American comedienne Joan Rivers was BOTD in 1933. Born in Brooklyn, New York City, to a wealthy Russian Jewish immigrant family. she began performing in plays as a child, studying at Connecticut College and Bernard College. Returning to New York, she pursued a showbiz career, performing stand-up comedy in Greenwich Village alongside Woody Allen and Richard Pryor, and appearing in an off-Broadway play with the then-unknown Barbra Streisand. She rose to public attention in TV gag show Candid Camera and as a regular guest on talk shows hosted by Johnny Carson, Ed Sullivan and Dick Cavett, comedy sketch series The Carol Burnett Show and game show Hollywood Squares. In 1986, he became the first woman to host her own late-night comedy show The Late Show Starring Joan Rivers Show, followed by a popular daytime programme The Joan Rivers Show. Known for her razor-sharp wit and self-deprecating jokes about her appearance and plastic surgery, her unfiltered take on taboo subjects like AIDS and 9/11 often offended her targets. Perhaps unsurprisingly, she developed a devoted gay fan base, and was one of the first celebrities to campaign for HIV/AIDS charities in the early 1980s. In the 1990s, she hosted Fashion Police for the E! TV network, eviscerating Hollywood red carpet fashion bloopers. Famously stoic about her lack of talent as an actress, she nonetheless made vivid appearances in The Swimmer opposite Burt Lancaster, The Muppets Take Manhattan and Star Wars spoof Spaceballs, and appeared as herself in John Waters‘ Serial Mom, Shrek 2 and Iron Man 3. She was also perfectly cast with a recurring role in Ryan Murphy‘s TV comedy Nip/Tuck, set in a plastic surgery clinic. Later in life, she appeared in several stranger-than-life reality shows with her daughter Melissa, including the documentary Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work. She died in 2014 aged 81, after being hospitalised for breathing problems and put in a medically-induced coma. In a plot-twist worthy of a Joan Rivers routine, her family sued the emergency room doctors for medical malpractice. Hailed as a trailblazer for women in comedy, she was cited as a major influence on Carol Burnett, Whoopi Goldberg, Roseanne Barr, Kathy Griffin, Margaret Cho and Amy Schumer. She earns Honorary SuperGay status for her self-identification as an outcast, fearless subversion of gender norms and long-time support of the LGBTQ community.