After being taken to a hospital in cardiac arrest last week, Emmy-winning comedian Joan Rivers died today in New York. She was 81. “It is with great sadness that I announce the death of my mother, Joan Rivers,” Melissa Rivers said in a statement. “She passed peacefully at 1:17 PM surrounded by family and close friends.”
The veteran performer loomed sufficiently large in the pop culture world that cable news networks interrupted programming to report news of her death — NBC broke into its programming with a news alert.
During a minor endoscopic procedure last Thursday to check her vocal cords at an Upper East Side clinic, Rivers stopped breathing and was rushed to Mount Sinai, where she was put into a medically induced coma. On Wednesday, she was moved from intensive care to a private room at the Manhattan hospital.
Source: http://deadline.com/2014/09/joan-rivers-dead-obituary-cardiac-arrest-hospitalized-new-york-city-826381/