About this item
The definitive book about Joan Rivers' tumultuous, victorious, tragic, hilarious, and fascinating life.Joan Rivers was more than a legendary comedian; she was an icon and a role model to millions, a fearless pioneer who left a legacy of expanded opportunity when she died in 2014. Her life was a dramatic roller-coaster of triumphant highs and devastating lows: the suicide of her husband, her feud with Johnny Carson, her estrangement from her daughter, her many plastic surgeries, her ferocious ambition and her massive insecurities. But Rivers' career was also hugely significant in American cultural history, breaking down barriers for her gender and pushing the boundaries of truth-telling for women in public life. A juicy, intimate biography of one of the greatest comedians ever-a performer whose sixty year career was borne, simply, out of a desire to make people laugh so she could feel loved-LAST GIRL BEFORE FREEWAY delves into the inner workings of a woman who both reflected and redefined the world around her.
About the Author
Leslie Bennetts is a veteran journalist who began her newspaper career at The Philadelphia Bulletin, where she won many awards for writing and reporting, and then spent ten years as a reporter at The New York Times. The first woman ever to cover a presidential campaign for The Times, she also covered metropolitan news, City Hall, Style and cultural news in addition to national politics. Bennetts left The Times for Vanity Fair, where she spent 24 years as a contributing editor and wrote many of the magazine's best-known movie star cover stories as well as investigative articles on subjects ranging from priest pedophilia to the nation's war against drugs. At the beginning of her career, she was also a reporter for The Washington Star, a radio host and television correspondent in Philadelphia, the executive editor of Popular Dogs Magazine, and editor of a music trade magazine. Bennetts started covering so-called "women's issues" in the 1970s and has continued to write about women, marriage, and families ever since.
