# Ann Landers and/or Dear Abby **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 31, 2000, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ann-landers-and-or-dear-abby/21044 "2000-05-31T21:29:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![jmy67](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9fc348/32.png) [@jmy67](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jmy67)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2000, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ann-landers-and-or-dear-abby/21044/1 "2000-05-31T21:29:34Z")
OK, years ago I heard that at least one of these twin advice columnists was dead and that her column was being ghostwritten by some guy. Their pictures are hardly ever updated, but that’s the case for most newspaper personalities. They used to turn up on talk shows now and then, but those were mostly of the Johnny Carson variety, and I don’t think there really are as many if any talk shows booking many guests in their mid-to-late 70’s, let’s face it. So…does anyone know if both, one or neither is alive? ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2000, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ann-landers-and-or-dear-abby/21044/2 "2000-05-31T21:47:26Z")
Still alive, yes, in fact, they’re in their 80s. Ghostwriters? Can’t say. They insist they still write their own columns, but they also have staffs, so who knows who does what. By the way, I think the guy you were talking about was named Zasser or Zanzer or something like that. He was a newspaper reporter who tried out for an advice columnist’s job as a lark, and actually got it. It wasn’t Dear Abby or Ann Landers, though, and he used his own name. ---
**Author:** ![Arnold\_Winkelried](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2000, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ann-landers-and-or-dear-abby/21044/3 "2000-05-31T22:09:55Z")
Ann Landers: [http://www.creators.com/lifestyle/biography.php4?ContentId=25](http://www.creators.com/lifestyle/biography.php4?ContentId=25) Born Esther Pauline Friedman, on the propitious date of July 4,1918, in Sioux City, Iowa, Ann Landers attended Morningside College. She began writing her column on October 16, 1955 … Miss Landers has a daughter, three grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. ## (no mention of her having died) Dear Abby: [http://www.uexpress.com/ups/abby/html/bio.html](http://www.uexpress.com/ups/abby/html/bio.html) The saga of Dear Abby is an acknowledged phenomenon of latter-day journalism. It began in January 1956, when Pauline Friedman Phillips, a 37-year-old newcomer to the San Francisco area, impulsively 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. … She is also a wife, mother and grandmother, and lives in Beverly Hills, California, with Morton Phillips, the man she married in 1939. * * * I always thought “Dear Abby” was the first, but I guess not. It seems that “Ann Landers” beat her by a few months. ---
**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2000, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ann-landers-and-or-dear-abby/21044/4 "2000-06-01T04:02:27Z")
From the dust jacket of _Tell Me All About It_ by Jeffrey Zaslow > [@](#): > > In 1987 Ann Landers left the _Chicago Sun-Times_, her home for thirty-one years, and set up shop at the rival _Chicago Tribune._ At first _Sun-Times_ editors felt bruised and abandoned, but they they turned lemons into lemonade (as Landers might say) by staging a highly publicized search to replace her. More than twelve thousand people applied for the job, including a twenty-eight-year-old _Wall Street Journal_ reporter named Jeffrey Zaslow. Zaslow got the job and his work appeared in a column titled “All that Zazz.” I don’t know if he’s still at it. By the way, the current Ann Landers is not the first. She took over for whoever it was that started the column (a person actually named Ann Landers I think.) ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2000, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ann-landers-and-or-dear-abby/21044/5 "2000-06-01T14:25:58Z")
According to the episode of the Simpsons when Homer got the job as a food critic, both Ann and Abby are hooked up to life support in a back room of a newspaper. Connor - always very helpful ---
**Author:** ![curwin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@curwin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/curwin)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2000, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ann-landers-and-or-dear-abby/21044/6 "2000-06-03T21:57:37Z")
A number of years ago, my mother-in-law worked for Ann Landers. AL would recieve hundreds of letters, and her employees would respond personally to them, and pass the interesting ones up to their boss. I don’t know if Dear Abby worked the same way. ---
**Author:** ![Sequent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dbc845/32.png) [@Sequent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sequent)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2000, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ann-landers-and-or-dear-abby/21044/7 "2000-06-04T00:41:00Z")
> [@](#): > > \*\* > Ann Landers: > > [Born Esther Pauline Friedman, on the propitious date of July 4,1918, in Sioux City, Iowa, Ann Landers attended > > Dear Abby: > > It began in January 1956, when Pauline Friedman Phillips, a 37-year-old newcomer to the San Francisco area, impulsively > I always thought “Dear Abby” was the first, but I guess not. It seems that “Ann Landers” beat her by a few months. > > \*\* Wait a sec…am I missing something? Landers = Esther Pauline Friedman and Abby = Pauline Friedman Phillips. And born one year apart? And both with the same hairdo for 30+ years? Hmmmmm… ---
**Author:** ![Arnold\_Winkelried](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2000, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ann-landers-and-or-dear-abby/21044/8 "2000-06-04T06:02:07Z")
Sequent - I believe that Ann Landers and Abigail van Buren are twin sisters. ---
**Author:** ![Jeannie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e480ec/32.png) [@Jeannie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jeannie)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2000, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ann-landers-and-or-dear-abby/21044/9 "2000-06-04T16:39:45Z")
> [@](#): > > \*\* > Zaslow got the job and his work appeared in a column titled “All that Zazz.” I don’t know if he’s still at it. > \*\* Yes, he is. I read his column in the Sun-Times. You can check it out (if you’re interested) at [http://www.sun-times.com](http://www.sun-times.com) ---
**Author:** ![Sequent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dbc845/32.png) [@Sequent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sequent)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2000, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ann-landers-and-or-dear-abby/21044/10 "2000-06-04T19:24:38Z")
> [@](#): > > \*\* > Sequent - I believe that Ann Landers and Abigail van Buren are twin sisters. > \*\* Gives a whole new meaning to the phrase “phenomenon of latter day journalism.”