Joyce Brothers
Joyce Diane Bauer Brothers 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 psychology".
Brothers is often credited as the first to normalize psychological concepts to the American mainstream. Her syndicated columns were featured in newspapers and magazines, including a monthly column for Good Housekeeping, in which she contributed for nearly 40 years. 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. Numerous groups recognized Brothers for her strong leadership as a woman in the psychology field and for trying to end the stigma around mental health.
Family and personal relationships
Joyce Brothers was born to attorneys Morris K. Bauer and Estelle Rapport, who shared a law practice. She grew up in Far Rockaway, Queens, New York. She had a sister named Elaine Goldsmith, to whom she was close. Joyce described that, while she was growing up, her father treated her like a son. He even decided to name her "Joseph" instead of Joyce before she was born. As a result, she grew up in an environment in which her gender made no difference in the family's expectations of high academic performance. Consequently, she was often described as being a studious person, thriving on "hard work and academic achievement".In 1949, she married Milton Brothers, who later became an internist. In 1989, Brothers lost her husband to bladder cancer. 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. Brothers and her husband had a daughter, four grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
Education
Brothers graduated from Far Rockaway High School in January 1944. Afterward, she entered Cornell University, double-majoring in home economics and psychology and graduated with a Bachelor of Science with honors in 1947. Brothers was a member of Sigma Delta Tau at the time. She then attended Columbia University, where she obtained a Master of Arts in 1949 and a Ph.D. in psychology in 1953. 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. The American Association of University Women awarded Brothers a fellowship in 1952, which enabled her to complete the doctoral degree.Career
Television and radio
''$64,000 Question'' (1955)
Brothers's first television appearance was at the age of 28. At that time, her husband was making $50 a month as a medical intern at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, which was not enough to support them and their three-year-old daughter. To escape what Brothers called the "slum-like conditions" of her New York City walkup, she was driven to enter as a contestant on the game show The $64,000 Question. The top-charting show had the largest jackpot of all quiz shows at the time.To become a contestant, Brothers had to write a letter describing herself and her hobbies, explaining why she would make a great contestant, and outlining what she would do with the winnings. Eventually, the letter landed her an interview with Mert Koplin, the show's producer. While in her letter she discussed her qualifications in the field of psychology and home economics, she was not allowed to use her expert knowledge for the show, as The $64,000 Question did not allow participants to be quizzed on topics of their expertise or profession. As such, Brothers had to come up with a new topic area for her to be quizzed on for the show.
With the gender roles of the time in mind, Koplin thought he could draw in the most viewership by juxtaposing Brothers's perceived frailty as a woman with the idea that she knew a great deal about a more masculine field. He is credited with saying Brothers should be given a topic on "something that shouldn't know about... if it were football or if it were horse racing or boxing...."
Brothers's husband was a great fan of boxing, so she chose that as her topic. To prepare, she studied twenty-volume boxing encyclopedias and many years' worth of Ring Magazine issues and worked with boxing writer Nat Fleischer and former Olympic boxing champion and New York State Athletic Commissioner Edward P.F Eagan. After studying, she progressed on the show for several weeks. Despite the show's producers' efforts to stump her at the $16,000 mark by asking questions involving referees rather than the boxers themselves, she exceeded expectations and won the top prize.
Brothers used her photographic memory and focus on learning everything she could and quickly became regarded as an expert in the subject area of boxing. Her success on The $64,000 Question earned Brothers a chance to be the color commentator for CBS during the boxing match between Carmen Basilio and Sugar Ray Robinson. She was said to have been the first female boxing commentator.
Two years later, Brothers appeared on the spin-off series The $64,000 Challenge, which brought in the winners of The $64,000 Question and matched them against experts in the field. Again, Brothers won the maximum prize against seven other competitors.
While The $64,000 Question and The $64,000 Challenge later came out with cheating scandals of some contestants only pretending to be novices to their respective topic, Brothers was one of the contestants who was cleared of cheating allegations.
''Sports Showcase'' (1956)
After the success of the quiz show, Brothers co-hosted the Sports Showcase with journalist Max Kase. This role made her one of the early female sports commentators.Local afternoon show on NBC's WRCA-TV
Brothers's wish to use her platform to practice psychology was provided through reading letters from people who submitted them to the radio. This opportunity was provided on a four-week basis on NBC's WRCA-TV in New York City.Appearances on talk shows
Brothers appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson as a means for the public to get to know her more than just through the advice columns. With more than 90 appearances on the show, she provided detailed psychological updates on the accounts of the current social climate of that time. She also appeared on daytime television programs like Good Morning America, Today, Entertainment Tonight, and CNN as well as late-night television shows with Merv Griffin, Mike Douglas, and Conan O’Brien as well as The Steve Allen Show, Body Language, and The Dick Cavett Show.''Living Easy with Dr. Joyce Brothers'' (1973)
In efforts to market and promote their new textile fibre Trevira polyester, the German chemical company Hoechst provided Joyce Brothers with her own show. While Brothers had the opportunity to host her own show and allow the public to learn more about her, the show's ultimate function was to promote Trevira and the company's latest fashions. This goal was evident in almost every aspect of the show, from Brothers's discussions onto the topic of fashion to the production of the set, which was decorated entirely in the Trevira fabric.The show initially was located in the Broadway Theatre District in New York and moved to Studio 6B at 30 Rockefeller Plaza during its second year. Titled Living Easy with Dr. Joyce Brothers, the show consisted of guest interviews, musical performances, how-to-demos, and a weekly segment dedicated to psychology. Two hundred episodes were produced, airing on 150 stations during its three-year run. The show faced criticisms from stakeholders, and the public believed that there was not enough focus on psychology and that Brothers was failing to incorporate her psychological expertise.
''Dr. Joyce Brothers Show'' (1985)
A decade after Living Easy with Dr. Joyce Brothers, Brothers premiered a new show. It consisted of 16 one-hour weekly installments on the Disney Channel. This appearance was her first on cable television. The themes surrounding the show were family-oriented, with each show consisting of a comedian, a special guest star, and calls from viewers to provide advice from a psychological and educational standpoint.By August 1985, Brothers was given her own television show on a New York station about relationships during which she answered questions from the audience. 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 the information they could not get elsewhere.
Brothers covered a variety of topics, including prognosis for American football, the psychology of football, women's changing clothing styles, HIV and AIDS, and the rise of school shootings. In essence, Brothers brought psychology to the mainstream media.
Brothers presented syndicated advice shows on both television and radio during a broadcasting career that lasted more than four decades. Her shows changed names numerous times, such as The Dr. Joyce Brothers Show, Consult Dr. Brothers, Tell Me, Dr. Brothers, Ask Dr. Brothers, and 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.