No Broadway dimming of lights for Joan Rivers, despite a Tony Award nomination

NEW YORK, N.Y. – Despite being a long champion of New York theatre, Joan Rivers will not be memorialized by the dimming of Broadway’s lights.

The Broadway League, which represents theatre owners and producers, has decided that Rivers did not meet the criteria for the honour.

Rivers, who died Thursday at 81, was known primarily as a TV actress and comedian, though she often attended Broadway and off-Broadway shows and earned a Tony Award nomination.

Some celebrities who have been recently granted the honour include Philip Seymour Hoffman and James Gandolfini, whose film careers often overshadowed their theatre contributions.

Rivers wrote and starred in the 1971 quick-to-close “Fun City,” was in Neil Simon’s “Broadway Bound” in 1988, and wrote and starred in “Sally Marr.And Her Escorts” in 1994, where she earned her Tony nod.