Joan Rivers paved the way for raunchy female comedians

Memorial for Joan Rivers on the Marquee of the Gotham Comedy Club on Sept 4, 2014, in New York City. Joan Rivers passed away after suffering respiratory and cardiac arrest during vocal cord surgery on Aug 28, 2014. - Getty Image/AFP

Joan Rivers understood the importance of branding long before it was a showbiz buzzword.

Her career outlasted so many of her contemporaries, male and female, from the 1960s nightclub arena, because she was adept at marketing herself and reinventing her signature material to stay relevant for the times. Indeed, Rivers worked steadily until just a few days before her death on Sept. 4 after suffering a cardiac arrest the week before while undergoing vocal chord surgery – in addition to her work on E’s Fashion Police, she had at least seven live performances scheduled for the fall.