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Beyond the lawn, visible through the open French doors of Melissa Rivers' Los Angeles living room, a glittery strip of Pacific Ocean meets a cloudless sky at the horizon. The sophistication of an earlier generation anchors the decor: a Picasso sketch over the sandstone fireplace, matching overstuffed sofas, neat tabletop displays of vintage silver lighters and abalone boxes. But Rivers, 47, in and out of a photo shoot on the patio, wearing denim shorts, a sleeveless top and bare feet, erases any sense of formality.
She and Cooper, her 14-year-old son with ex-husband John Endicott, a horse dealer, share the house with two dogs, two parakeets and a parrotlet the color of perfectly faded jeans. For a few days each week, Melissa's mother, Joan Rivers, the profane, insightful, take-no-prisoners comedian, lived here, too, forsaking her gilded New York apartment — the one she liked to say looked like "how Marie Antoinette would have lived if she'd had money." She became bicoastal to spend quality time — and to work — with her daughter and grandson. Although Melissa's residence is not nearly as opulent as Joan's palatial spread was, one can imagine the traditional touches here made her feel right at home; mother's and daughter's style had always neatly dovetailed.
Before Joan's unexpected death late last summer, the Rivers ladies were Hollywood's best-known mother-daughter tag team. Red-carpet fixtures, they hailed celebrities on their way into the Grammys, Emmys and Oscars and posed Joan's trademark (and now ubiquitous) "Who are you wearing?" along with any extemporaneous question that popped to mind.
The conversation continued on E!'s Fashion Police, coproduced by Melissa, on which Joan led an opinionated panel devoted to celebrating and shredding the getups of the rich and infamous.
The two also collaborated on WE tv's Joan & Melissa: Joan Knows Best? — a hyperreality show that included Cooper and their trusty staff — and on In Bed With Joan, a Web chat series featuring a quasi-supine Joan interviewing comedians, actors and social media stars. "Joan and Melissa were best friends and an amazing team," says Jeff Olde, vice president of programming at E! "They completely trusted each other and knew what would work, what would be funny. It was sort of a magical combination."
Grandma lived part time at Melissa and Cooper's Los Angeles home, which doubled as a TV-show set.
Rick Rowell/ABC via Getty Images
Joan may have been two generations older than many of her costars, but her comments, often unprintable, were reliably the most outrageous. In private, when the cameras were gone, "she was so kind and generous to the point you wanted to smack her," says Melissa. "She'd be in my house and someone would say, 'Oh, I like those candlesticks.' And she'd say, 'Take them!' They were mine! She'd say, 'You can get more.' "
And, of course, Joan Rivers was funny. Kelly Osbourne, the 30-year-old lavender-haired daughter of Sharon and Ozzy, was Joan's Fashion Police costar and considered her a dear friend, the grandmother she never had. The two were once on the same flight to New York, unbeknownst to Osbourne. "I went right to sleep," she says. "When I woke up, I thought I had gone blind because Joan had duct-taped a note to my head. I keep it on my desk. It says, 'Kel!! You must stop stalking me. XoXo. Look at seat 3H, you have a friend. PS. Can you give me a lift? PPS. You don't snore.' "
Joan loved being a celebrity. "She knew how lucky she was," Melissa says. "She never stopped being grateful. She'd turn and say, 'Can you believe they're still sending a limo for me? This is awesome!' "
On August 28 of last year, Joan Rivers, whose trademark raspy voice had become weaker, entered an outpatient clinic in New York for an exploratory endoscopic procedure. "At 7 a.m., I got a call from one of her assistants," remembers Melissa, who had spoken to Joan the night before. "She said, 'I don't know what to tell you; your mother stopped breathing.' " By the time Melissa got to New York, Joan was at Mount Sinai Hospital in an induced coma. The outlook was grim — her brain had been deprived of oxygen. "You have flashes of hope because you're desperate to hang on to something," Melissa says. "But in my heart, I knew." Joan had been slated for a tour in England (titled, with typical Rivers irreverence, Before They Close the Lid).
The family of three a year before Edgar's death.
Bettmann/CORBIS
Other appearances and her QVC clothing, jewelry and accessories line hung in the balance. Melissa huddled with her team in a hospital conference room to craft business contingency plans: "I didn't have the luxury of falling apart. I had to keep everything going."
Ultimately it was apparent that the 81-year-old Joan would not recover. "She had a living will and an advance directive that was very specific," says Melissa. "My mother's definition of quality of life was having all her faculties and being able to go on stage for one hour and, here was the kicker, be funny. As hard as it was, I knew the right decision." On September 4, after friends and family had paid their respects, Joan Rivers was removed from life support.
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