Joan Rivers once wrote that she wanted a Hollywood-style funeral, with Meryl Streep crying in five different accents and a toe-tag designed by Harry Winston. She came close. The service, held at Temple Emanu-El on Fifth Avenue and 65th Street on Sept. 7, was indeed a red-carpeted, star-studded affair — Whoopi Goldberg, Barbara Walters, Clive Davis,Diane Sawyer and a slew of other luminaries filed past the paparazzi and into the temple to bid Rivers goodbye. Howard Stern, Cindy Adams and Deborah Norville delivered three of the eulogies, and at one point, Hugh Jackman sang Peter Allen‘s “Quiet Please, There’s a Lady on Stage.”
But if Rivers’ funeral was a “show,” the high point must have been the eulogy delivered by her daughter, Melissa, 46, who stood before the crowd and read an excerpt from A Letter to My Mom, a collection of letters by celebrities that will be published in April by Crown Archetype. In recent years, Joan had been staying in a room at Melissa’s L.A. residence when, once a week, she flew in from New York to tape E!’s Fashion Police. Apparently — according to correspondence Melissa wrote before Joan died and read at her mother’s funeral, printed in its entirety below — Joan had some issues with the accommodations.
Read the full eulogy here
