Mount Sinai Hospital

Joan Rivers, queen of US 'comediennes,' dies aged 81

Joan Rivers, the caustic stand-up comic and television host who blazed a trail at a time when comedy was all but off-limits to women, died in New York on Thursday. She was 81.
      
The award-winning star had been in Mount Sinai Hospital since August 28, when she reportedly stopped breathing during a medical procedure on her vocal cords at a clinic in New York.