Joy Behar Excited for a ‘Creative’ Life After "The View" - East Idaho News
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Joy Behar Excited for a ‘Creative’ Life After “The View”

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073013 JoyBehar?  SQUARESPACE CACHEVERSION=1375225101865ABC/Donna Svennevik(NEW YORK) — Before Joy Behar started her 16-year, daily run on The View, the Brooklyn-born comedian said, she had a pretty creative life.

“I like to do a lot of different things, I don’t like to do just one thing,” Behar told ABC News during a special taping for her final show, which will air Aug. 9.

Close friends and former colleagues, including Joan Rivers, Meredith Vieira and Regis Philbin, came out to wish Behar a fond farewell. Now that she’s leaving The View, Behar, 70, will get to indulge in any and every creative endeavor, because variety is what it’s about for her.

“I’m a stand-up comedian,” she said. ”I write material, I do Atlantic City and Vegas. I have tons of video from this show, photographs of me with crazy people on this show. I’m going to put it in a one-person show.”

But comedy is not her only passion. Put simply, she’d like spend her mornings in a more leisurely way, which includes spending hours on the phone with friend and actress Susie Essman, who also came to Behar’s goodbye.

“The morning is not my favorite time to work,” Behar said.

“I like to get up and read … then I like to talk on the phone, because I’m awake and caffeinated,” she said. ”After you do all that, go to lunch with friends and have fun all day.”

Behar also likes having her own show. She’s had two prior. Even though she’s leaving The View, she might not stay away from TV for too long. She’s been taking meetings with top execs and having her own show again is on a laundry list of things she’d like to do.

In the midst a bit of roasting from comedian Mario Cantone and music by Tony Bennett, the audience at the taping was privy to how Behar got her start on The View.

Philbin, who’s known Behar for years, said that in 1997 he sat next to Barbara Walters at an event where Behar was performing.

“Do you know this girl?” an impressed Walters asked Philbin, before taking out a piece of paper to write her name down.

Walters came into the office the next day and told her producers that Joy Behar had to be on The View. The rest is history.

“Joy was very irreverent and she was very funny,” Walters said. “Joy has been with us since the first day. We’ve shared a lot of wonderful, funny, sometimes difficult moments — not because of Joy, but circumstances in life — and I will miss her very much.”

Behar joked that she’s going to “sext” everyone to stay in touch.

Co-host Sherri Shepherd had a different idea.

“I’ll call Joy and just breathe on the phone!” she said.

Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio

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