TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/082189/08218900.055

Text File | 1992-09-23 | 8.1 KB | 185 lines

                                                                                INTERVIEW, Page 62

Living By the Letter


To her 90 million readers, ANN LANDERS is the last word on
matters as mundane as toilet paper and as painful as divorce

By Elizabeth Taylor


    Q. When you started out in the advice business 33 years
ago, you were a square, Midwestern Jewish girl leading a life
without woes. How did you relate to people with problems, and
how did you find your voice? It seems to be a mix of liberal
politics and conservative morals.

    A. And I have learned from them. But I don't believe that
you have to be a cow to know what milk is. You don't have to
have lived through an immense amount of agony and pain in order
to relate to people who are suffering. I really care about what
happens to people, and when I first began to read those letters,
it was an eye-opener. I came from a very solid Midwestern Jewish
home. You see, I led a very sheltered life. I had never seen a
man hit his wife. I had never seen any drunkenness. I had never
seen any poverty. I knew these things were happening, but they
never happened to me. The mail grew me up in a hurry.

    Q. You have attributed much of your success to luck. What
role does ambition play?

    A. I think there's such a thing as serendipity. You have to
be lucky. You have to be at the right place at the right time.
But once you are lucky, you have to know what to do with your
luck. And I knew what to do with my luck.

    Q. You are tremendously driven, and I wonder how much of
that results from being the twin sister of Dear Abby?

    A. Competitiveness is a factor, I'm sure, as with all
siblings. But I was the first one to go into this work, and the
drive was there from day one.

    Q. Do you read most of the letters you receive every day?
Do you read 100 at a sitting?

    A. Oh, yes. Reading those letters is a very important part
of doing the job, because selecting the letters is the lifeblood
of that column. If the letters aren't well selected, the column
is no good. I must be alone when I read.

    Q. When you started out, you hesitated to mention the word
sex, but now . . .

    A. Hesitated? I printed a letter on homosexuality the first
year that I was writing the column, and the publisher in St.
Joe, Mich., let us know that he was not running that column. He
printed a box on Page One saying there would be no Ann Landers
column today because she's dealing with a subject that we feel
is not fit for a family newspaper. Of course, everybody in town
ran to buy the Detroit Free Press to see what it was that Ann
Landers was talking about that the paper wouldn't print.

    Q. Your candor cannot endear you to right-wingers.

    A. You are right on. They say you can judge a man's value
by his enemies. I have an interesting assortment. The National
Rifle Association, pro-lifers, the animal-rights people. For
years I have fought to abolish Saturday-night specials and those
cop-killing bullets that explode on impact. I have taken a
strong stand against the church or state telling women what they
can and cannot do with their bodies. We need animal models (for
experiments), and I've been fighting this battle for years. It
gets tougher and tougher. The animal-rights people are powerful
and rich.

    Q. A wide range of subjects provokes intense feelings among
your readers. What is it about toilet paper, for instance, that
prompted more than 15,000 letters?

    A. Incredible, isn't it? A woman went to visit her cousin
in Cincinnati and she said, "Look, you're hanging the toilet
paper wrong." Louise replied, "What do you mean?" The cousin
said, "You're hanging it so it goes over the top. You're
supposed to hang it so that the toilet paper goes down along the
wall." I figured this is a subject everybody can relate to, and
it was -- well -- different. And I wondered, "How many people
really care?" Then I thought, "I care, and I bet thousands of
others do too." So I printed it. I discovered 15,000 did care.
I like to hang it down the wall. Talk about a compulsion! If I'm
a guest in a home and the paper is hung the other way, I'll
change it. I know this is crazy, but we all have our areas of
nuttiness.

    Q. When you started the column it didn't seem that you were
as quick to recommend psychotherapy as you are now.

    A. Actually, I do send my readers for professional help
much more than I used to, but I am less inclined to suggest a
psychiatrist. I tend more to send my readers to psychiatric
social workers, psychologists, trained counselors, rabbis,
priests and ministers.

    Q. What's wrong with psychiatrists?

    A. I am well aware that there are not a great many
competent, caring, dedicated psychiatrists out there. The Karl
Menningers in the field are few and far between. I am disturbed
by the fact that 1 out of every 10 psychiatrists admits, get
that, to having had sex with patients. If 1 out of 10 admits it,
how many more do you think have actually been involved? I find
this reprehensible. These people are so vulnerable. They trust
their psychiatrist. He's father; he's God. To violate that trust
is hideous.

    Q. You seem to have changed your views on divorce since the
days when you advised couples to stay together for the sake of
the children.

    A. Yes, that's true. I began to see an awful lot of
children who were screwed up because the parents were screaming
all night. I decided that it wasn't really great advice to say
"stay together for the sake of the children."

    Q. Did your own divorce, as your daughter Margo suggests in
her book, make you more human?

    A. I think I was pretty human before I was divorced. Mine
was not a terribly painful, miserable, rotten divorce with
animosity and anxiety. I just knew that my life was going to
have to change, and I was determined that I was going to make
it better. The divorce was going to improve my life. And it did.

    Q. How so?

    A. Well, I have to tell you. This may sound terribly
selfish, but I love the freedom that I have. I don't have to
worry about anybody but myself. I don't have to worry about a
man's wardrobe, or his relatives, or his schedule, or his menu,
or his allergies. I would not be married again.

    Q. Because you couldn't give up the freedom?

    A. Right. Since I've been divorced, there has always been
a man in my life. I enjoy male company enormously, but I like
to keep my personal life private, and I've succeeded in doing
just that. But I cannot imagine my life without a man. I think
when I'm 90 I'll still have a fella.

    Q. I'm wondering about the effect of the women's movement
on you. In the early days, you encouraged homemaking and
homemakers, and yet you worked.

    A. Well, my daughter was 15 years old when I went to work.
And actually, I didn't go to work. I worked at home. So when she
came home from school, I was there. I don't think she realized
that I was a workingwoman. I never felt like a workingwoman.

    Q. Do you feel that way now?

    A. You know, this sounds crazy, but no. Yet I work harder
than anybody I know. Somehow I don't think of it as work,
because I really love what I do. Also, the freedom of being able
to make my own schedule is marvelous. Most people who work have
to get up in the morning and go to an office or a store. If I
want to sleep until 10 o'clock, I can do it.

    Q. Why do you stop short of calling yourself a feminist
when you support a traditionally feminist cause such as a
woman's right to an abortion?

    A. I don't want anybody calling me Ms. I have certain ideas
that I had even before the feminist movement came along. I
always believed in these things, like equal pay for equal work,
but I can't say that I went out and fought for those principles.

    Q. If you were still married, would you continue to have
JULES' WIFE embroidered in your fur coats?

    A. Yes, I would. Being Jules' wife was more important than
being Ann Landers.

    Q. What happened to those fur coats after your divorce?

    A. I had the linings removed.