Melissa Rivers Biography

Melissa Joan Rivers (born January 20, 1968) is an American actress, television host and producer. She is the daughter of Joan Rivers.

Early life

Rivers was born Melissa Warburg Rosenberg in Manhattan on January 20, 1968, the only child of Joan Rivers and Edgar Rosenberg. She is of Jewish Russian descent on her mother's side and Jewish German on her father's side.

Rivers attended the private John Thomas Dye School in Bel-Air and then The Buckley School in Sherman Oaks, California. She is a 1989 graduate of the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in European History. She was a founding member of the Tabard Society, an off-campus secret society for women.

Rivers married horse trainer John Endicott in December 1998 at New York City's famed Plaza Hotel in an extravagant $3 million Dr. Zhivago-themed winter wonderland wedding. They divorced in 2003. She has one son from that marriage named Edgar Cooper Endicott (born on December 1, 2000) who is featured with Rivers and her mother in the reality show Joan & Melissa: Joan Knows Best?

Rivers was in a relationship with sports coach Jason Zimmerman from 2008 to 2012, until she found out Zimmerman was having an extra-marital relationship.

Career

In 1990, Melissa took on her mother's stage surname.

Rivers was an accomplished equestrienne competing on the show circuits.

Rivers began her career as an intern in the Los Angeles office of CBS News after graduation. She was a feature reporter for CBS This Morning. She was a regular contributor to MTV's Hangin' With MTV as an MTV spring break emcee, and, in time, a broadcast journalist of youth-oriented material.

As an actress, she has had roles in television shows including Beverly Hills, 90210, Silk Stalkings, The Comeback and The L Word. In 1998, she also appeared in the sci-fi/comedy made-for-television movie Men in White and in the 1999 film The Big Tease, a comedy directed by Kevin Allen starring Craig Ferguson. Additionally, she teamed up with her mother Joan Rivers, portraying themselves in the 1994 celebrity docudrama Tears and Laughter: The Joan and Melissa Rivers Story.

In the early 1990s, Rivers branched out on the pre-show red carpet, interviewing celebrities on nationally televised awards shows. Rivers, who has hosted various events and served as a producer for the E! Network, has hosted two of the channel's highest-rated specials: Oh Baby! Melissa's Guide to Pregnancy and Oh Toddler! Surviving the Early Years (aired in January 2002).

Teamed with her comedienne mother, Melissa hosted fashion on the red carpet interviews for the E! cable network. In 2003, Melissa and Joan left her red carpet pre-show on E! to accept a more lucrative deal with the TV Guide Channel valued at between $6 and 8 million. Their contract was not renewed after it expired. Also in 2002, Rivers appeared on the ABC Network competitive reality show I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!, in which she finished in second place. Melissa Rivers has been a regular guest on the webcast show Tom Green's House Tonight. She also appeared on the movie Confessions of a sociopathic social climber.

Charity

In 2003, Rivers appeared in a PETA anti-fur ad campaign, encouraging consumers to "Fake It...for the Animals' Sake."

She raised $100,000 for the Make-A-Wish Foundation, resulting from ABC's 2006 television show I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! Live.

On June 24, 2008, Rivers appeared on the NBC game show Celebrity Family Feud as part of the Rivers Family Team. She and her mother first battled against the Ice-T Family Team, then went on to compete against the Raven-Symoné Family Team. They won $50,000 for their charity, Guide Dogs for the Blind.

She appeared on the NBC reality television program Celebrity Apprentice playing for the Lili Claire Foundation. She was fired in the episode that aired April 26, 2009, after which she stormed out of the boardroom, verbally assaulted other teammates, yelled at the production crew, and refused the obligatory exit interview. Her mother was also a contestant on that season of The Apprentice, and threatened to quit the show after Melissa's firing, but remained and ultimately won the competition.

Rivers raised $22,250 on a special celebrity edition of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, where all the celebrities played to raise money for the research of Alzheimer's disease.