Dr. Joyce Brothers, a psychologist who became a pop-culture fixture after she turned to radio and television in the late 1950s to tend to the nation’s psyche, has died. She was 85.
Brothers died Monday in New York City, publicist Sanford Brokaw told the Associated Press. No cause was given.
By ministering to America via the airwaves and in print, Brothers helped bring psychology into the mainstream of society, according to the American Psychological Assn.
PHOTOS: Notable deaths of 2013
When Brothers’ psychological expertise was first showcased on NBC in 1958, she “paved the way for others in her field to bring their talents to television,” according to the Paley Center for Media Study in New York.
Aided by an engaging on-screen presence, she could publicly address – without offending listeners – what were then borderline taboo subjects such as sexual fulfillment and infidelity. It was a jarring and significant achievement in the 1950s and 1960s, when television’s fictional couples were still portrayed as sleeping in separate beds.
