Joan Rivers funeral: Entertainer pre-planned her ceremony 'I want Meryl Streep crying in five different accents'

'And I want a wind machine so that even in the casket my hair is blowing just like Beyonce's,' she wrote in her book I Hate Everyone...

Comedian Joan Rivers poses for a portrait in 1990 in Los Angeles, California. (Harry Langdon/Getty Images)

Joan Rivers passed away on Thursday 4 September after being on life support for five days.

She suffered a cardiac and respiratory arrest during a routine operation on her vocal chords last week, and was placed in intensive care in a medically induced coma.

Not, however, before she’d laid out some fairly spectacular plans for her "huge showbiz funeral" for her daughter Melissa Rivers to follow.

"When I die (and, yes, Melissa, that day will come; and, yes, Melissa, everything's in your name), I want my funeral to be a huge showbiz affair with lights, cameras, action," she wrote in a chapter called "Death Be Not Proud" in her 2012 book I Hate Everyone… Starting With Me.

"I want Craft services, I want paparazzi and I want publicists making a scene! I want it to be Hollywood all the way. I don't want some rabbi rambling on; I want Meryl Streep crying, in five different accents.

"I don't want a eulogy; I want Bobby Vinton to pick up my head and sing "Mr. Lonely." I want to look gorgeous, better dead than I do alive. I want to be buried in a Valentino gown and I want Harry Winston to make me a toe tag.

"And I want a wind machine so that even in the casket my hair is blowing just like Beyonce's."

We’re not sure how much of this will end up being actualised in reality. But we do know that Rivers is set to be laid to rest on Sunday 7 September in New York at the Temple Emanu-El.

"It is a terribly sad day for all of us," Rivers' Rabbi, Joshua M Davidson, said in a statement.

"We mourn with her family, friends and all those millions to whom she brought laughter and joy."