BY Nancy Dillon

LOS ANGELES - Joan Rivers is many things: Funny lady. Jewelry mogul. Red carpet mercenary. But a terrorist?

Can we talk?

Rivers, 76, was deemed a danger to national security and booted from a Newark-bound flight in Costa Rica on Sunday by a jittery Continental Airlines gate agent who found the two names on her passport fishy.

Her passport reads: Joan Rosenberg AKA Joan Rivers. Rosenberg was her late husband's last name.

The "nasty and cruel" Continental gate agent bumped Rivers from the last flight out Sunday and the comedian found herself alone (her daughter, Melissa, flew out to Los Angeles earlier in the day) and with no ATM card and just $100 cash, she said.

Rivers' tale of woe put a famous face on travel's new reality - one that leaves many feeling like common criminals.

"If I were going to make up an alias, I wouldn't pick Rosenberg. I'd pick Jolie or Pitt," said Rivers, back home Monday in New York with her sense of humor intact. "Do terrorists wear Manolo Blahniks? I can tell you Donna Karan does not make anything that hides a bomb," she said.

"I tried the tears; they didn't work. I tried reasoning. I couldn't bribe because I didn't have any money," she said. "I said 'I'm going to have a heart attack over this,' so the woman called the paramedics."

She said a porter, Eldon Ramos, took pity and found a friend to drive her 6-1/2 hours to the main airport in Costa Rica's capital of San Jose for a flight leaving Monday morning.

New York-area travelers were also reporting their own horror stories. "It was just one security checkpoint after the other," said Carmella Rodriguez, 65, of Brooklyn, after barely making it through customs at Newark with her nephew after arriving from Panama. "I told my nephew I felt like I was a delinquent person."


http://www.nydailynews.com/gossip/2010/01/05/2010-01-05_agent_saves...