Joan Rivers can strike terror in the hearts of even the heartiest and best-traveled of red carpet footsloggers. Beyond her vicious barbs, her grasp on industry facts is iffy at best (she once greeted Ron Howard and Brian Grazer with a cordial, Names! ), and then there s the small matter of her face a fiberglass death-mask, polished by workers to a high sheen before every TV Guide channel awards show appearance.

From the Post's Starr Report television column today:

The LAT notes a dust-up between red carpet scourge Joan Rivers and a writer on a BBC radio show yesterday, in which Rivers became so angry over her perception that she'd been labeled a racist that the force of her ensuing rage threatened to undo thousands of dollars in delicate plastic surgery:

And it paid for all of them separately.

It figures that the most fantastic moment (ever?) on the Today show would come from red-carpet hellion Joan Rivers, who kindly delivered her post-Emmy fashion wrap-up with daughter Melissa. Speaking live from Los Angeles, Rivers noted, "We're all trying to forget Hurricane Katrina, and Patricia Arquette looks like she did her hair in it."

A reader sends in background information on Calvin Klein's Joan Rivers outburst after Monday's little incident at the Knicks game:

· Jaws star Roy Scheider participated in a Hamptons peace protest the other day by lying down in the middle of Montauk Highway pretending to be a casualty of war. [Page Six]
· A dog recently took a suicidal running leap off the roof of P. Diddy's West Village town house. [Ed. notesomeone must have been playing his last album.] [Page Six]
· Joan Rivers, on her revised Oscar plans: "First, I called Arnold Scaasi to maybe rethink the gold gown I'm supposedly wearing. Second, I'm redoing the jokes. They must be timely, a war-time theme. Like one I just wrote is, 'I'm going to start stockpiling Botox.' And another where I beat up the goddamn French. I'll say, 'All they ever did for us was give us the Statue of Liberty and even that's turning green." [Cindy Adams]
· Wednesday was Harvey Weinstein's 51st birthday. CNBC's Maria Bartiromo's stalker was sentenced yesterday after he called her from jail in September of 2001. [NY Daily News]