Joan Rivers

He was winding up four days of routine financial meetings in Philadelphia and had told his administrative assistant to confirm his return flight to Los Angeles. He had just finished reading Allan Bloom's "The Closing of the American Mind" and was looking for another good book. He was trying to figure out when he could reschedule dinner with actor Vincent Price. And, as he always did whenever he went out of town, Edgar Rosenberg kept in close telephone contact with his wife.

The comedy queen will be regally remembered Aug. 3 to 7 during the Lucille Ball Festival of Comedy in Jamestown, N.Y. The festival coincides with the centennial of her birth there on Aug. 6, 1911. "She's the high-water mark in situation comedy," said Joan Rivers, who will be among the funny people performing during the celebration. Rivers, who worked with Ball on several of her later TV shows, believes Ball broke plenty of ground — and not just for females. "I think funny is funny," she said.

On Tuesday, Joan Rivers turned 77, an age that makes her shudder. After all, for years, the comedian has put a lot of money and effort into trying to look younger. At an interview at a West Hollywood hotel this week, for example, her face had been coated with foundation so thick it was difficult to see her pores; her fingernails had been impeccably painted with a pink rose gloss and her blond hair had been styled to feather out slightly. Her style of dress, which included layered necklaces from her QVC jewelery line, was in touch with the latest fashion trends.

EVENTS Taiko drumming Three family events in one ? learn about the Japanese drumming tradition, listen to a performance and then create a Japanese landscape scroll to commemorate the occasion. Kidspace Children's Museum, 480 N. Arroyo Blvd., Pasadena. Free. 4-8 p.m. (626) 449-9144. http://www.kidspacemuseum.org Joan Rivers As a stand-up comedian, a talk-show host, a dreaded member of the fashion police and even a winner on "The Celebrity Apprentice," Joan Rivers has had a long and varied (if occasionally polarizing)

EVENTS Taiko drumming Three family events in one ? learn about the Japanese drumming tradition, listen to a performance and then create a Japanese landscape scroll to commemorate the occasion. Kidspace Children's Museum, 480 N. Arroyo Blvd., Pasadena. Free. 4-8 p.m. (626) 449-9144. http://www.kidspacemuseum.org Joan Rivers As a stand-up comedian, a talk-show host, a dreaded member of the fashion police and even a winner on "The Celebrity Apprentice," Joan Rivers has had a long and varied (if occasionally polarizing)

* The comedian co-hosts, with daughter Melissa, the E! channel's "Academy Awards Live Pre-Show," Sunday at 3 p.m. and "Academy Awards Fashion Review" March 27. L.A.-Bound: I fly out Friday. I love flying out to L.A. with a purpose--and I love flying out to L.A. because you're losing time, which means that you're getting younger. I also love coming because I stay at my daughter Melissa's house. Star-Struck: We go to the Ivy, which is French food without the attitude.

Fear, as defined in the bawdy and surprisingly trenchant new documentary, "Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work," is a blank calendar. There is a riff to do on the terror she finds in all those little empty squares. But by then you know it's no laughing matter. Work is life; not working might as well be death. With a mix of moments like that — as poignantly revealing as they are entertaining — along with TV clips, many of them classics, and months spent following the comic through the long days and nights of her 75th year, filmmakers Ricki Stern and Annie Sundberg have managed to capture the "Can we talk?"

Edgar Rosenberg, the husband and manager of comedian Joan Rivers, died today in his hotel room of an apparent drug overdose suicide, police said. He was 63. Detective Gerald Whartenby said police found a note by Rosenberg and valium in the Four Seasons Hotel room where medical examiners said he died. Rosenberg had suffered a major heart attack in 1985 and underwent quadruple-bypass surgery.

Joan Rivers underwent scheduled surgery today for a hysterectomy and a tummy tuck at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, a spokesman for the comedian said. The spokesman, Richard Grant, would not disclose the reason for the hysterectomy, which involves removal of the uterus. The tummy tuck will also help eradicate the hysterectomy scar, he added. "She figured as long as she's under and having it done, she might as well beautify America," Grant said.

Comedian Joan Rivers said today she will file a $50-million libel suit against Gentlemen's Quarterly magazine and the author of what she called "a vicious article" that said she wished her late husband, Edgar Rosenberg, was dead. Rivers, in tears and flanked by attorney Bob Chapman and daughter Melissa Rosenberg at a Westwood news conference, said: "Gentlemen's Quarterly magazine has published a story in the December issue which is not just inaccurate, but 100% false."

Does Robert Redford have plans for the last Saturday in January? Recalling his L.A. boyhood for The Times in 1990, the actor-director and Sundance Institute founder said that when his family moved from West Los Angeles to Van Nuys for his high school years, it was "like ? being tossed into quicksand. There was no culture, it was very oppressive. " Half a century on, at long last there's something afoot that might lure Redford and other arts lovers to the San Fernando Valley ?

Before going on stage, six nights a week, dressed in drag as Joan Rivers, Frank Marino painstakingly applies his own makeup for an hour in his star dressing room. As producer of his own show, Marino keeps a chart on the dressing room wall he checks nightly giving the audience counts. "It is color coded red or green to show if I went up on that day from last week. " Translating the chart, he says, "We currently average about 400 tickets a night. To be honest I would like to get that up to 600. " Marino arrived in Las Vegas as an unknown in 1984 to star as the Joan Rivers impersonator in the drag show "La Cage" at the Riviera.

On Tuesday, Joan Rivers turned 77, an age that makes her shudder. After all, for years, the comedian has put a lot of money and effort into trying to look younger. At an interview at a West Hollywood hotel this week, for example, her face had been coated with foundation so thick it was difficult to see her pores; her fingernails had been impeccably painted with a pink rose gloss and her blond hair had been styled to feather out slightly. Her style of dress, which included layered necklaces from her QVC jewelery line, was in touch with the latest fashion trends.

'Joan Rivers – A Piece of Work' MPAA rating: R for language and sexual humor Running time: 1 hour, 24 minutes Playing: ArcLight Hollywood; Landmark Theater, West L.A.

Capsule reviews are by Kenneth Turan (K.Tu.), Betsy Sharkey (B.S.) and other reviewers. Compiled by Anthony Miller. Openings FRIDAY The A-Team Former Special Forces soldiers attempt to clear their names after being set up for a crime they didn't commit. With Liam Neeson, Bradley Cooper, Quinton "Rampage" Jackson, Sharlto Copley, Jessica Biel, Patrick Wilson and Gerald McRaney. Screenplay by Skip Woods, Joe Carnahan and Brian Bloom.

Holmes onstage: Katie Holmes is headed back to the stage, this time for the annual Memorial Day weekend concert in Washington, D.C. She will team with actress Dianne Wiest to read one veteran's personal story at the May 24 event, to be televised on PBS. -- Roasting Joan: Comedian and QVC jewelry diva Joan Rivers will be the subject of a Comedy Central roast, taping in L.A. on July 26 and being shown Aug. 9. "I'm thrilled to be doing this for...

She's a comedian, best-selling author, screenwriter, film director, Broadway playwright, mother and the host of her own Emmy-winning daytime series. Joan Rivers should add survivor to her resume. She has overcome personal and professional tragedies that would have destroyed many. Five years ago, her career was considered over when her much ballyhooed late-night talk show for the fledgling Fox network was canceled.

Edgar Rosenberg, husband of and comic foil for comedian Joan Rivers, was found dead in his Philadelphia hotel room Friday, apparently of a drug overdose, police said. He was 62. The veteran producer and longtime manager of his wife's career apparently died of an overdose of Valium, said Police Detective Gerald Whartenby. Officials were summoned when Rosenberg's business manager called him at the Four Seasons Hotel on Friday morning and received no answer.

WASHINGTON -- Jon Stewart, Bill Maher and Margaret Cho are among an all-star lineup of entertainers who will honor the late comedian George Carlin at this year's Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. The prize was announced just before Carlin's death in June. It will be awarded during a tribute performance Nov. 10 at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington. The program announced Tuesday will be aired later on PBS stations. Others who will honor Carlin include Garry Shandling, Lily Tomlin, Denis Leary, Joan Rivers, Lewis Black and Richard Belzer.