Hey Joan Rivers, Good To Have Known You

Hey Joan Rivers, Good To Have Known You

If Only For A Moment

By Jack Coll

September 8, 2014

More than twenty five years ago in the spring of 1988 I got a call from the Conshohocken Recorder, they needed someone to drive to the Twelve Caesar’s on City Line Avenue to take a few pictures and get an interview with Joan Rivers. I’ve learned a lot of things in my lifetime, one of them is when someone says “Someone,” that “someone” is usually me, as in, “someone needs to take the trash out,” or “someone needs to fix the front window,” hence my real name is, Jack “Someone” Coll.

To most people meeting a celebrity sounds like a lot of fun, meeting a celebrity to a newspaper writer or photographer in a lot of cases is dreaded, especially when it involves a lot of standing around, waiting, and in some cases after waiting for an hour or two many of the celebrities skip out without posing for a photograph or being bothered to chat with you for a few precious seconds.

So seeing how the paper asked for me personally, “someone” I gladly accepted, (I needed the money). The newspaper’s angle was that the show was sponsored by Progress Federal Savings Bank, one of their major advertisers, Progress had bank locations in nearly every community in Montgomery County at the time and my article would run in several local weekly newspapers owned by the company.

Progress Bank had adopted a program that helped youngsters that were abused and disabled, it was a very worthy program that Progress donated thousands of dollars to. So bank officials recruited Joan Rivers, to be part of a black tie affair at the Twelve Caesars, the one hundred and fifty dollar per ticket event sold out quickly that included a number of Conshohocken residents in attendance, I remember seeing George Falconero, Bernie Murray, and Gary DeMedio among others in the crowd that night.

So I make the arrangements with all the right people to come late, near the end of the show, (I was invited for the entire event, but dressing up in a tuxedo didn’t interest me at the time, besides I remember attending a little league baseball game at Sutcliffe Park for the first part of the evening ) so the plan was to show up late in the evening, meet with Joan backstage for a photo and a few minutes to interview, and I would be back on the expressway home.

So I do my part, I showed up around 10:00 P.M. and Joan hadn’t taken the stage yet, oh man, it’s gonna be a long night, I met with my contact, she asked me if I wanted to go into the theatre and take pictures of Joan on stage, and I quickly declined, I was dressed in shorts and a t-shirt, I wouldn’t have blended very well with all the black suits and beautiful gowns in the room, I mean even the professional photographers had tuxedo’s on, so I waited outside the theatre for the show to end.

So the clock ticks and Joan has no intention of getting off stage, ten thirty, eleven o’clock, eleven thirty, oh man, com’on. Finally my contact came out to the lobby and says hey look, Joan’s running really late on stage, ( no $#!T) she says I don’t think we’ll have time to talk to her after the show you might want to go in and just get a few pictures of her on stage. Man this really sucks, now I have to walk into a room of mostly rich people, dressed to the nines, sipping high end cocktails, walk to the front of the room below the stage dressed like a slob, and start snapping pictures of Joan Rivers. I had this feeling she would look down from the stage, stop the show, and say, “who hell let this guy in.”

My contact told me there’s a door to the left of the stage, when Joan leaves the stage go to the door and if there is time she’ll get me in to see her. So somewhere around midnight Joan finishes the show and walks off stage. As I walked over to the door I felt like all eyes were on me by the other photographers, I don’t know if they were curious or felt I was onto something but they all followed me to the side-door, (I think there was four or five other photographers) so they kinda crowd around the door with me, the door opens and my contact looks out and waves me in, we go through another door and I was in Joan Rivers dressing room. The first thing I noticed was this big fruit punch type of bowl filled with ice and shrimp the size of lobsters, I’d never seen shrimp that big before or since. There was Joan, Virgil Moir, President of the Progress Federal Savings Bank and I think one other person. I get introduced to Joan and man I’m not sure that I had ever met anyone more pleasant or kinder than Joan Rivers.

We sat and chatted for about ten or fifteen minutes, (seemed like an hour) while we were talking Joan’s driver came into the room and expressed an urgency to get to the airport, Joan noted to the driver she was in the middle of an interview, and would be done shortly. When I finished the interview, (a shortened version, I felt bad I was holding her) Joan asked me if there was anything else I needed, photographs or anything, I was done and thanked her very much.

Joan picked up her little dog, I should have thought to get a picture of her with her dog, but I didn’t, she thanked me, and out the door she went. Everyone else departed the room and I was left with that big bowl of lobster size shrimp, I’m slowly packing up my camera and I couldn’t take my eyes off the shrimp. It’s not like I could just grab one and eat it. Noooo.  One of these would require five, six or seven bites, I zipped my bag and exited the room, with no shrimp.

In the end, I didn’t know much about Joan Rivers going into the Twelve Caesar’s that night, I had no opinion on her one way or the other, but I had an opinion going out.

I found Joan to be very pleasant, kind and charming, she treated me in the same manner she treated the President of Progress Bank. I wasn’t necessarily a fan of Joan’s going into the event, but I was sure a fan of hers after spending time with her, she never once said “Can we talk.”

I have met and talked to many, many celebrities and athletes over the years, I’ve often said sometimes a fifteen second brush with one of these celebrities or athletes leads to a lifetime opinion of them, if they were kind and friendly during that brush, you’ll go through your life and every time their name surfaces you’ll be quick to say ,”Hey, I met that person and they are a good person,” or if that person was having a bad day and didn’t talk to you or acknowledge you or give you an autograph you have a tendency to say, “ Hey I met that person, what an A-hole.”

Well in the case of Joan Rivers, I met her one spring night some twenty five years ago on City Line Avenue in Philadelphia, I met her when she was under pressure to get to the car and catch a plane, at Philadelphia International Airport, and in my few minutes with her I found her to be a delightful individual, and with that being said I was saddened with the news of her death. Joan died on September 4, at the age of 81.

We weren’t friends, but we shared moment, a good moment, and I’ll be forever thankful for that moment. Rest in peace Joan, you lived a life, a good life.

(Editor’s Note)

Jack’s article with Joan Rivers appeared in the May 5, 1988 edition of the Conshohocken Recorder Newspaper, also noting in the article that in 1982, Joan Rivers became the first celebrity to call attention to the impending AIDS crisis when she hosted an AIDS benefit at Studio One in Los Angeles Cal.

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