[Global News] Joan Rivers dies at the age of 81

[The Lovin Spoon]

Raunchy, gravelly-voiced and self-deprecating comedian Joan Rivers, who rose from Greenwich Village standup to occasional host of "The Tonight Show" and star of TV's "Fashion Police,"died Thursday after going into cardiac arrest during a medical procedure on Sept. 3. She was 81.

She had been admitted to New York's Mt. Sinai hospital after she stopped breathing during a procedure on her vocal cords at a New York Clinic, and was placed in a medically-induced coma to assess her condition.