Dr. Joyce Brothers, the woman who has spent the majority of her life offering advice to needy Americans, died on Monday (May 13) at the age of 85. She became something of a TV pioneer after becoming television’s first psychologist following her success on the quiz show The $64,000 Question.

Brothers death was confirmed by her daughter, Lisa, who told The New York Times, that the TV personality died at her home in Fort Lee, New Jersey last night. The cause of death is not yet know.

Brothers first found fame in 1955 after spending seven weeks on air to become the second person ever (and first woman) to win the popular TV game show The $64,000 Question, specialising in boxing after studying the Encyclopedia of Boxing. Despite not being a fan of the sport, her husband was and the subject had been suggested to her by the show's the sponsors (she applied as expert in home economics and psychology). She also appeared on the successor program, The $64,000 Challenge, which she also won.

Her success on the show led her to becoming the front-woman for some of the 50's biggest fights aired on CBS, including the March 1958 Carmen Basilio and Sugar Ray Robinson fight, for which she is considered the first woman to preside over a boxing match. Brothers, who was a licensed psychologist with a master's and Ph.D. prior to finding fame, and was eventually given her own television show, as well as contributing to a number of magazine columns, most prominently for Good Housekeeping. She also wrote a number of best selling books and appeared as herself in all manner of TV shows and films.

Her husband of 39 years, Milton Brothers, died in 1989. Joyce is survived by her her sister Elaine, her only child, Lisa, and four grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.