Joyce Diane Brothers (née Bauer; October 20, 1927 – May 13, 2013) was an American psychologist, television personality and columnist, who wrote a daily newspaper advice column from 1960 to 2013.

Personal life

Joyce Diane Bauer was born in 1927 in Brooklyn to Estelle (née Rapaport) and Morris K. Bauer, attorneys who shared a law practice. Her family is Jewish. She graduated from Far Rockaway High School in Far Rockaway, Queens in January 1944. She entered Cornell University, double majoring in home economics and psychology and was a member of Sigma Delta Tau sorority. She earned her Ph.D.degree in psychology from Columbia University.

She married Milton Brothers, an internist, in 1949. The couple had a daughter, Lisa. Milton Brothers died in 1989 from cancer. Joyce Brothers resided in Fort Lee, New Jersey.

Career 

Brothers gained fame in late 1955 by winning The $64,000 Question game show, on which she appeared as an expert in the subject area of boxing. Originally, she had not planned to have boxing as her topic, but the sponsors suggested it, and she agreed. A voracious reader, she studied every reference book about boxing that she could find; she would later tell reporters that it was thanks to her good memory that she assimilated so much material and answered even the most difficult questions. 

In 1959, allegations that the quiz shows were rigged, due to the Charles Van Doren controversy on the quiz show Twenty One, began to surface and stirred controversy. Despite these claims, Brothers insisted that she had never cheated, nor had she ever been given any answers to questions in advance. Subsequent investigations suggested that she had won honestly.

Richard N. Goodwin, the chief investigator of the quiz show scandals, wrote of how he questioned Brothers, and when she began to cry he decided not to pursue any further inquiries into her actions on the quiz show. Her success on The $64,000 Question earned Brothers a chance to be the color commentator for CBS during the boxing match between Carmen Basilioand Sugar Ray Robinson. She was said to be the first woman ever to be a boxing commentator.

By August 1958, Brothers was given her own television show on a New York station, but her topic was not sports; she began doing an advice show about relationships, during which she answered questions from the audience. She later claimed to have been the first television psychologist, explaining to The Washington Post, "I invented media psychology. I was the first. The founding mother." Sponsors were nervous about whether a television psychologist could succeed, she recalled, but viewers expressed their gratitude for her show, telling her she was giving them information they couldn't get elsewhere. 

She went on to do syndicated advice shows on both television and radio, during a broadcasting career that lasted more than four decades. Her shows went through a number of name changes over the years, from The Dr. Joyce Brothers Show to Consult Dr. Brothers to Tell Me, Dr. Brothers toAsk Dr. Brothers to Living Easy with Dr. Joyce Brothers. In 1964 she interviewed and posed for publicity photographs with the Beatles on their first visit to the United States.

Brothers also had a monthly column in Good Housekeeping magazine for almost four decades, and a syndicated newspaper column that she began writing in the 1970s and which at its height was printed in more than 300 newspapers. She published several best-selling books, including the 1982 book, What Every Woman Should Know About Men, and the 1992 book, Widowed, inspired by the loss of her husband. The latter book offered practical advice for widows and widowers, helping them to cope with their grief and create a new life for themselves. Brothers continued to do guest appearances on television and radio talk shows.

In addition to being called upon for her expertise in psychology, Brothers also appeared on a number of television shows, including Saturday Night Live, CHiPs, Simon & Simon, Ellery Queen, Mama's Family, Taxi, Happy Days, Police Squad!, Police Woman, Night Court, The Nanny, Frasier, The Andy Dick Show, The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, One Life to Live, WKRP in Cincinnati, Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer, Mr. Belvedere, Married... with Children, Entourage, The Simpsons, All That, Kenan & Kel, The Steve Harvey Show, My Two Dads, Melrose Place, ALF, The Larry Sanders Show, Space Ghost Coast to Coast, Late Night with Conan O'Brien, Moonlighting and Suddenly Susan. She also appeared in the Steve Martin comedy The Lonely Guy in a supporting role and performed a cameo as herself in the John Ritter comedy movie Hero at Large.

Brothers appeared as an occasional celebrity guest on game shows such as Match Game, the 1968 revival of What's My Line?, The Gong Show, Showoffs, Body Language andHollywood Squares. A cartoon version of her also appeared in a Sunday edition of the comic strip Blondie, where she was referred to by Dagwood Bumstead as "Brother Joyce Doctors".[citation needed] Brothers had been the ninth-most frequent guest on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson when Carson retired. An often-replayed blooper from Brothers'Happy Days appearance features her giving a complicated psychological analysis of a dog, only to spark laughter when she accidentally refers to the dog's homosexual behavior.

As a psychologist, Brothers had been licensed in New York since 1958.

Death and legacy 

Brothers died aged 85 at her home in Fort Lee on May 13, 2013 due to respiratory failure. She is survived by her sister Elaine Goldsmith, her daughter Lisa Brothers Arbisser, four grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

Brothers has been credited with inspiring Dr. Phil McGraw, who called himself "a very big fan of hers", and Dr. Laura Schlessinger.

Notes

^A Some sources indicate 1928 as her year of birth. An official document (though not a birth certificate) in her personal papers held at Cornell University indicates that her birth date was Oct. 20, 1927.