Behar was born Josephine Victoria Occhiuto in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York, the only child to a Roman Catholic family of Italian descent. Her mother, Rose (née Carbone), was a seamstress, and her father, Gino Occhiuto, was a truck driver for Coca-Cola. Behar earned a BA in sociology from Queens College in 1964 and an MA in English education from Stony Brook University in 1966. From the late 1960s to the early 1970s, she taught English on Long Island at Lindenhurst Senior High School in Lindenhurst, New York. She studied acting at the HB Studio.Behar started her career in show business in the early 1980s as a receptionist and later a producer on Good Morning America.
She was a stand-up comedian and made appearances on ABC's Good Morning America and The New Show, a short-lived Lorne Michaels NBC project. In 1987, she had a talk show on Lifetime Television called Way Off Broadway and was a host on the show Live from Queens. From there, she continued to work the comedy club circuit, was a regular on NBC's Baby Boom, and had minor film roles including Cookie, This Is My Life, and Manhattan Murder Mystery. She was a WABC radio talk-show host, and made appearances on HBO comedy specials One Night Stand and Women of the Night 2.
Someone has already prepared her obituary.