were finagling the outcomes to make sure that the decision they thought right was confirmed by miracle of God in the ordeal, the ban on their participation may have spelled doom for the procedure.  Later "ordeals" seem more investigative tools than trials. -- IHCOYC 18:29 13 Jul 2003 (UTC)

 * According to Blackstone, Henry III abolished trials by ordeal early in his reign, in 1220; see Bl. Commentaries v. IV, p. *418. So while battle continued for some time as a theoretical possibility, ordeal was no longer an option.  -- IHCOYC 14:10 14 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Disputed
The ordeal by water paragraph repeats claims ("dunking of witches") that are the subject of an accuracy dispute in trial by drowning. I have no expertise to help the resolution but I have inserted the dubious marker to flag the need for:

a. A common resolution in both articles

b. Suitable cross links between the two articles

--Cje 19:45, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Ordeal by cold water involved binding and tossing the "defendant" into a pond after the water had been consecrated by a priest. The test was if you were accepted by consecrated water - you went under - you were innocent and possibly drowned but at least you died with your reputation restored. If you floated then you were guilty at which point you were fished from the pond tied to a stake and after some smoldering burned to death.

I seem to not be the only one that connects english "Ordeal" to Late Latin "Ordalium", from Out-Deal "Deal out", anyway, if that's correct, I wonder why that would be Fordalia in Interlingua, and not Ordalia.

The "cursed morsel" - I wonder if this was the source for Eddie Izzard's Cake or Death routine? Ubermonkey 21:32, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Quote: 'a Scandinavian and Anglo-Saxon practice was for the accused to walk nine paces with a red-hot iron bar held in both hands. This is one proposed etymology for the traditional phrase "the whole nine yards."'

The second sentence is literally true - this *is* one proposed etymology - but the chances of it being the true etymology are zero (the phrase is not commonly used in the UK and first appears in the US in the 1960s). This article isn't the place for a discussion of folk etymology; I propose simply deleting that sentence. Amroth 19:12, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

- Question regarding statement in "Ordeal of Fire" section. It is stated "...was described by Gregory of Tours in the seventh century AD". If Gregory of Tours died in 594, I believe the author meant sixth century AD, but I didn't want to change it in case I'm misunderstanding something.67.42.103.2 06:54, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

I have a few minor points of contention on this article's opening and suggestions for references.

1. There should be some qualification in describing the ordeal as a painful task. Although ordeals usually were painful, this was not always the case, such as in the turf ordeal in medieval Iceland (see: William Ian Miller, "Ordeal in Iceland," Scandinavian Studies, 60, pp. 189-218).

2. In discussing the ordeal in other parts of the world, it might be useful to mention the poison ordeal in Africa (see: Roberts, “Oaths, Autonomic Ordeals, and Power,” American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol. 67, No. 6, Part 2: The Ethnography of Law (Dec., 1965) 3. In the statment: "where the intended effect is magical" add, "or based on a belief in fate" (again, see Miller on Icelandic ordeals)

4. the statement: "Priestly cooperation in trials by fire and water was forbidden by Pope Innocent III at the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215, and replaced by compurgation.[1]" seems to imply that the 4th lateran council replaced the ordeal with compurgation, which is not at all the case. Canon 18 of Lateran IV prohibits clerical involvement in the ordeal (the reasoning seems to be that the ordeal involves the clerical shedding of blood), but does not suggest anything to replace the ordeal. Thus, how the ordeal was to be replaced was left up to secular authorities--and as far as I know, they did not replace the ordeal with compurgation. According to Robert Bartlett's Trial by Fire and Water: The Medieval Judicial Ordeal (New York: Clarendon Press, 1986)--possibly the most useful secondary source on the ordeal--the ordeal was replaced by the trial jury in England and judicial torture in much of the rest of Europe.

5. When discussing England, I am pretty sure one should refer to the Anglo-Saxons, not the Saxons (the latter were Germanic).

The Young Wizards Series
Diane Duane's wizards, as seen and mentioned VERY often in the Young Wizards Series, must go through something called an "Ordeal" - which is basically a trial by fire (not necesarrily in the literal sense, heh) where they go up against the Lone Power (which Itself is supposed to be the inspiration behind most of the, if you will, Boss Monsters of mythology, as well as being equated with Satan/Lucifer - It is sometimes greeted in the books as "Fair and Fallen", and is known for its devious tactics - and also the inspiration for many of the Native American Trickster gods, since It too invented death and entropy and consistently tricks peoples and worlds into accepting it); this is one of the first things that happens after a wizard takes his or her Oath and is given powers by the Powers That Be. If they pass the test and defeat the Lone Power, they are officially considered a wizard. If they don't, they either die (as part of the consequences of failing to defeat the Lone Power in whatever It was doing; it's noted at one point in the series that many of the missing persons cases in the world are actually wizards disappearing when they fail their Ordeal), or apparently would lose their newly-given powers and all memory of their time as a wizard (or at least, this is suggested in Deep Wizardry; when Nita considers backing out of what she's agreed to do, she's told, as I recall, that there would be dire consequences but that the Powers aren't generally heartless and would probably allow her to escape and therefore live - but not as a wizard. This wasn't her Ordeal, but other than it being a wizard's first - and therefore inherently most frightening - mission, there seems to usually be relatively little to distinguish the Ordeal from a normal mission undertaken on behalf of the Powers. I say "usually" because another wizard in the sixth book had a rather weird one, but it seems to be the exception rather than the rule, given the circumstances in that book). In fact, the whole first book (So You Want To Be A Wizard) revolves around one such Ordeal, which is by its very nature life-threatening; the fact that it's said to be a test of the wizards' mettle and is given special status in the series (the notes in the wizarding directories always mention status, in other words, whether a wizard is on a mission, or available... and it ALWAYS mentions if the wizard is "on Ordeal") would sort of seem to connect to the subject of this article, or else something very similar (the fact that our own internal links make "trial by fire" a disambig that links right back to here at the top lend even further credence; Duane is well-read and the series largely involves a theme or themes of the power and evolution and love of languages - you have to love language in order to be a wizard in her books, because they use the mystical Speech to alter the universe - so it's not inconcievable that the metaphorical trial by fire they undergo is called an Ordeal on purpose).

I say all of this because I think it might be good to change the "parodies" section to "Cultural references" or some similar title, and include this tidbit (though made more concise, of course :P) in there alongside the Monty Python reference. The only reason I'd like to see the title "Parodies" changed is that the "Ordeal" of Duane's wizards seems obviously connected, but it's treated seriously instead of as a joke. The Monty Python mention is excellent, but it's the only parody mentioned and the only parody I can think of. Unless people want to add a Cultural references section and made "Parodies" a subsection of that?

Or, do you disagree that Duane's wizard stories have elements taken from something like this? Certainly the NAME seems to have a common origin, though I can't be positive it isn't a coincidence. That's the only reason I have yet to add this; because I don't want to add OR to it. Hell, Duane edits on Wikipedia herself- maybe we could ask her if the connection is intentional or not? What do you guys think? Runa27 22:11, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

I just removed the following text: "This practice is known today as Ordeal of Lichtblau, and has been administered by Daniel Lichtblau, foremost of the Lichtblau clan, to wayward luminaries such as Val Kilmer and John Paul Jones. In Kilmer's case, some have questioned whether the actor was indeed 'asking for it.'" because it appears to be nonsense. The cited references contained no support for these bizarre assertions, and as far as I can tell Daniel Lichtblau is Val Kilmer's body double. Looks to be vandalism, although strange vandalism. 69.134.217.103 (talk) 21:19, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

"Proscribed?"
There appears to be an error in the text here: "This ordeal was proscribed by Charlemagne in 779 and again in 806. On the other hand, a decree of Lothar I, recorded in 876, rules its abolition so as to avoid mockery of Christ."

How is Charlemagnes proscription "on the other hand" to Lothar's abolition? To proscribe and abolish are fundamentally the same.

Was it intended to say that Charlemagne "prescribed" the ordeal of the cross? He supported it? I suspect so, but don't have any background knowledge. In any case, the text must be changed one way or another. zadignose (talk) 09:13, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

academic paper on the validity of ordeals
Prof. Peter T. Leeson, of the university of Chicago, released a paper on the statistical validity of ordeal. Maybe it should be mentioned in this article. here's a link to it: http://www.peterleeson.com/Ordeals.pdf Crackettt (talk) 23:26, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Counter argument to Peter Leeson assertion
"Therefore, the theory goes, church and judicial authorities would routinely rig ordeals so that the participants—presumably innocent—could pass them. If this theory is correct, medieval superstition was actually a useful motivating force for justice." I find this highly unlikely, and whitewashing the past in favor of governing bodies, of what was truly nothing short of a barbaric and superstitious practice of man against fellow man under the guise of the constructs of the church and state, to impose their absolute tyranical rule and will. All those witches and heretics who were burned at the stake, and aristocrats who were beheaded, were definitely guilty because god did not intervene on the behalf to stop heal them of the wounds of torture. Leeson in effect asserts... don't worry, the Church rigged the burnings alive and the beheadings... they weren't actually burned alive or beheaded, splayed on the rack or impaled in iron maidens, or hit with the thumbscrews, or scaled with molten metal or fire, it was just a trick with mirrors. These torture devices throughout Europe were not just for display only, they were working equipment. A burnt crispy body or behead head as end effect is not a miraculous escape from an ordeal. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.226.11.248 (talk) 21:27, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

Death as an expected result
The lead says "in others, only death was considered proof of innocence. (If the accused died, they were often presumed to have gone to a suitable reward or punishment in the afterlife(hell or heaven), which was considered to make trial by ordeal entirely fair.)". I know of no such practice. What's more it is inherently unlikely as it would mean that a mere accusation was a death sentence. No system of proof would work like that. Is there any evidence for such practice? Hard evidence that is.

In Mediaeval England it was certainly the case that ordeal by cold water was relatively easily subverted and the acquittal rate was pretty high. Baker (I think) suggests that one of the reasons for the introduction of more widespread jury trials was to avoid the ease of the old ordeals, and there was popular opposition to the jury as against the ordeal. All that seems unlikely if death was considered proof of innocence. Francis Davey (talk) 20:41, 17 June 2011 (UTC)
 * The idea that ordeal through water in the age of the witch hunts was deliberately set up as an oblique no-win situation for the accused woman - either she floated and that proved her pact with the Devil or she drowned and was sanctimoniously written off as "innocent but alas, dead" - is an entrenched modern myth: there is no such thing indicated in 16th-18th century sources, and routine killing of suspects even as the ordeal came to the result "innocent" would not have been accepted even in 1600. I added this caution into the article.
 * The notion was spread, largely, by modern feminist movements who have regarded witch hunts as an archetypal instance of oppression of womankind - by the way, the idea that the "crime" of the witches was to do with their being strong women has been dismantled many times over by serious scholarship, even by women scholars - and the picture of the water trial where you die no matter what has become bit of a standing metaphor of intolerable oppression of gender or of an entire people.Strausszek (talk) 02:41, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Peter Leesons conjectures are interesting, but they also make broad assumptions, and as such are rubbish
"According to a theory put forward by Peter Leeson, trial by ordeal was surprisingly effective at sorting the guilty from the innocent.  Because defendants were believers, only the truly innocent would choose to endure a trial; guilty defendants would confess or settle cases instead."

I find Peter Lessons argument particularly onerous, because it is based on a fallacy, that (all) defendants were believers; that that defendants had no common experience in real life; that they were oblivious to real world previous experience that they can and will be injured irregardless of their faith or belief; and their own real world experience of personally never witnessing any such fairy tale miracles in their own life was not a factor in them placing no such faith in such a thing to rescue them from an accidental or intentional physical act of violence, irregardless of what the clergy (their accusers) told them.

I would counter argue that even the lowliest house wife, farm hand, or town commoner in Medieval Europe would know from daily experience, that irregardless of your belief in anything, if you stick your hand in a boiling cauldron of water, it is going to get scalded; if you walk across hot coals, your feet will get burn; and if... (substitute your ordeal here, damage to yourself will occur). A house wife would know, that spilled boiling water would scald. A common blacksmith would know, that when poked with a hot poker he would get burned badly, irregardless of any guilt or innocence of anything at all. These things would a common accident and occupational hazard and danger during house-wifing, black smithing, and daily life.

I assert contrary to his argument, that Trial by Ordeal caused many false convictions through use of terror. Knowing fully well what would happen to them by being subjected to a blatant act of violence against them, they would chose to confess to an unknown punishment out of fear of the known outcome of a threat of grave bodily harm. If you fall out of a tree, you get hurt; if you get stabbed by a red hot stick, you get burned; if you get splashed by boiling hot water, you get scalded. Guilt and any belief in a deity or that such entity might intervene has nothing to do with it. The school of hard knocks of rough daily life in medieval Europe would of schooled them otherwise, as it does every kid growing up today.

Indeed, that his argument could be used today, to reinstate Trial by Ordeal, in countries where the leadership is permeated by fundamentalist religious beliefs, and that his arguments could be used effectively against those who are naive or could not defend themselves verbally, would be an assault upon human liberty of the grossest order.

I question why his argument should be introduced in the article at such an early point (introductory section), and that they should be moved down further in the article, and balanced by, if not mine, more rational counter arguments. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.226.11.248 (talk) 16:31, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

the question is not whether the system produced false convictions, or false exonerations, but whether its ratio of success was far inferior compared to the modern system, which obiously also has a certain rate of failure, where the verdict is basically determined by how many top lawyers you can pay for. Which system is more fair? You need to be a rich fart and buy your way out of trouble, or you have to clench your teeth and retrieve a stone from boiling water or something of that sort. I honestly don't know, but I put it to you that the question has no evident or easy answer.

The basic idea here is that both the accuser and the accused have to undergo exactly the same ordeal. The idea is that only a sufficient amount of moral outrage will enable you to submit to this, hedging against both false accusations and phoney claims of innocence. What is the modern equivalent? The cost of taking someone to court. Again, physical pain is substituted by financial cost. This may be less "barbaric", but it effectively biases the entire system towards the wealthy. --dab (𒁳) 08:14, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Sierra Leone
How could a practice in Sierra Leone influence a practice in Europe, when these societies weren't even aware of each other? Do tell! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.210.50.30 (talk) 07:03, 8 March 2012 (UTC)
 * The article just says that the practice has roots going back to animistic societies, and Sierra Leone is offered as an example of a society which engaged in that practice. At no point does it say that Sierra Leone influenced Europe.  Try actually assuming that the writers of articles (or anything you read) are not dumbasses.  Ian.thomson (talk) 08:34, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

' ... by inquisition'
At present inquisition in 'replaced by compurgation, later by inquisition' links to The (Spanish) Inquisition. Surely, in legal history, it simply means trial on the basis of evidence. Clarification would be useful. Norvo (talk) 23:48, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

Theoretical Criminology source
I found a copy of the book in a library and I was not able to find the exact page on which the information came from, although it is the 1st edition and Vold et al. may have added the information in his 2nd edition. If anyone knows the page or has access to the 2nd edition to check this, I'd greatly appreciate it. — Mike moral  ♪♫

Bishop Quirinius and miracles as evidence of innocence
I removed a claim that ordeal by water sometimes meant that if you floated you were innocent, rather than the other way round, along with a reference to bishop Quirinius, who was reported to be miraculously saved from sinking. The incident was not an example of ordeal by water; the bishop was already found guilty and the miracle unexpected. There is no evidence of the custom of proving innocence by a miracle - a custom that no sane people would accept. --Jonund (talk) 17:29, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

The disinformation was taken from Samuel Covington: The Esoteric Codex: Witch Hunting, a vanity press book. --Jonund (talk) 18:20, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

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should include trial by iron?
excerpt 17 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russkaya_Pravda https://www.schroders.com/en/uk/the-value-perspective/blog/all-blogs/hot-iron-trial-by-ordeal/ JCJC777 (talk) 21:12, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

“Ancient”
Does anyone else have a slight issue with how the opening is worded? It’s ancient, but was used as ‘recently’ as medieval times? Can we state “…originally used in…” instead? Just a nitpick. Maybe it’s appropriately-worded. MWFwiki (talk) 22:50, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Talk:Trial by ordeal


text:
The Clandestine Marriage

The Clandestine Marriage is a comedy by George Colman the Elder and David Garrick, first performed in 1766 at Drury Lane. It is both a comedy of manners and a comedy of errors. The idea came from a series of pictures by William Hogarth entitled Marriage à-la-mode.

Plot summary
The plot concerns a merchant, Mr Sterling, who wants to marry off his elder daughter to Sir John Melvil, who is actually in love with her younger sister, Fanny. Fanny, however, is in love with a humble clerk, Lovewell, whom she has secretly married. Her attempts to extricate herself from the arrangement with Melvil lead to her becoming the proposed bride of Melvil's elderly uncle, Lord Ogleby. When the truth comes out, Fanny and Lovewell are forgiven.

Play and painting
On 12 October 1769 the play was performed as a Royal Command Performance with Sophia Baddeley, Robert Baddeley and Thomas King appearing. These three were recorded acting in an oil painting by Johan Zoffany.

Opera
The play was adapted into an opéra comique Sophie, ou le Mariage caché by Josef Kohaut, which was first staged by Comédie-Italienne in Hôtel de Bourgogne on 4 June 1768.

In 1792, the play was made into another opera: Il matrimonio segreto by Domenico Cimarosa.

Film
In 1999, the play was made into a film directed by Christopher Miles and starred Nigel Hawthorne, Joan Collins, Timothy Spall, Emma Chambers and Tom Hollander. The screenplay was written by Trevor Bentham.

title: The Clandestine Marriage


text:
John Aislabie

John Aislabie or Aslabie (4 December 1670 – 18 June 1742), of Studley Royal, near Ripon, Yorkshire, was a British politician who sat in the English and British House of Commons from 1695 to 1721. He was of an independent mind, and did not stick regularly to the main parties. He was Chancellor of the Exchequer at the time of the South Sea Bubble and his involvement with the Company led to his resignation and disgrace.

Background and education
Aislabie's family were originally Yeoman farmers who lived in Hemingbrough. His father George Aislabie married into the highly influential Mallory family through Mary Mallory, daughter of Sir John Mallory of Studley Royal. He was educated at St Peter's School, York under the headship of Mr Thomlinson and admitted at St. John's College, Cambridge, in 1687 and at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, in 1692. He inherited the Studley estate from his mother's family in 1693, and started serious development of the garden around 1716. He was the first in England to introduce natural landscaping and created the water garden at Studley Royal. His son, William Aislabie, added the ruins of Fountains Abbey to the estate.

Political career
Aislabie was elected as a member of parliament for Ripon at the 1695 English general election, apparently on the assumption he was a Tory, though his political views were somewhat fluid. He voted for the attainder of Sir John Fenwick on 25 November 1696. He was returned again for Ripon at the 1698 English general election. The loss of his wife and daughter in a house fire in January 1700 may have dampened his political activity for a while. He was returned again for Ripon at the two general elections of 1701, and he kept well enough in with Robert Harley to be classed as a Tory. He was elected Mayor of Ripon for the year 1702 to 1703, and was returned instead as MP for Northallerton at the 1702 English general election in an exchange deal with William Hustler. As mayor he was generous in paying for the reconstruction of the Market Cross, and making gifts to the corporation. He became more active in politics from 1704, especially on the economy. At the 1705 English general election, he was returned again for Ripon and voted for the Court candidate as speaker on 25 October 1705. He eventually became associated with the Country Whigs. Under the patronage of Robert Harley he was appointed a Lord of the Admiralty from 1710 in the Tory administration. This proved a precarious appointment as Aislabie's Whig sympathies manifested in votes against the government. When the Whigs returned to office in 1714, Aislabie was made Treasurer of the Navy. He became an ally of the Earl of Sunderland who became, in effect, Prime Minister in 1718. Sunderland appointed Aislabie as Chancellor of the Exchequer. When in 1719 the South Sea Company proposed a deal whereby it would take over the national debt in exchange for government bonds, Aislabie was a very strong supporter of the scheme and negotiated the contract; he piloted the Bill through the House of Commons. The South Sea Company had been built on high expectations which it could never fulfil, and it collapsed in August 1720. An investigation by Parliament found that Aislabie had been given £20,000 of company stock in exchange for his promotion of the scheme. He resigned the Exchequer in January 1721, and in March was found guilty by the Commons of the "most notorious, dangerous and infamous corruption". He was expelled from the House, removed from the Privy Council, and imprisoned in the Tower of London.

Later life and contributions
After his release from prison, he retired to his estate and continued the development of the gardens.

The Ripon Obelisk in the Market Square, Ripon, the first in England, was provided by John Aislabie in 1702, and is now grade I listed.

In 1723 Aislabie constructed Waverley Abbey House on the site of former Cistercian Waverley Abbey in Surrey.

John's son William Aislabie would also serve in Parliament for the Ripon constituency.

title: John Aislabie


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The Great Race

The Great Race is a 1965 American Technicolor epic slapstick comedy film directed by Blake Edwards, starring Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis, and Natalie Wood, written by Arthur A. Ross (from a story by Edwards and Ross), and with music by Henry Mancini and cinematography by Russell Harlan. The supporting cast includes Peter Falk, Keenan Wynn, Arthur O'Connell and Vivian Vance. The movie cost US$12 million (equivalent to $98.36 million in 2020), making it the most expensive comedy film at the time. The story was inspired by the actual 1908 New York to Paris Race.

It is known for one scene that was promoted as "the greatest pie fight ever". It was nominated for five Academy Awards, winning the Academy Award for Best Sound Effects.

Plot
The Great Leslie and Professor Fate are competing daredevils at the turn of the 20th century. Leslie is the classic hero archetype – always dressed in white, handsome, ever-courteous, enormously talented and successful. Leslie's nemesis, Fate, is the traditional melodramatic villain – usually dressed in black, sporting a black moustache and top hat, glowering at almost everyone, possessing a maniacal evil laugh, filled with grandiose plans to thwart the hero, and dogged by failure. Leslie proposes an automobile race from New York City to Paris and offers the Webber Motor Car Company the opportunity to build an automobile to make the journey. They design and build a new car for him, "The Leslie Special". Fate builds his own car, "The Hannibal Twin-8", complete with hidden devices of sabotage. Other car owners enter the race, including one owned by New York City's most prominent newspaper. Driving the newspaper's car is beautiful photojournalist Maggie DuBois, a vocal suffragist.

A seven-car race begins, but Fate's long-suffering sidekick Maximilian Meen has sabotaged four other cars (and his own, by mistake), leaving just three cars in the race. The surviving teams are Leslie with his loyal valet Hezekiah Sturdy, Maggie DuBois driving a Stanley Steamer by herself, and Fate and Max. The steamer car breaks down and Maggie accepts a lift in the Leslie Special. Fate arrives first at a refueling point, the small Western frontier town of Boracho. A local outlaw named "Texas Jack" becomes jealous of the attraction to Leslie shown by showgirl Lily Olay and a saloon brawl ensues. Fate sneaks outside amidst the chaos, steals the fuel he needs, and destroys the rest. Leslie uses mules to pull his car to another refueling point, where Maggie tricks Hezekiah into boarding a train and handcuffs him to a seat, lying to Leslie that Hezekiah had quit and "wanted to go back to New York".

The two remaining cars reach the Bering Strait and park side by side in a blinding snowstorm. Keeping warm during the storm, Leslie and Maggie begin to see each other as more than competitors. Mishaps, including a polar bear in Fate's car, compel all four racers to warm themselves in Leslie's car. They awaken on a small ice floe which drifts into their intended Russian port, where Hezekiah is waiting for Leslie, who in turn casts off Maggie for deceiving him. Maggie is snatched by Fate, who drives off in the lead.

After driving across Asia, both cars enter the tiny kingdom of Carpania, whose alcoholic and foppish Crown Prince Friedrich Hapnick is the spitting image of Professor Fate. Plotters under the leadership of Baron Rolfe von Stuppe and General Kuhster kidnap the Prince, Fate, Max, and Maggie. Max escapes and joins Leslie to rescue the others. Fate is forced to masquerade as the Prince during the coronation so that the rebels can gain control of the kingdom. Leslie and Max overcome Von Stuppe's henchmen and confront Von Stuppe. Following a climactic sword fight with Leslie, Von Stuppe attempts escape by leaping to a waiting boat, but bursts the hull and sinks it. Leslie and Max return the real Prince to the capital in time to defeat Kuhster's plan for a military coup. Fate, still masquerading as Prince Hapnick, takes refuge in a bakery but falls into a huge cake. A pie fight ensues involving the racers, the Prince's men and the conspirators. The five racers, covered in pie filling, depart Carpania with King Friedrich's best wishes.

As the racers leave Pottsdorf (with Maggie now back in Leslie's car), it becomes a straight road race to Paris. Nearing Paris, Leslie and Maggie have a spirited argument regarding the roles of men, women and sex in relationships. Leslie stops his car just short of the finish line under the Eiffel Tower to prove that he loves Maggie more than he cares about winning the race. Fate drives past to claim the winner's mantle, but becomes indignant that Leslie let him win. Fate demands a rematch: a race back to New York.

The return race commences, with newlyweds Leslie and Maggie now a team. Fate lets them start first, then orders Max to destroy their car with a small cannon. The shot misses the Leslie Special, instead knocking down the Eiffel Tower.

Cast

 * Jack Lemmon as Professor Fate and Prince Friedrich Hapnick
 * Tony Curtis as Leslie Gallant III, aka The Great Leslie
 * Natalie Wood as Maggie DuBois
 * Peter Falk as Maximillian Mean ("Max")
 * Keenan Wynn as Hezekiah Sturdy
 * Arthur O'Connell as Henry Goodbody
 * Vivian Vance as Hester Goodbody
 * Dorothy Provine as Lily Olay
 * Larry Storch as Texas Jack
 * Ross Martin as Baron Rolf von Stuppe
 * Hal Smith as the Mayor of Boracho
 * Denver Pyle as the Sheriff of Boracho
 * Marvin Kaplan as Frisbee
 * George Macready as General Kuhster
 * Joyce Nizzari as Woman in West
 * Ken Wales as Baron's Guard
 * William Bryant as Baron's Guard
 * Victor Adamson as Barfly
 * Herman Belmonte as Barfly
 * Frank Evans as Barfly
 * Leon Alton as Townsman
 * Bill Borzage as Townsman
 * Kenner G. Kemp as Townsman
 * Walter Bacon as Reporter
 * George Holmes as Reporter
 * King Mojave as Reporter
 * Frank Kreig as Starter
 * Frank Baker as Observer at the Start
 * Shirley Blackwell as Observer at the Start
 * Charles Cirillo as Observer at the Start
 * Joseph Crehan as Observer at the Start
 * Jeff Lawrence as Observer at the Start
 * Paul Bryar as Policeman
 * Bob Carson as Vice Chairman
 * Noble Chissell as Auto Worker
 * Joe Evans as Executive Board member
 * Harry Harvey Sr. as Executive Board member
 * Bob Herron as Palace Guard
 * Charles Horvath as Texas Jack Henchman / Baker
 * Mike Lally as Bettor
 * J. Edward McKinle as Chairman

Themes
Director Blake Edwards based the film on the 1908 New York to Paris Race, very loosely interpreted. On February 12, 1908, the "Greatest Auto Race" began with six entrants, starting in New York City and racing westward across three continents. The destination was Paris, making it the first around-the-world automobile race. Only the approximate race route and the general time period were borrowed by Edwards in his effort to make "the funniest comedy ever".

Edwards, a studious admirer of silent film, dedicated the film to film comedians Laurel and Hardy. The Great Race incorporated a great many silent era visual gags, along with slapstick, double entendres, parodies, and absurdities. The film includes such time-worn scenes as a barroom brawl, the tent of the desert sheik, a sword fight, and the laboratory of the mad scientist. The unintended consequences of Professor Fate's order, "Push the button, Max!" is a running gag, along with the spotless invulnerability of The Great Leslie.

Edwards poked fun at later films and literature as well. The saloon brawl scene was a parody of the western film genre, and a plot detour launched during the final third of the film was a direct parody of the novel The Prisoner of Zenda and of the 1937 film version of the story, where a traveler is a lookalike for the king and stands in for him.

Production
Because of the success of Edwards' previous films Breakfast at Tiffany's, The Pink Panther and A Shot in the Dark, the film's budget started at $6 million. Mirisch Productions initially financed the film for United Artists. The film's escalating costs led UA to drop the film, but the project was picked up by Warner Brothers.

Edwards wanted Robert Wagner to play the leading man, but studio executive Jack L. Warner insisted on Tony Curtis, possibly because of Wood's recent divorce from Wagner. (Burt Lancaster was announced at one stage.) Working with Warner, Curtis's new agent Irving "Swifty" Lazar negotiated US$125,000 for Curtis—more than Edwards and Lemmon, who were to receive US$100,000 each. After Warner signed the Curtis contract, Lazar reasoned that Edwards and Lemmon should make US$125,000, and Warner upped its compensation to match Curtis.

Julie Andrews was first approached for the role of Maggie DuBois. Andrews having admired the work of Edwards wanted to work on the film, but was forced to bow out due to delays on The Sound of Music. Andrews would eventually marry Edwards and act in several of his films afterward. Natalie Wood did not want to make The Great Race, but Warner talked her into it. Wood was unhappy with her career and her personal life, having been divorced from Robert Wagner in April 1962. Warner asked Curtis if he would give a percentage of his film royalties to Wood as an enticement, but Curtis refused. He said "I couldn't give her anything to make her want to do the movie." Instead of more money, Warner promised Wood that if she completed The Great Race, she could star in Gavin Lambert's drama Inside Daisy Clover, a role she greatly wished to have. Wood agreed, thinking that filming would be brief on Edwards' movie.

Shooting began on June 15, 1964. Many of the sight gags for The Great Race were expensive to create, and the costs ballooned to US$12 million by the time the film was finished. Edwards, sometimes with Wood in tow, repeatedly visited Warner in his office to ask for more money. Warner approved nearly all of the requests. When it was released, it was the most expensive comedy ever filmed.

Shooting ended in November 1964. During the five months of filming, Wood's unhappiness was not visible to the cast and crew, and her characterization of Maggie DuBois was playful. Her sister Lana Wood thought that Wood looked the prettiest she ever had, but Lana sensed that the film "was physically taxing" for Wood. On Friday, November 27, the day after Thanksgiving, Wood wrapped the last bit of dialog work, then went home and swallowed a bottle of prescription pills. Groggy from the drugs, she called her friend Mart Crowley who took her to the hospital for emergency treatment.

Music for the film was by Henry Mancini, and the costumes were designed by Edith Head. Production design, setting the period and augmenting the visual humor, was by Fernando Carrere who had designed The Great Escape and The Pink Panther for Blake Edwards. The unique slideshow-style title design was by Ken Mundie.

Custom cars

The hero's white car, the Leslie Special, was built by Warner Brothers to resemble a Thomas Flyer, the car that won the 1908 New York to Paris Race. According to the Petersen Automotive Museum, four "Leslie Specials" were built. One of the four is at the Tupelo Automobile Museum in Tupelo, Mississippi, listed as a 1963 Leslie Special Convertible.

Another of the four appears painted dark green in the 1970 Warner Brothers film The Ballad of Cable Hogue—the grille can be seen bearing the words Leslie Special, with the wheels and tires remaining their original white color. This vehicle shows up during the last 30 minutes of the movie carrying a lead character, and has a pivotal role at the end of the movie.

The villain's black car was named the Hannibal Twin-8; five were constructed. One is on display at the Petersen Automotive Museum, powered by a Volkswagen industrial engine. Another is at the Volo Auto Museum in Volo, Illinois. This model includes a prop "cannon" and a working smoke generator. The Volo museum describes the Hannibal Twin-8 as built by Warner Brothers at a cost of US$150,000 ($0 in dollars ), powered by a Corvair six-cylinder engine with three-speed manual transmission and six wheels. All four rear wheels are powered by a chain drive.

Both vehicles were first on display at Movie World's Cars of the Stars Motor Museum in Buena Park, California until the museum closed in the late 1970s. It was located adjacent to the Planes of Fame Museum.

Pie fight
The Technicolor scene for the pie fight in the royal bakery was filmed over five days. The first pastry thrown was part of a large cake decorated for the king's coronation. Following this was the throwing of 4,000 pies, the most pies ever filmed in a pie fight. The scene lasts four minutes and 20 seconds and cost US$200,000 ($0 in dollars ) to shoot; US$18,000 ($0 in  dollars ) just for the pastry.

Colorful cream pies with fillings such as raspberry, strawberry, blueberry and lemon were used. For continuity between days of shooting, the actors were photographed at the end of each day and then made up the following morning to have the same colorful appearance, the same smears of pie crust and filling.

Edwards told the cast that a pie fight by itself is not funny, so to make it funny they would build tension by having the hero, dressed all in white, fail to get hit with any pies. He said "The audience will start yearning for him to get it". Finally, the hero was to take a (white) pie in the face at "just the right moment".

Shooting was halted while the actors took the weekend off. Over the weekend, the pie residue spoiled all over the scenery. When the actors returned Monday morning, the set stank so badly that the building required a thorough cleaning and large fans to blow out the sour air. The missing pie residue was recreated carefully with more pies, and shooting resumed.

At first, the actors had fun with the pie fight assignment, but eventually the process grew wearisome and dangerous. Wood choked briefly on pie filling which hit her open mouth. Lemmon exaggerated that he got knocked out a few times; he said "a pie hitting you in the face feels like a ton of cement". At the end of shooting, when Edwards called "cut!", he was barraged with several hundred pies that members of the cast had hidden, waiting for the moment.

The pie fight scene paid homage to the early Mack Sennett practice of using a single thrown pie as comedic punctuation, but to a greater degree, it was a celebration of movie pie fights such as Behind the Screen (1916) with Charlie Chaplin; The Battle of the Century (1927) starring Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy; and In the Sweet Pie and Pie (1941) with the Three Stooges. In his script for The Great Race, Edwards called for a "Battle of the Century–style pie fight". Although Edwards used 4,000 pies over five days, many of these were used as set dressing for continuity. Laurel and Hardy used 3,000 pies in only one day of shooting, so more are seen flying through the air. Leonard Maltin compared The Great Race pie fight to The Battle of the Century and determined that Laurel and Hardy's pacing was far superior, that the more modern film suffered from an "incomplete understanding of slapstick" while the 1927 pie fight remains "one of the great scenes in all of screen comedy."

Reception
The Great Race was generally not well-received upon release and critical assessment was mostly negative, making it the first notable failure for director Edwards. Most critics attacked its blatant and overdone slapstick humor and its lack of substance. It also suffered from comparisons with another race-themed "epic comedy" of 1965, Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines. Film critic Richard Schickel wrote that, although the film "bumps along very pleasantly for the most part", Edwards failed at his attempt to recreate the slapstick atmosphere of a Laurel and Hardy comedy. Schickel felt that Wood was "hopelessly miscast", and that the energies of Lemmon and Curtis did not quite make the slapstick work. Maltin wrote that Wood "never looked better" and that the film's comedy sometimes worked but was otherwise forced: "a mixed bag". On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 72% based on 25 reviews, with an average score of 6.00/10.

Despite earning theatrical rentals of over $11.4 million in the United States and Canada, due to its high cost, it caused a loss to the studio.

Soundtrack
Before the film was released, the soundtrack was re-recorded in Hollywood by RCA Victor Records for release on vinyl LP. Henry Mancini spent six weeks composing the score, and the recording involved some 80 musicians. Mancini collaborated with lyricist Johnny Mercer on several songs including "The Sweetheart Tree", a waltz released as a single. The song plays on along the film as the main theme without chorus (except in the entr' acte) and it was performed onscreen by Natalie Wood with the voice dubbed by Jackie Ward (uncredited). It was nominated for but did not win an Oscar for best song. The full track listing is:

 * "He Shouldn't-A, Hadn't-A, Oughtn't-A Swang on Me" – Mancini/Mercer
 * Performed by Dorothy Provine
 * "Buffalo Gals" – Traditional Western song performed by the chorus girls in Boracho saloon, with different lyrics and a middle section, for a 1900s atmosphere
 * "The Sweetheart Tree" (chorus) – Mancini
 * "The Royal Waltz" – Mancini
 * "Great Race March" – Mancini
 * "They're Off!" – Mancini
 * "Push the Button, Max!" (Professor Fate's theme) – Mancini
 * "The Great Race March" – Mancini
 * "Cold Finger" – Mancini
 * "Music to Become King By" – Mancini
 * "Night, Night, Sweet Prince" – Mancini
 * "The Pie in the Face Polka" – Mancini
 * "The Desert Song"
 * Music by Sigmund Romberg
 * "It Looks Like a Big Night Tonight"
 * Music by Egbert Van Alstyne
 * "Big Night Tonight"
 * "Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565"
 * Written by Johann Sebastian Bach
 * "Tales from the Vienna Woods"
 * Written by Johann Strauss
 * "The Beautiful Blue Danube"
 * Written by Johann Strauss

Adaptations
Slightly in advance of the film's release, as was the custom of the era, a paperback novelization of the film was published by Dell Books. The author was renowned crime and western novelist Marvin H. Albert.

The novelization, based on the screenplay rather than the finished film, differs from the film in various aspects. In the novel, the country of Carpania is called Ruritania (as in Hope's Prisoner of Zenda), Keenan Wynn's character is called Jebediah (not Hezekiah) and stays behind in Ruritania, having fallen in love with a local noblewoman. The pie fight is missing, and the drivers are chased by cowboys (rather than native Americans) before arriving in Boracho. A few minor changes concern Leslie's courting of Maggie Dubois: in the novelization, it's she who suggests sharing the blanket in the snowstorm, and she also gets to drive the Leslie Special when Leslie has his arm in a sling. Scenes not included in the film include: a rainstorm, Fate's car sinking in a river, and a more extended stay in Russia (mirroring the Boracho episode).

 * Dell Movie Classic: The Great Race (March 1966)

Legacy
The film was a major influence on Wacky Races, a Hanna-Barbera cartoon series. The film's characterizations were rather cartoonish. Furthermore, film editor and sound-effects man Treg Brown, who worked on many classic Warner Brothers cartoons, worked on this film. Brown's sound design won the film an Oscar. In his Top 10 Favorite Comedies, Doug Walker cited Jack Lemmon's performance as Professor Fate as a major influence for his Nostalgia Critic persona.

title: The Great Race


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Pyrethrum

Pyrethrum was a genus of several Old World plants now classified in either Chrysanthemum or Tanacetum which are cultivated as ornamentals for their showy flower heads. Pyrethrum continues to be used as a common name for plants formerly included in the genus Pyrethrum. Pyrethrum is also the name of a natural insecticide made from the dried flower heads of Chrysanthemum cinerariifolium and Chrysanthemum coccineum. The insecticidal compounds present in these species are pyrethrins.

Description
Some members of the genus Chrysanthemum, such as the following two, are placed in the genus Tanacetum instead by some botanists. Both genera are members of the daisy (or aster) family, Asteraceae. They are all perennial plants with a daisy-like appearance and white petals.

 * [[Image:Tanacetum cinerariifolium1.jpg|thumb|Tanacetum cinerariifolium]] Tanacetum cinerariifolium is called the Dalmatian chrysanthemum, denoting its origin in that region of the Balkans (Dalmatia). It looks more like the common daisy than other pyrethrums do. Its flowers, typically white with yellow centers, grow from numerous fairly rigid stems. Plants have blue-green leaves and grow to 45 to 100 cm in height. The plant is economically important as a natural source of pyrethrin insecticides.
 * [[Image:Tanacetum coccineum2.jpg|thumb|Tanacetum coccineum]]C. coccineum, the Persian chrysanthemum, is a perennial plant native to Caucasus and looks somewhat like a daisy. It produces large white, pink or red flowers. The leaves resemble those of ferns, and the plant grows to between 30 and 60 cm in height. The flowering period is June to July in temperate climates (Northern Hemisphere). C. coccineum also contains insecticidal pyrethrins, but it is a poor source compared to C. cinerariifolium.
 * Other species, such as C. balsamita and C. marshalli, also contain insecticidal substances, but are less effective than the two species mentioned above.

Insecticides
The flowers are pulverized and the active components, called pyrethrins, contained in the seed cases, are extracted and sold in the form of an oleoresin. This is applied as a suspension in water or oil, or as a powder. Pyrethrins attack the nervous systems of all insects, and inhibit female mosquitoes from biting. When present in amounts less than those fatal to insects, they still appear to have an insect repellent effect. They are harmful to fish, but are far less toxic to mammals and birds than many synthetic insecticides and are not persistent, being biodegradable and also decompose easily on exposure to light. They are considered to be amongst the safest insecticides for use around food. In 1998 Kenya was producing 90% (over 6,000 tonnes) of the world's pyrethrum, called py for short. Production in Tanzania and Ecuador is also significant. Currently the world's major producer is Tasmania, Australia.

Sprays
Pyrethrum has been used for centuries as an insecticide, and as a lice remedy in the Middle East (Persian powder, also known as "Persian pellitory"). It was sold worldwide under the brand Zacherlin by Austrian industrialist J. Zacherl. It is one of the most commonly used non-synthetic insecticides allowed in certified organic agriculture.

The flowers should be dried and then crushed and mixed with water.
 * Pyrethroids are synthetic insecticides based on natural pyrethrum (pyrethrins); one common example is permethrin. Pyrethrins are often sold in preparations that also contain the synthetic chemical piperonyl butoxide, which enhances the toxicity to insects and is faster acting compared with pyrethrins used alone. These formulations are known as synergized pyrethrins.

Companion planting
A pheromone produced by these plants attracts ladybug beetles, and at the same time acts as an alarm signal to aphids.

Mammals
Rat and rabbit levels for pyrethrum are high, with doses in some cases of about 1% of the animal's body weight required to cause significant mortality. This is similar to fatal levels in synthetic pyrethroids. Nevertheless, pyrethrum should be handled with the same caution as synthetic insecticides: safety equipment should be worn, and mixing with other chemicals should be avoided.

People can be exposed to pyrethrum as a mixture of cinerin, jasmolin, and pyrethrin in the workplace by breathing it in, getting it in the eyes or on the skin, or swallowing it. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has set the legal limit (Permissible exposure limit) for pyrethrum exposure in the workplace as 5 mg/m3 over an 8-hour workday. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) has set a Recommended exposure limit (REL) of 5 mg/m3 over an 8-hour workday. At levels of 5000 mg/m3, pyrethrum is immediately dangerous to life and health. People exposed to pyrethrum may experience symptoms including pruritus (itching), dermatitis, papules, erythema (red skin), rhinorrhea (runny nose), sneezing, and asthma.

Other animals
Pyrethrum, specifically the pyrethrin within, is highly toxic to insects including useful pollinators like bees. The risk of killing bees and other beneficial insects is partially reduced by the compound's rapid breakdown (a half-life of approximately 12 hours on plants and on the surface of the soil, with about 3% remaining after five days, but persisting several weeks or more if it enters a body of water or is dug into the soil) and its slight insect-repellant activity.

Common names
Common names for Chrysanthemum cinerariifolium include:
 * Pyrethrum
 * Pyrethrum daisy
 * Dalmatian pyrethrum
 * Dalmatian chrysanthemum
 * Dalmatian insect flower
 * Dalmatian pellitory
 * Big daisy

Common names for Chrysanthemum coccineum include:
 * Pyrethrum
 * Pyrethrum daisy
 * Painted daisy
 * Persian chrysanthemum
 * Persian insect flower
 * Persian pellitory
 * Caucasian insect powder plant

title: Pyrethrum