Producers of an off-Broadway show claim that they’ve found one of the last remaining audio tapes of Joan Rivers before her death — but Rivers’ rep insists the tape isn’t her.
In the audio clip, the beloved late comedienne apparently unleashes her signature zingers and is also heard complaining, “My voice has been bothering me. I don’t know what it is.”
But Rivers’ rep, Judy Katz, insisted the recording is not her late client. “The recording is a fraud. Joan never made any such tape. This is a publicity stunt that was created by Brad Zimmerman and his public relations representative, Beck Lee, and is wholly disrespectful to the memory of Joan Rivers,” she told Page Six in a statement.
Katz confirmed that the same day Rivers went in for a fateful procedure to treat her vocal cords on the Upper East Side, she’d generously offered to record a radio ad for her sometimes-opening-act and friend Brad Zimmerman’s upcoming off-Broadway show, “My Son the Waiter, a Jewish Tragedy.” Sadly, the session never happened.
But the show’s producers then said on Monday they’d realized last week Rivers had made a test recording of the spot for her pal Zimmerman in which she ad-libbed hilarious asides. And they posted the clip to You Tube under the title, “Joan Rivers Last Session.” Katz responded: “This is definitely not Joan. Not even close to Joan’s voice. Everybody knows her voice. It’s so distinguishable. Definitely not Joan.”
She then launches into the ad for Zimmerman’s show, about his decades waiting tables and trying to make it in showbiz. “Hi, I’m Joan Rivers, can we talk?” Rivers begins. “About . . . Brad Zimmerman . . . he waited on tables for 29 years — stupid or what — before he got up the nerve to write a hilarious show … Stupid! He’s dumber than Heidi Abromowitz!” (Abromowitz was Rivers’ floozy alter ego.)
The speaker then rants: “This is terrible copy. Who wrote this crap? I feel sick . . . Anyway, the critics are calling it hilarious, a total must-see, and I love him, too. So don’t wait 29 years to see my friend.” She then complains, “My voice is bothering me … I can’t … I have to do it again.” And gamely moves on: “Coming to the Triad Theater, starting October 10 through New Year’s,” then, “I have better things to do on New Year’s than this s - - t!”
A rep for Zimmerman’s show had said, “Joan used Brad as an opening act many times, and when we asked her if she’d do the spot, she said ‘sure’ immediately.” The rep said Rivers had recorded the “scratch recording” — or rehearsal tape — for Zimmerman’s show at home before she was scheduled to go into the studio.