It's not like the lied about using drugs or their Internet girlfriends ... Rich
________________________________ From: "[email protected]" <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Thu, January 17, 2013 3:24:00 PM Subject: Re: (deadpool) Dead Abby: Classic Times. This article has been revised to reflect the following correction: Correction: January 17, 2013 Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this obituary misstated the day Mrs. Phillips died. It was Wednesday, not Thursday. ====== facebook.com/damonbeau twitter.com/damonbeau On Thu, Jan 17, 2013 at 2:09 PM, Richard de Give <[email protected]> wrote: >http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/18/business/media/pauline-phillips-flinty-adviser-to-millions-as-dear-abby-dies-at-94.html?smid=tw-bna&bna=2875&_r=1&; >& > > By MARGALIT FOX > > Dear Abby: My wife sleeps in the raw. Then she showers, brushes her teeth > and fixes our breakfast — still in the buff. We’re newlyweds and there are > just the two of us, so I suppose there’s really nothing wrong with it. What > do you think? — Ed > > Dear Ed: It’s O.K. with me. But tell her to put on an apron when she’s > frying bacon. > > Pauline Phillips, a California housewife who nearly 60 years ago, seeking > something more meaningful than mah-jongg, transformed herself into the > syndicated columnist Dear Abby — and in so doing became a trusted, > tart-tongued adviser to tens of millions — died on Thursday in Minneapolis. > She was 94. > > Her syndicate, Universal Uclick, announced her death on its Web site. A > longtime resident of Beverly Hills, Calif., Mrs. Phillips, who had been ill > with Alzheimer’s disease for more than a decade, had lived in Minneapolis in > recent years to be near family. > > If Damon Runyon and Groucho Marx had gone jointly into the advice business, > their column would have read much like Dear Abby’s. With her comic and > flinty yet fundamentally sympathetic voice, Mrs. Phillips helped wrestle the > advice column from its weepy Victorian past into a hard-nosed 20th-century > present: > > Dear Abby: I have always wanted to have my family history traced, but I > can’t afford to spend a lot of money to do it. Have you any suggestions? — > M.J.B. in Oakland, Calif. > > Dear M.J.B.: Yes. Run for a public office. > > Mrs. Phillips began her life as Abigail Van Buren in 1956 and quickly became > known for her astringent, often genteelly risqué, replies to queries that > included the marital, the medical and sometimes both at once: > > Dear Abby: Are birth control pills deductible? — Bertie > > Dear Bertie: Only if they don’t work. > > She was also known for her long, much-publicized professional rivalry with > her identical twin sister, the advice columnist Ann Landers. > > Long before the Internet — and long before the pervasive electronic > confessionals of Drs. Ruth, Phil, Laura, et al. — the Dear Abby column was a > forum for the public discussion of private problems, read by tens of > millions of people in hundreds of newspapers around the world. > > It is difficult to overstate the column’s influence on American culture at > midcentury and afterward: in popular parlance, “Dear Abby” was for decades > an affectionate synonym for a trusted, if slightly campy, confidante. > > On television, the column has been invoked on shows as diverse as “Three’s > Company,” “Dexter” and “Mr. Ed,” where, in a 1964 episode in which Mrs. > Phillips plays herself, the title character, pining (in an equine way, of > course) for a swinging bachelor pad of his own, writes her a letter. > > Over the years, recording artists including the Hearts, John Prine and the > Dead Kennedys have released a string of different songs titled “Dear Abby.” > > Even now, Dear Abby’s reach is vast. (Mrs. Phillips’s daughter, Jeanne > Phillips, took over the column unofficially in 1987 and officially in 2000.) > According to its syndicator, Universal Uclick, Dear Abby appears in about > 1,400 newspapers worldwide, has a daily readership of more than 110 million > — in print and on its interactive Web site, dearabby.com — and receives more > than 10,000 letters and e-mails a week. > > Politically left of center, Mrs. Phillips was generally conservative when it > came to personal deportment. As late as the 1990s she was reluctant to > advise unmarried couples to live together. Yet beneath her crackling > one-liners lay an imperturbable acceptance of the vagaries of modern life: > > Dear Abby: Our son married a girl when he was in the service. They were > married in February and she had an 8 1/2-pound baby girl in August. She said > the baby was premature. Can an 8 1/2-pound baby be this premature? — Wanting > to Know > > Dear Wanting: The baby was on time. The wedding was late. Forget it. > > Mrs. Phillips was also keen, genteelly, to keep pace with the times. In 1976 > she confided to People magazine that she had recently seen an X-rated movie. > Her sister, she learned afterward, had wanted to see it, too, but feared > being recognized. > > “How did you get away with it?” Ann Landers asked Dear Abby. > > “Well,” Dear Abby replied breezily, “I just put on my dark glasses and my > Ann Landers wig and went!” > > The youngest of four sisters, Pauline Esther Friedman, familiarly known as > Popo, was born in Sioux City, Iowa, on July 4, 1918. Her twin, Esther > Pauline (known as Eppie), beat her into the world by 17 minutes, just as she > would narrowly beat her into the advice business. > > Their father, Abraham, was a Jewish immigrant from Vladivostok, Russia, who > had made his start in the United States as an itinerant chicken peddler and, > in an archetypal American success story, ended up owning a chain of movie > theaters. > > The twins attended Morningside College in Sioux City, where they both > studied journalism and psychology and wrote a joint gossip column for the > school paper. > > As close as they were, the intense competitiveness that would later spill > into the public arena was already apparent. “She wanted to be the first > violin in the school orchestra, but I was,” Mrs. Phillips told Life magazine > in 1958. “She swore she’d marry a millionaire, but I did.” > > In 1939, Pauline Friedman left college to marry Morton Phillips, an heir to > a liquor fortune. She was married in a lavish double ceremony alongside > Eppie, who, not to be outdone, was wed on the same day to Jules Lederer, a > salesman who later founded the Budget Rent A Car corporation. > > As a young bride, Mrs. Phillips lived in Eau Claire, Wis., where her husband > was an executive with the National Pressure Cooker Company, which his family > had acquired. > > “It never occurred to me that I’d have any kind of career,” Mrs. Phillips > told The Los Angeles Times in 1986. “But after I was married, I thought, > ‘There has to be something more to life than mah-jongg.’ ” > > She took up civic work training hospital volunteers, an experience that > helped lay the foundation for her future calling. “I learned how to listen,” > Mrs. Phillips told The San Diego Union-Tribune in 1989. “Sometimes, when > people come to you with a problem, the best thing you can do is listen.” > > In 1955, Mrs. Phillips’s twin, now Eppie Lederer, took over the Ann Landers > column for The Chicago Sun-Times. A rank beginner soon swamped by a flood of > mail, she began sending batches of letters to her sister — for advice, as it > were. > > “I provided the sharp answers,” Mrs. Phillips told The Ladies’ Home Journal > in 1981. “I’d say, ‘You’re writing too long (she still does), and this is > the way I’d say it.’ ” She added, “My stuff was published — and it looked > awfully good in print.” > > So good that when The Sun-Times later forbade Mrs. Lederer to send letters > out of the office, Mrs. Phillips, by this time living in the Bay Area, vowed > to find a column of her own. > > She phoned The San Francisco Chronicle, identifying herself as a local > housewife who thought she could do better than the advice columnist the > paper already had. “If you’re ever in the neighborhood,” the features editor > said rhetorically, “come in and see me.” > > Mrs. Phillips took him at his word and the next morning appeared unannounced > in the newsroom in a Dior dress. She had prudently left her chauffeured > Cadillac around the corner. > > If only to get rid of her, the editor handed her a stack of back issues, > telling her to compose her own replies to the letters in the advice column. > She did so in characteristic style and dropped off her answers at the paper. > She arrived home to a ringing telephone. The job was hers — at $20 a week. > > Mrs. Phillips chose her pen name herself, taking Abigail after the > prophetess in the Book of Samuel (“Then David said to Abigail ... ‘Blessed > is your advice and blessed are you’ ”) and Van Buren for its old-family, > presidential ring. Her first column appeared on Jan. 9, 1956, less than > three months after her sister’s debut. > > An immediate success, the column was quickly syndicated. But with Mrs. > Phillips’s growing renown came a growing estrangement from her twin, as Dear > Abby and Ann Landers battled each other in syndication. According to many > accounts, the sisters did not speak for five years, reconciling only in the > mid-1960s. > > Mrs. Lederer died in 2002, at 83. Besides her daughter, Jeanne, Mrs. > Phillips is survived by her husband of 73 years, Mort Phillips; four > grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren. A son, Edward, died in 2011 at > 66. > > Her columns have been collected in several book-length anthologies, > including “Dear Abby on Marriage” (1962) and “The Best of Dear Abby” (1981). > From 1963 to 1975, Mrs. Phillips also had a daily “Dear Abby” program on CBS > Radio. > > In 1982, in a rare professional misstep, Mrs. Phillips acknowledged that she > had recycled old letters for use in contemporary columns. (In the kind of > parallel experience that seemed to define their lives together, Mrs. Lederer > had acknowledged earlier that year to running recycled letters in Ann > Landers’s column.) > > But until her retirement in 2000, Mrs. Phillips remained a trusted adviser > in a world that had evolved from discussions of the dainty art of naked > bacon-making to all manner of postmodern angst: > > Dear Abby: Two men who claim to be father and adopted son just bought an old > mansion across the street and fixed it up. We notice a very suspicious > mixture of company coming and going at all hours — blacks, whites, > Orientals, women who look like men and men who look like women. ... This has > always been considered one of the finest sections of San Francisco, and > these weirdos are giving it a bad name. How can we improve the neighborhood? > — Nob Hill Residents > > Dear Residents: You could move. > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "World News Now Discussion List" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected]. > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/wnndl?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "World News Now Discussion List" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/wnndl?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "World News Now Discussion List" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. 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