Joan Rivers funeral to be held

Family and friends will say farewell to Joan Rivers when the comedian’s funeral takes place in New York later.

There is expected to be a star-studded guest list for the service at the Temple Emanu-El in Manhattan.

Few details have been revealed, but  reports have suggested  there will be a red carpet that will later be buried with the star.

Rivers, 81, died on Thursday, a week after suffering a cardiac arrest while having a routine medical procedure.

The outspoken star famously wrote in 2012 how she wanted her funeral to be “a huge showbiz affair”.

She added: “I want paparazzi and I want publicists making a scene! I want it to be Hollywood all the way. I don’t want some rabbi rambling on; I want Meryl Streep crying, in five different accents.”

Rivers and daughter Melissa were fixtures on red carpets at major award ceremonies

In what has been billed as her final interview in  The Sunday Times , she said she had given her daughter Melissa strict instructions on who should not be allowed to attend her funeral – but did not say who was on the list.

Rivers also said she was preparing Melissa for her death. “It’s like, God, I’m in my 80s,” she said. “Nobody, when I die, is going to say, ‘How young?’ They’re going to say, ‘She had a great ride.'”

Tributes for the comedy queen have flooded in from figures ranging from David Letterman and Whoopi Goldberg to Prince Charles, who praised her “unstoppable sense of humour and… enormous zest for life”.

Senior Rabbi Joshua M Davidson, who will conduct the service on Sunday, said in a statement: “We mourn with her family, friends and all those millions to whom she brought laughter and joy.”

Rivers stopped breathing during a procedure on her vocal cords at an outpatient clinic on 28 August. The New York City Medical Examiner’s Office said that after an initial examination, further tests would be carried out to determine the cause of death.