Joyce Rebeta-Burditt, a bestselling author who went on to create the long-running Dick Van Dyke drama Diagnosis Murder, died in Los Angeles on June 2. She was 83.
Born in Cleveland, Ohio, Rebeta-Burditt authored the ground-breaking roman a clef, The Cracker Factor, about a housewife who enters a mental hospital to treat her alcoholism. The 1977 Macmillan book became a New York Times bestseller and was made into a TV movie of the same name starring Natalie Wood. The lead character, Cassie Barrett, was based on Rebeta-Burditt’s early life as a young married raising three small children.
“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,” Rebeta-Burditt told People Magazine in 1977. “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.
Born in Cleveland, Ohio, Rebeta-Burditt authored the ground-breaking roman a clef, The Cracker Factor, about a housewife who enters a mental hospital to treat her alcoholism. The 1977 Macmillan book became a New York Times bestseller and was made into a TV movie of the same name starring Natalie Wood. The lead character, Cassie Barrett, was based on Rebeta-Burditt’s early life as a young married raising three small children.
“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,” Rebeta-Burditt told People Magazine in 1977. “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.
- 6/15/2022
- by Lynette Rice
- Deadline Film + TV
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