As one fifth of television’s enormously popular cast of “The View,” comedian Joy Behar brought a caustic wit and razor-sharp sarcasm to the all-women morning gabfest.

Born Josephina Victoria Occhiuto on Oct. 7, 1943 and raised in Brooklyn, NY, Behar was reared in a tight knit Italian family whom she would later say spoiled her by encouraging her to speak her mind. Within this nurturing atmosphere, she developed acute skills of communicating, which would later serve her well, first as a teacher, and then more famously, as a top female stand-up comic.

After graduating with a sociology degree