JOAN RIVERS: SHE CAN’T TALK YET

“First of all,” said Joan Rivers, opening her spit-and-fire routine at Caesars Palace, “you are looking at a woman who has finally been able to make Johnny Carson happy.”

It was the embattled comedienne’s first public appearance outside Hollywood since she was forced to leave last Friday night as host of the 7-month-old “The Late Show Starring Joan Rivers” for Fox Broadcasting Co.

Was she indirectly poking fun at Carson’s love life? Was she perhaps conceding defeat, saying Johnny really did have all the late-night ratings marbles? Or was Rivers, whose face and voice was supposed to have launched a full-scale competitive fourth network--but didn’t--simply delivering a good line?

No matter. It was just about Rivers’ only, however oblique, reference to her tense, unsettled situation with Fox as she performed a pair of 40-minute monologues pre- and post-midnight Tuesday. The word Fox , in any context, never crossed her lips.

As for her future in television, the queen of “Can we talk ?” adroitly clammed up. She was so successful that at another point, when, chatting with a woman in the audience, she said, “I guess it’s not my week,” there was hardly a ripple of laughter.

Still, it was quite a performance. Dressed rather becomingly in a slinky rhinestone-studded black-and-gold dress with a thigh-high slit, Rivers owned the stage, arms flailing, her rusty-zippery voice drawing laughs from high rollers, losers and ordinary tourists alike, her microphone almost an extension of herself.

In person, Rivers, who is in the neighborhood of 50, looks prettier than on television. Her sharp features seem softer, though not her words.

In the grandiose setting of the 1,250-seat Circus Maximus nightspot, she somehow created an atmosphere of intimacy. She could be her outrageous stage self. She could range from mincing birdlike gestures to sweeping motions of arms and legs. And she could talk , taking on topics that would never be sanctioned on the tube, or in a family newspaper.

According to Rivers’ press agent, Richard Grant, “she can’t talk” about her own predicament, under orders from her lawyer. “They (Fox and Rivers) are still in negotiation. Neither Joan nor Fox will be making any statements until her contract is negotiated.” At Fox, meanwhile, they are saying essentially the same thing.

Ironically, as the last of three acts, Rivers assumed the role of talk-show host, introducing from behind the red velvet curtain good ol’ boy comedian Andy Andrews--who the program (but not Rivers) noted “has appeared on her television show”--and TV’s “Gimme a Break!” star Nell Carter, who called Rivers “a good lady, a good friend” and sang her gospel-rock heart out.

Rivers, meanwhile, signaled her rambunctious mood from the start. When a deep-voiced, unseen announcer advised patrons not to smoke or shoot pictures, Rivers cracked: “Listen, you want to smoke? You smoke. You want to take pictures? Take pictures. What the hell! You paid. (Blank) them.”

She appeared to be in vintage form, with a lot to say about a range of personalities from Dr. Ruth, whom she exquisitely mimicked, to Queen Elizabeth II (and family).

“Can we discuss the Queen of England?” she began raspingly. “Look for a woman in a housedress and a hat; that’s her. She wears soap on a rope for jewelry; the cardboard is still on her earrings. . . . Her daughter Anne, ask her how many children she has,” and Rivers made a neighing sound. “Now is that a horse?” she asked--in case the crowd hadn’t gotten her message.

Among other topics were Vanna White (“for $1.5 million she doesn’t even know the alphabet”); Christie Brinkley (“her elevator stops at the collarbone”); Cyndi Lauper’s clothes, Mick Jagger’s lips, Peter Turner’s and Madonna’s hair (“I hate hairy women”) and virtually every First Lady since Mamie Eisenhower.

During a nonstop monologue, she was down on her knees, flat on her back, bent over a stool feigning nausea as she discussed a smattering of rock stars and Amy Carter. Invariably mentioning women she didn’t like, including several First Daughters, Rivers made a barking sound.

Before an audience of strangers, she could ask Kim, 24, a bank officer from Iowa, who is single, and Janet, a middle-aged mother of four from Palm Springs, the most intimate questions, without being bleeped, or told it was none of her business. To her audience, it was all in good fun--most of the time.

She cracked jokes involving Jews (“of course, I’m Jewish . . . “), Italians, Poles--the kind that would wipe presidential candidates off the map in a flash--and the only time she drew a groan was when she mentioned Filipinos. Another line, about Anne Frank, which crept into the 9:30 p.m. monologue, did not reappear at 12:40 a.m.

Rivers was at her repeatable best talking about housework. “I hate to cook, I hate to clean. Fool, fool!” she shouted at her audience. “If God wanted us to be housewives, he would have made us aluminum hands. Those hands were meant to hold charge cards!”

As for her own situation, Rivers indicated she would not be goaded into discussing it. Ticking off the names of stars who attended Sean Penn and Madonna’s Malibu wedding--she paused. A man in the audience called out: “Victoria Principal.”

Six weeks ago, Rivers got into a spate of trouble when she mentioned, inadvertently or otherwise, the actress’ unlisted number on the air. On stage here, Rivers got off that subject fast.

During the midnight show, Rivers interrupted her routine to introduce fellow comedian Alan Thicke, who has had late-night show woes of his own, but she skipped any reference to that. Instead, she noted that he was accompanied by tennis star Tracy Austin.

As for her audiences, they seemed willing to keep the subject under wraps. In turn, she didn’t know how they reacted to her plight.

At a front table before the first show began, Donna Gorgone of Boston whispered to her friend, “We came a week early. Johnny Mathis is coming in next. I’m aggravated.” But when the show was over, Gorgone said she felt better about seeing Rivers in person, because the comedienne could never talk that way on television.

Before the second show, Ron Crowley, a computer installer from Palm Beach, said Rivers was treated unfairly. “They (television executives) gave Carson 23 years. She didn’t even get 23 months.”

For others, however, it seemed not to matter all that much, whatever happened. “I can take her or leave her,” said Arvonia Hammond of Princeton, a retired teacher.

“She was different,” said Tom Kendall, a chemical worker from St. Joseph, Mo., while his wife Joan commented: “I guess I’ll have to go back to watching the news.”