Before red carpet, Rivers was groundbreaker in Las Vegas

Let’s see now. What dignified, politically correct phrase would Joan Rivers have used to describe her Las Vegas career?

Ah, yes. “I’ve become the slut of the Strip,” she proclaimed in 1978. “I’ll work for anyone.”

And she did. Before the red carpets and the home shopping shows, Joan Rivers was a groundbreaking Las Vegas comedian whose showroom work spanned at least 43 years.

She was part the original Caesars Palace showroom’s rotation for eight years, the rare headline comedian there and the only female stand-up to appear on the same marquee as singers such as Diana Ross and Ann-Margret.

“It’s a sad day for a lot of people who admired her as much as I did,” said Rita Rudner, the Las Vegas headliner who cites Rivers and Phyllis Diller as her primary stand-up comedy influences.

“I admired her tremendously because of her diversity. She really turned herself into a global force,” added Rudner, who also broke ground as a year-round female stand-up on the Strip in the 2000s.

Caesars also was the home base for the taping of a cable TV special, “Joan Rivers and Friends Salute Heidi Abromowitz,” in 1985.

Yet by 2004, Rivers said her new fans “had never heard of Heidi Abromowitz” (the sex-addicted creation of Rivers’ best-selling book), or even knew she was once Johnny Carson’s permanent “Tonight Show” guest host from 1983 through 1986.

Forgotten or not, Rivers’ Las Vegas history went back to at least 1969, when she co-headlined with John Davidson at the Riviera. She made her Caesars Palace debut as Paul Anka’s opening act in 1972 and performed in Las Vegas at least until September 2012, the end of nearly a decade as a periodic performer at The Venetian.

Phyllis Diller and Totie Fields had both crashed the Vegas comedy men’s club before her, but Rivers was the first to do it in high style.

“I was the first one that said, ‘Try to look good’ ” instead of dressing for laughs, she said in 2004.

Rivers was co-billed at Caesars with the likes of the Smothers Brothers, Garry Shandling and Ben Vereen from 1983 through 1991, which included the Carson guest-host years and the short-lived, controversial FOX show that followed.

Before that, her Las Vegas work took her to showrooms including the Riviera, Frontier, MGM Grand, Sands and Desert Inn.

In 1978, she explained that she actually preferred to be double-billed as a co-headliner. “My theory is that if you don’t headline, they can’t get tired of you.”

In 1986, Rivers filed a lawsuit to stop female impersonator Frank Marino from performing as her in the Riviera’s “An Evening at La Cage,” citing copyright infringement of her jokes and story material.

Marino eventually agreed to use his own jokes instead of lifting her material verbatim, and the two went on to become friends. He still performs as Rivers in “Divas Las Vegas” at The Quad.

“I can’t picture Joan Rivers not being in the world anymore,” Marino said Tuesday, when Rivers was still on life support. Marino has done his drag impression of Rivers in Las Vegas since September 1985.

“You can imagine for the last 30 years, her name comes up in my household every day and I perform as her every single night. It’s a weird feeling,” Marino said. “This is going to sound stupid, but it’s like losing a mother.”

Marino said Rivers later told him the litigation against him was pursued by her husband-manager Edgar Rosenberg (who died in 1987). Rivers performed at Caesars Palace several times a year, and the Riviera was a more significant competitor in the 1980s, when there were fewer resorts on the Strip.

“She’s done things for me that she didn’t have to do that were very helpful,” Marino said, such has having him on her late-night and daytime TV talk shows. “I don’t even think she knew how much of my life she is.”

During the period when Rivers was on life support, Marino said he altered his opening monologue in “Divas” to acknowledge the situation, and to say “Tonight, instead of just doing an impersonation I’m going to do a tribute.”

Rivers was far from publicity shy, and frequently submitted to Review-Journal interviews over the years. A sampling of quotes from over the years.

■ “(I)t’s harder for a lady when you go on the road. I have my writing to keep me busy, but it can get very lonely. Men can hang around with the guys in the band and go to bars. But if you’re a woman, how many times can you go shopping?” — 1978, co-headlining with Robert Goulet at the Frontier.

■ “My husband says that as you get bigger you’re a bigger target. … When I was the outsider, everybody loved me, and now that I’m becoming a little bit of an insider, it’s all turned around.” — 1983, headlining Caesars after becoming Carson’s permanent guest host.

■ “I can’t stand the sound of my own voice! I don’t even listen to my albums, ever. I wouldn’t even listen to it when it was edited. My husband did the editing.” — same interview, 1983

■ “I’m back, thank God. It feels great at this age, because I was beyond being out of favor. I was left for dead. I could’ve retired to Connecticut and licked my wounds and just said, ‘That’s it, I’ve had it.’ And then I thought, ‘no. This is my life and no one’s telling me when to retire.’ ” — February 1990, taping her syndicated daytime talk show at Caesars.

■ “Everyone was calling me up and saying, ‘Poor Phyllis (Diller).’ She was 95. She was in her own home. She had an assistant. She had a staff. Her kids are fine. Lucky Phyllis. Lucky Phyllis! … Phyllis was very old, you know. She died actually in early May. It just took that long to go through her system.” — 2012, headlining The Venetian.