National Comedy Center becomes home to Joan Rivers’ career

Joan Rivers looks through the collection of her personal jokes in the cabinet of her personal filing system.

JAMESTOWN — On what would have been the 90th birthday of late comedy icon Joan Rivers, her daughter Melissa announced that the National Comedy Center will become the home of Rivers’ career archive, including a file cabinet containing more than 65,000 original jokes dating back to the 1950s.

The archive chronicles Rivers’ artistic evolution and creative process, from her emergent years navigating 1950s Greenwich Village nightclub gigs and performing at Chicago's Second City, through her rise in standup comedy and on late night television, to her influential later years changing the face of celebrity interviews and fashion commentary, and becoming a key architect of reality TV.

"I am so honored that my mother's archives will have a home at the National Comedy Center," Melissa Rivers said Thursday. "To be included with the legends of comedy who are represented at the National Comedy Center is amazing. My mother would have been thrilled to be seated at the best table."

Highlights from the collection include Rivers’ earliest hand-written jokes, personally compiled scrapbooks, never-before-heard autobiographical audio recordings, hundreds of pre-show preparatory notes, intimate correspondence with peers in entertainment, the guest books from her storied run as host of "The Late Show with Joan Rivers," and a selection of the iconic gowns, boas and jewelry, that defined her inimitable style.

The National Comedy Center will debut an interactive exhibit in its galleries in Jamestown in 2025, allowing museumgoers to explore the joke file. With immersive audiovisual design from the museum's award-winning creative team, the exhibit will offer a deep dive into the artistic process of a culture-shifting innovator whose singular body of work exemplifies extraordinary craftsmanship and professional resilience.

"Joan Rivers moved the future forward when she walked into a man's world and made room for women," comedian Chelsea Handler said.

Melissa Rivers also announced the launch of a special edition four-disc CD box set collection titled "Joan Rivers-The Diva Rides Again" that will feature five hours of never-before-released recordings of Joan's comedy, including six decades worth of material and a special 16-page collector's book of liner notes with never-before-seen photos.

Further information on the Rivers archive and upcoming exhibit at the National Comedy Center is available at ComedyCenter.org/JoanRivers.

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