Renowned agony aunt Ann Landers dies at 83 CHICAGO -- Reputed to be the world's most widely read columnist, agony aunt Ann Landers, who famously urged her readers to "wake up and smell the coffee", has died at the age of 83.
The Chicago Tribune, which had been her home base since 1987, said she died in her Chicago home on Saturday of multiple myeloma - a bone marrow tumor. Her real name was Esther "Eppie" Pauline Friedman Lederer, and according to the Tribune her column was for 40 years the world's best read and most widely syndicated - carried by 1,200 newspapers. "Wake up and smell the coffee" may have been the most famous of her one-liners. It was also the title of one of her books, and set the tone for decades of no-nonsense advice giving. Landers reinvented the newspaper advice column with a saucy and succinct wit. Dispensing guidance that ranged from the practical to the expert, and covering topics from sex to religion, her column reached an estimated 90 million people daily. Landers, along with twin sister Pauline Phillips writing as Abigail Van Buren under the "Dear Abby" title, dominated the advice-giving genre in US newspapers during most of the last half of the 20th century. She tackled issues ranging from cancer research to Aids and gun control, using as a springboard letters from readers which flooded her office by the thousands. She was said to have spent up to 14 hours a day reading her mail. Landers, born in Sioux City, Iowa, on July 4, 1918, started delivering her daily doses of guidance in 1955 when she took over the Ann Landers column in the Chicago Sun-Times newspaper. In 1987, her column moved to the Chicago Tribune syndicate. She once said in an interview that she contacted an executive she knew at the then parent company of the Sun-Times, offering to help with the Ann Landers column, saying her answers were better than those in print. It turned out the column's author had died and the paper needed a replacement. http://www.asiamedia.ucla.edu/Weekly2002/06.25.2002/UnitedStates.htm =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-W-E-B---S-I-T-E-=-=-= To Subscribe/Unsubscribe from GoaNet | http://www.goacom.com/goanet =================================================================== For (un)subscribing or for help, Contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dont want so many e=mails? Join GoaNet-Digest instead ! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Help support non-commercial projects in Goa by advertizing!! * * * * Your ad here !!
