As per this news article, Pauline Phillips died today at age 94.
I was fortunate to get to meet her on a couple of occasions in LA - she was a very sweet, down-to-earth woman who was also quite supportive of the Gay Community and many of the AIDS organizations/foundations back then.
Her daughter, Jeanne, has been writing the Dear Abby column for several years now, but Dear Abby was certainly one of those iconic columns you could count as a guilty pleasure back in the day.