Advice guru Ann Landers, 83
Posted: Sunday, June 23rd, 2002 8:44 am
Ann Landers, who was reputedly the most widely read columnist in the world and famously urged her readers to “wake up and smell the coffee,” died Saturday at the age of 83, the Chicago Tribune reported.
The Tribune, which had been her home base since 1987, said she died in her Chicago home of multiple myeloma — a malignant tumor of the bone marrow.
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. …
Dispensing guidance that ranged from the practical to the expert and covering topics stretching from sex to religion, her column reached an estimated 90 million people daily.
Lederer along with twin sister Pauline Phillips writing as “Abigail Van Buren” under the “Dear Abby” flag, dominated the advice-giving genre in U.S. newspapers during most of the last half of the 20th century and beyond. … Read full obituary
