Dr. Joyce Brothers Dies at 85

Syndicated columnist, author, mother and beloved psychologist, television personality and advice columnist, Dr. Joyce Brothers, passed away earlier today at the age of 85.

Joyce Brothers in 1957.

Joyce Diane Bauer married internist Milton Brothers in 1949, six years before she won The $64,000 Question game show, the first woman ever to do so. Her success put the attractive, intelligent and personable young doctor in the public eye, which led to more television, including her own relationship show in 1958 and a career in television and radio broadcast that would last into the 1990s. Brothers also had a column in Good Housekeeping for almost 40 years and, beginning in the 1970s, a syndicated newspaper column. From the New York Times:

Dr. Brothers arrived in the American consciousness (or, more precisely, the American unconscious) at a serendipitous time: the exact historical moment when cold war anxiety, a greater acceptance of talk therapy and the widespread ownership of television sets converged. Looking crisply capable yet eminently approachable in her pastel suits and pale blond pageboy, she offered gentle, nonthreatening advice on sex, relationships, parenting and all manner of decent behavior.

Brothers was the author of several bestselling books including 1982’s What Every Woman Should Know About Men and Widowed from 1992, a book about dealing with grief which she was inspired to write after the loss of her husband, Milton, to cancer in 1989.