Monday, May 13, 2013

RIP Dr. Joyce Brothers

From Fox News: Joyce Brothers, the pop psychologist who pioneered the television advice show in the 1950s and enjoyed a long and prolific career as a syndicated columnist, author, and television and film personality, has died. She was 85.
Brothers died Monday of respiratory failure in New York City, according to her longtime Los Angeles-based publicist, Sanford Brokaw.
Brothers first gained fame on a game show and went on to publish 15 books and make cameo appearances on popular shows including "Happy Days" and "The Simpsons." She visited Johnny Carson on "The Tonight Show" nearly 100 times.
The way Brothers liked to tell it, her multimedia career came about "because we were hungry."
It was 1955. Her husband, Milton Brothers, was still in medical school and Brothers had just given up her teaching positions at Hunter College and Columbia University to be home with her newborn, firmly believing a child's development depended on it....
Her celebrity opened up doors. In 1956, she became co-host of "Sports Showcast" and frequently appeared on talk shows.
Two years later, NBC offered her a trial on an afternoon television program in which she advised on love, marriage, sex and child-rearing. Its success led to a nationally telecast program, and subsequent late-night shows that addressed such taboo subjects as menopause, frigidity, impotence and sexual enjoyment.
She also dispensed advice on several phone-in radio programs, sometimes going live. She was criticized by some for giving out advice without knowing her callers' histories. But Brothers responded that she was not practicing therapy on the air and that she advised callers to seek professional help when needed.
Despite criticism of the format, the call-in show took off, and by 1985, the Association of Media Psychologists was created to monitor for abuses.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/05/13/psychologist-joyce-brothers-dies-at-age-85/?intcmp=trending#ixzz2TECGKuft
I remember listening to her show a long time ago, when it was on at night.  I thought it was strange people would call into a radio show and spill their guts on a national radio show.
I also will remember her as one of the baseball announcers on the first Naked Gun movie.

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