Johnny Carson discovered this ground-breaking comedic icon decades ago, yet at age seventy-five she still lives to work and works to live. In this extraordinary, amusing and heart-string-pulling documentary we follow a year in the life of Rivers with flashbacks of how it all began. When the booking calendar is empty, she makes fun of needing sunglasses to block the glare all the while dying inside for lack of being “wanted” and possibly “forgotten.” A part of us wants her to realize she’s had her big thrill and maybe it’s time for somebody else – like her nemesis Kathy Griffin – but as we learn what makes her tick, we understand the need to be on stage, the red-eye flights, the tiny basement venues, the QVC jewelry line, the cruise ship performances…all the non-stop action that she must endure, less she faces the tragedy of loneliness in an empty house she once shared with her now deceased husband, Edgar. And it’s not that she’s lacking in talent, she’s just not hot anymore. But she’s funny and sensitive albeit a true diva who plans to cat scratch her way to the end of the red carpet. Her manager Billy Sammeth is the person she relies on who eventually fails her (as most people in show business do.) Her weakness remains her need to succeed. And as we watch her let go of each link of her life piece by piece, she holds onto two things – her insecurity, and vulnerability about as high up as her multiple facelifts. Four tiaras
