Joyce Brothers

Joyce Diane Bauer Brothers (October 20, 1927 – May 13, 2013) was an American psychologist, television personality, advice columnist, and writer.

In 1955, she won the top prize on the American game show The $64,000 Question. Her fame from the game show allowed her to go on to host various advice columns and television shows, which established her as a pioneer in the field of pop (popular) psychology.

Brothers is often credited as the first to normalize psychological concepts to the American mainstream. As Brothers quickly became the "face of psychology" for American audiences, she appeared in numerous television roles, usually as herself. From the 1970s onward, she also began to accept fictional roles that mocked her "woman psychologist" persona. She is noted for working continuously for five decades across various platforms. Her doctoral dissertation was titled "Anxiety Avoidance and Escape Behaviour as Measured by Action Potential in Muscle". While working on her graduate studies, she was a research assistant at Columbia, an instructor at Hunter College, and a research fellow on a UNESCO leadership project from 1949 to 1959. He is credited with saying Brothers should be given a topic on "something that [she] shouldn't know about... [something like] if it were football or if it were horse racing or boxing...." and in both season 3 and season 5 of the sitcom The Nanny. She also voiced an animated version of herself in the episode "Last Exit to Springfield" in season 4 of The Simpsons as well as a season 1 episode of Frasier portraying a "nut". Other appearances include a second-season episode of Entourage, in Married... with Children as a judge, and as designer jeans mogul Vicky Von Vickey in season 3, episode 5 of WKRP in Cincinnati. She also makes an appearance as a crime scene pathologist in the movie National Lampoon's: Loaded Weapon. And in Style & Substance, she appeared as herself, the permanent alternate guest on a take-off of Politically Incorrect. She appeared in "The Love Boat" S2 E18 as Mrs. Magwich, which aired 2/9/1979. She appeared as herself on “Frasier” S1 E9 Selling Out first aired 11/9/93.

Newspaper and books

Brothers had a monthly column in Good Housekeeping for almost four decades and a syndicated newspaper column that she began writing in the 1970s, which at its height was printed in more than 300 newspapers. She also published several books, including the 1981 book What Every Woman Should Know About Men and the 1991 book Widowed, inspired by the loss of her husband. Her advice was used as a source for some questions on the 1998–2004 incarnation of Hollywood Squares.

Brothers conducted self-promotion and was skilled in navigating the male-dominated media industry. Following the death of her husband, Brothers fell into a state of depression for a year and contemplated suicide; however, she used her work to achieve inner peace and recover.