Pauline Phillips Biography

Pauline Esther Phillips (née Friedman; July 4, 1918 " January 16, 2013), also known as Abigail Van Buren, was an American advice columnist and radio show host who began the "Dear Abby" column in 1956. During her decades writing the column, it became the most widely-syndicated newspaper column in the world, syndicated in 1,400 newspapers around the world with 110 million of readers.

From 1963 to 1975, Phillips also had a daily "Dear Abby" program on CBS Radio. TV anchorwoman Diane Sawyer calls her the "pioneering queen of salty advice."

Early life

Pauline Esther Friedman, nicknamed "Popo", was born in Sioux City, Iowa to Russian Jewish immigrants, Rebecca (née Rushall) and Abraham B. Friedman, owner of a chain of movie theaters. She was the youngest of four sisters and grew up in Sioux City. One sister was an identical twin, Esther Pauline Friedman, who later became the columnist Ann Landers.

In describing her family's emigration to America, Phillips says, "My parents came with nothing. They all came with nothing." She adds that her parents never forgot first seeing the Statue of Liberty:

Her sister, Esther, recalls their home life: "My father was the sort of man people came to for advice. My mother couldn't turn away anyone with a hard-luck story. Our house was always full of guests." Phillips agrees, and understood that her parents had a clear effect on her own personality:

They are both alumnae of Central High School in Sioux City and Morningside College, where they both studied journalism and psychology, along with writing a joint gossip column for the college newspaper. They both played the violin. In 1939, they were married in a double-wedding ceremony on their birthday. She married Morton Phillips of Minneapolis, and had two children, a son, Edward Jay Phillips, and a daughter, Jeanne Phillips.

Career

Pauline's writing career that led to "Dear Abby" began in January 1956 when she was 37 and new to the greater San Francisco area. Sometime during this period she phoned the editor of the San Francisco Chronicle and said that she could write a better advice column than the one she had been reading in the newspaper. After hearing her modest credentials, editor Stanleigh "Auk" Arnold gave her some letters in need of answers and said to bring back her replies in a week; Phillips got her replies back to the Chronicle in an hour and half. In an interview with Larry King, she said she had no work experience, lacking even a social security number. The editor, however, asked her if she was a professional writer. He said her writing was "fabulous," and she was hired that day.

She went by the pen name Abigail Van Buren, after the Old Testament prophetess from the Book of Samuel: Then David said to Abigail ... ?Blessed is your advice and blessed are you. "Van Buren" was used after the president, Martin Van Buren.

Phillips says that because she applied for the columnist job without notifying her sister first, it created bad feelings between them for many years. They each wrote their own advice column, and as competing columnists, they sometimes clashed; in 1956, Phillips offered her column to the Sioux City Journal at a reduced price, provided that the paper refused to print her sister's column. The sisters ostensibly reconciled in 1964, although some suggest the acrimony between them remained. In 1958, after only two years writing their columns, they became "the most widely read and most quoted women in the world," according to Life magazine.

Writing style

Although newspapers had included gossip and personal columnists for over a century, the two sisters added "something special," writes Life, in that they were the first to publish letters and their replies covering a wide range of personal problems. From as many as 9,000 letters in a single week in their initial years, they responded with answers to people from all walks of life, including doctors, lawyers and clergymen, as well as from pregnant teenagers, harassed husbands, unwed mothers, alcoholics, gays, and mistresses. Setting their column apart even more from columnists of earlier decades was their particular style of writing, replying with "vaudeville punch lines" yet always rooted in common sense. Phillips is described by the New York Times:

Phillips was considered liberal minded politically, yet personally conservative. She remained reluctant to advise unmarried couples to live together, for instance, until the 1990s, yet she adapted readily to social changes. One example:

Both Phillips and her sister were considered remarkable women soon after starting their careers, recognized for being bright and entertaining, and writing with "an earthy wit, audacity and awesome self-confidence," often exemplified in Phillips' "crackling one-liners."

The editor of the Chicago Sun-Times described their skill as "beyond mere shrewdness"?a quality very close to genuine wisdom." Amy Dickinson, a syndicated advice columnist who styles her columns after "Dear Abby," says that  Phillips' was a "master" in her ability to write with both "genuine honesty" and "compassion," while at the same time being able to respond with "tough love" when needed.

The letters Phillips and her sister picked for publication were meant to give the public glimpses of "the most intimate of human difficulties," which contributed to their immediate acceptance. Life magazine explains:

Phillips admits that the most sensitive letters she receives are never published, but are instead replied to individually. Sometimes she would write a brief note on the letter itself, letting one of her secretaries respond fully using her advice. If a person seemed suicidal from their letter, she would call them on the phone. As noted by Life:

Public relations

As part of their work both sisters engaged with other editors, publishers and the general public whenever they could. "Neither ever forgets a name," and they were uninhibited public speakers: they "whirl around the country appearing on radio and television and"?dressed like visiting movie actresses"?holding thousands of housewives spellbound in speeches at theaters and auditoriums."

Personal life and beliefs

Like her sister, Phillips was considered "the embodiment of female orthodoxy." They made their husbands and families a high priority in their lives, feeling that "marriage must be permanent, even when disturbed by masculine lunacy." Phillips typically spoke in glowing terms about her husband in public, calling him "loveboat" or smooching with him in restaurants. This attitude carried over into their columns in the late 1950s, with Phillips considering women who were unable to make their marriages work as "faintly ridiculous." Her "code of conduct" was "husband and children first." In her later years, she did not avoid suggesting divorce when a relationship became "intolerable", and considered how a bad marriage might affect children: "When kids see parents fighting, or even sniping at each other, I think it is terribly damaging."

Both Phillips and her sister enjoyed socializing with celebrities, and because of their notoriety, celebrities liked being seen with either of them. Among Phillips' friends soon after she began her column were politicians, including Senators Hubert Humphrey and Herbert Lehman; and entertainers, including Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin.

They also admired Bishop Fulton Sheen, whom they met when learning about Catholicism while studying about other religions. The bishop admired them both in return due to their ability to remain "unawed" and unaffected by the fame of others. Phillips, who was Jewish, commented: "He's one of the greatest men I ever met, but he'll be a Jew before I'm a Catholic." Phillips and Bishop Sheen corresponded often and she recalls their letters:

Phillips was an honorary member of Women in Communications, the American College of Psychiatrists, and the National Council of Jewish Women. She 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. When asked near the end of her career whether her years of writing the column were a lot of work, she said, "It's only work if you'd rather be doing something else." She felt that her career had been "fulfilling, exciting and incredibly rewarding."

In 2002, when Phillips suffered from the onset of Alzheimer's disease, her daughter Jeanne assumed all the writing responsibilities of Dear Abby. After the family's announcement of Pauline's illness, Jeanne assumed the pen name Abigail Van Buren; from 1987 until her mother's retirement, Jeanne had been co-writing the column with her mother.

Death

Phillips died on January 16, 2013, at the age of 94 after years of battling Alzheimer's disease. She is survived by her husband of 73 years, Morton Phillips, daughter Jeanne Phillips, four grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. Her son, Edward, died in 2011 at the age of 66.

Further reading

Books about Dear Abby

• Aronson, Virginia. Ann Landers and Abigail Van Buren. Women of achievement. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishers, 2000. ISBN 0-7910-5297-4. (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 0-396-08906-2.

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 0-8362-7907-7 ; 081613362X (lg. print.)
• Van Buren, Abigail. Dear Abby on planning your wedding. Kansas City, Mo.: Andrews and McMeel, c1988. ISBN 0-8362-7943-3.
• 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 0-8362-6246-8.

See also

• Ann Landers
• Poisoned candy scare
• List of newspaper columnists