Pauline Phillips
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Pauline Phillips (born July 4, 1918 as Pauline "Popo" Esther Friedman) is an advice columnist who founded the "Dear Abby" in 1956. The current Dear Abby is her first-born child and only daughter, Jeanne Phillips, who now writes under the pen name of Abigail Van Buren, which was also used by Pauline. She also has a son, Edward Jay Phillips.
Pauline Esther Friedman Phillips was an identical twin; her sister, Esther Pauline Friedman Lederer, wrote the Ann Landers column until her death from multiple myeloma in 2002, at age 83. As children, the two grew up in Sioux City, Iowa, and went by the nicknames "Popo" and "Eppie", respectively. Both are alumnae of Morningside College and both wrote for the college newspaper. They were so close then that they had a joint wedding in 1939 when both women were 21 years old. They were both Jewish.
As competing columnists, the sisters occasionally clashed; in 1956, Phillips offered her column to the Sioux City Journal at a reduced price, provided that the paper refused Lederer's column; Life Magazine reported on the offer in 1958.
The sisters publicly reconciled in 1964, although some suggest the acrimony lasted.[1] Phillips has suffered from Alzheimer's disease since at least the 1990s; according to her daughter, her disease is (as of 2006) in its middle stages.[citation needed]
Her husband Morton Phillips and her daughter both state that she did reconcile with her now-deceased sister before Lederer's death. In 2002, when Lederer (Ann Landers) died, Phillips' daughter wrote a Dear Abby column in her memory, to which Margo Howard, Lederer's daughter, came foward and said neither sister had contact in the final years and that Phillips' daughter had only wrote the column for money. It is unknown if she is aware that Lederer has died.[citation needed] Shortly after Lederer's death, Jeanne Phillips appeared on Larry King Live saying she had told her mother of her sister's death though she had forgotten it a few hours later.
Phillips, who resided in Beverly Hills, California, wrote in a straightforward style that contrasted with Chicago-based Lederer's quips and barbs.
By 1995, when Phillips suffered from the onset of Alzheimer’s disease, her daughter, Jeanne Phillips, assumed all the writing responsibilities of Dear Abby. After the Phillips family publicly announced that Pauline had Alzheimer’s, Jeanne assumed the pen name of Abigail Van Buren.
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[edit] Biography
The daughters of Russian Jewish immigrants, the twins attended Central High School (aka "The Castle on the Hill") in Sioux City, and then went on to study at Morningside College. They were very close and had a joint wedding ceremony in 1939 at the age of 21.
The story of Dear Abby is an acknowledged phenomenon of latter-day journalism. It began in Jan. 1956, when Pauline Friedman Phillips, a 37-year-old newcomer to the San Francisco area, phoned the editor of The San Francisco Chronicle and told him that she could write a better advice column than the one she had been reading in the newspaper.
To her surprise, he challenged her to come in for an interview. Mrs. Phillips introduced herself as an average, middle-aged housewife who had been happily married to the same man for 17 years and had reared two “reasonably normal” teenagers. She explained that although she had taken journalism in college, she had never written professionally, but knew she could write an advice column because all of her life she had been an amateur "wailing wall without portfolio." Mrs. Phillips had trained Gray Ladies (hospital volunteers) for the Red Cross and served as president of her local mental health society. After hearing her modest credentials, Stanleigh "Auk" Arnold wanted only to get this self-styled journalist out of his San Francisco Chronicle office, so he asked her to write sample replies to some of their previously published columns. She did, and the rest, as they say is history. When asked what she considered her greatest accomplishment, Mrs. Phillips was quick to say, simply, “Surviving.” (Source: Universal Press Syndicate historical files.)
An honorary member of Women in Communications, the American College of Psychiatrists, and the National Council of Jewish Women, Mrs. Phillips authored six books: Dear Abby, Dear Teenager, Dear Abby on Marriage, Where Were You When President Kennedy was Shot?, The Dear Abby Wedding Planner, and The Best of Dear Abby. "The Dear Abby Show" aired on the CBS Radio Network for 12 years. (Source: Universal Press Syndicate historical files.)
[edit] Further reading
[edit] Books about Dear Abby
- Aronson, Virginia. Ann Landers and Abigail Van Buren. Women of achievement. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishers, 2000. ISBN 0791052974. (children's book).
- Pottker, Janice, and Bob Speziale. Dear Ann, Dear Abby: The Unauthorized Biography of Ann Landers and Abigail Van Buren. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1987. ISBN 0396089062.
[edit] Books by Dear Abby
- Van Buren, Abigail. Dear Abby. Illustrated by Carl Rose. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, [1958].
- Van Buren, Abigail. Dear teen-ager. Illustrated by Roy Doty. [New York]: B. Geis Associates; distributed by Random House [1959].
- Van Buren, Abigail. Dear Abby on marriage. New York: McGraw-Hill, [1962].
- Van Buren, Abigail. The Best of Dear Abby. Kansas City: Andrews and McMeel, 1981. ISBN 0836279077 ; 081613362X (lg. print.)
- Van Buren, Abigail. Dear Abby on planning your wedding. Kansas City, Mo.: Andrews and McMeel, c1988. ISBN 0836279433.
- Van Buren, Abigail. Where were you when President Kennedy was shot?: memories and tributes to a slain president as told to Dear Abby. Foreword by Pierre Salinger. Kansas City, Mo.: Andrews and McMeel, c1993. ISBN 0836262468.
[edit] External links
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