Best-selling author and Diagnosis Murder creator Joyce Rebeta-Burditt has died.
Deadline reports the writer died at the age of 83 on June 2 in Los Angeles.
She was best known for creating the long-running TV series Diagnosis Murder, starring Dick Van Dyke in 1993.
She also penned dozens of episodes of other popular shows, such as Matlock and Father Dowling Mysteries before creating Diagnosis Murder, which ran for eight seasons.
Joyce began her career by penning the ground-breaking roman a clef, The Cracker Factor, which was about a housewife who enters a mental hospital to treat her alcoholism.
The book, released in 1977, became a New York Times bestseller before being made into a TV movie of the same name starring Natalie Wood.
The lead character in the production was based on Joyce's early life when she had three small children.
Speaking to PEOPLE at the time of its release, she said: "I think being a housewife is the most underrated job in the world. It is a perfect setup if one is predisposed to be an alcoholic.
"My husband had to take over much of the mothering. And my own mother was around a lot. I adopted the attitude and behavior of an oldest child. I was physically there, but AWOL emotionally.
"Then when I was sober, like many alcoholic women, I tended to be the overprotective supermother. I probably drove the kids bananas."
When moving into the television business, she first worked as a programming executive at ABC before later becoming vice president of comedy development at NBC.
Other shows she wrote including Under The Influence - a TV movie starring Keanu Reaves about the impact of alcoholism on families.
She is survived by her three children, artist Paul Burditt, sitcom writer Jack Burditt and former Lionsgate Television senior VP Ellen Burditt.
She also leaves behind her eight grandchildren; seven great-grandchildren; a brother and sister.
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