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But, unlike Diller, Rivers had a venomous streak that gave her a difficult, snarky edge. Her favorite targets, early on, were her fey hairdresser "Mr. Phyllis" and a fictional (or, perhaps, fictionalized) school chum she invariably referred to as "Heidi Abramowitz ... that tramp!"

No early Rivers routine seemed complete without reference to Heidi, who had been so notorious, River said, "Krazy Glue fruta planta reduce weight capsule couldn't keep her legs together! When she purchased a car, she thought the front seat was optional!"

Through the late 1970s, Heidi was substituted with other, more grandiose targets, together with a gaggle of First Ladies, England's Queen Elizabeth II and movie legend Elizabeth Taylor, who was married at that time to Virginia Senator John Warner, and whose weight had ballooned to in excess of 180 pounds.

"Have you seen Liz Taylor?" Rivers asked Carson on his night time talk show. "She has more Chins than a Chinese phonebook! She's so fat her thighs go condo! She's the only real woman who stands in front of a microwave and yells, 'Hurry!'?"

(Taylor would later state that the jokes, hurtful because they were, persuaded her to lose weight. And, in later years, she and Rivers worked together raising millions for AIDS research.)

Carson have been her longtime mentor and champion, going back to her first appearance on "The Tonight Show" in 1965. Rivers perfected her conspiratorial "Can we talk?" routines sitting at his side as well as in 1983 defied the odds when she was named his permanent guest host.

Although her appearances proved to be ratings winners, Rivers jumped ship in 1986, accepting a deal to helm own late night show on the soon-to-launch Fox network, when she was told there wasn't any method in which she, like a woman, could be chosen as Carson's successor.

That plum went to Jay Leno who, like Carson after 1986, never invited her back to the show. (Jimmy Fallon ended the unofficial ban when he took control of "The Tonight Show" captured. Rivers was one of the numerous celebrities to complete walk-on gags on his first episode as host.)

The rift between Carson and Rivers was never bridged. So when I interviewed her in 1991, it had been the only real subject that made her stop in her tracks and switch painfully serious.

"My husband died," Rivers said, "and Irrrve never heard from Johnny. After all those years, my husband died and I never even got a card. I can not deal with people like that."

Rivers had a successful daytime talk show at the time, produced by her company PGHM. The letters, she said, represented Please God Assist me to. Despite the setbacks, though, she considered herself lucky. "I've had a long, gradual ascent," she admitted. "By time success really hit, I'd the best people around me. So, I had been lucky. Today, people always ask me, 'Do you see yourself like a survivor?' But, you do not 'see' yourself. You just push through every day."

In what may be considered the third phase of her career, Rivers was as well-known on her cosmetic surgery as she was on her jokes. Her many experiences into surgery transformed her right into a latter-day glamour-puss and, to some, a "plastic surgery victim," whose appearance became increasingly unnatural.

During this time period, she also proved herself to become a relentless self-promoter and savvy businesswoman, launching successful lines of jewellery along with other products around the QVC home shopping network and competing on -- and winning -- the Mr . trump series "Celebrity Apprentice."

She also perfected the art work from the Red Carpet interview and fashion putdown -- a skill she would later put to use on her behalf E! series "Fashion Police." And she had her own slimming factor ongoing reality show, by which she became imperative with her daughter Melissa Rivers, that kept her busy around the small screen, when she wasn't guest starring on "The View" and "Late Night with David Letterman," or whooping it to radio stations with Howard Stern, to promote her products, her many books and any other project she was working on.

She was nobody's concept of the lady next door, but she was nobody's fool, either. Her outrageous comedy was fueled by pain, anger and loss as well as in an area dominated by loudmouths, hers was as loud as they come.

Certainly, her abrasiveness wasn't for everybody. But for her fans that loud mouth was irreplaceable.