An Old Timey Podcast - 77: The Ann & Abby Feud Goes Intergenerational (Part 4)

Episode Date: October 22, 2025

In the final episode of our series on Ann Landers and Dear Abby, the feud reached new heights when Abby fell victim to a “gotcha” moment on Charlie Rose. (Who woulda guessed?) Afterward, she agreed to an interview with Ladies’ Home Journal. In it, she said awful things about Ann. Years later, when Ann died, the feud went intergenerational between the sisters’ two daughters — daughters who became, you guessed it, advice columnists. Remember, kids, history hoes always cite their sources! For this episode, Kristin pulled from: The book “Dear Ann, Deary Abby: The Unauthorized Biography of Ann Landers and Abigail Van Buren” by Jan Pottker and Bob Speziale“Twin lovelorn advisers torn asunder by success,” by Paul O’Neil for Life Magazine The book, “The Best of Ann Landers: Her Favorite Letters of All Time,” by Ann LandersThe book, “The Best of Dear Abby,” by Abigail Van Buren“Pauline Phillips, better known as ‘Dear Abby,’ dies at 94,” Washington Post“Ann Landers, advice giver to the millions, is dead at 83,” by Margalit Fox for the New York Times“The rivalry of Dear Abby and Ann Landers,” by Melissa Baron for BookRiot.com“Landers’ death renews family feud,” South Florida Sun Sentinel“Pauline Phillips, longtime Dear Abby advice dies at 94,” by Michael Martinez for CNN“Columnists/ daughters carry on the feud,” by Beverly Beyette for the Los Angeles Times“Competition between Iowa sisters who penned Dear Abby, Ann Landers fueled advice columns,” Des Moines RegisterAre you enjoying An Old Timey Podcast? Then please leave us a 5-star rating and review wherever you listen to podcasts!Are you *really* enjoying An Old Timey Podcast? Well, calm down, history ho! You can get more of us on Patreon at patreon.com/oldtimeypodcast. At the $5 level, you’ll get a monthly bonus episode (with video!), access to our 90’s style chat room, plus the entire back catalog of bonus episodes from Kristin’s previous podcast, Let’s Go To Court.

Hear ye, hear ye. You are listening to an old-timey podcast. I'm Kristen Caruso. And I'm Norman Caruso. And on this episode, the feud between Anne Landers and Dear Abby goes intergenerational. Oh my gosh. So the kids are getting involved now? That's right.

They're beefing. The grandkids. The great grandkids. We don't know about that. The pets. You keep the pets out of this. Plus, I think Abby only had ceramic monkeys. So we're good.

Well, didn't she have real monkeys at one point? And then they just became too much. And she... Well, yeah, because monkeys are too much. They're their own thing. They should be off on their own. I'm sorry to anyone who's listening to this with their chimpanzee in their lap. Offending the monkey-owning history hose.

Kristen? Yes. Did you know that our listeners can directly support us on Patreon? Holy crap. Tell me more. Well, all they have to do is go to PayPal.com slash Norman Caruso. No, actually, you can support this small, sexy, independent podcast over on patreon.com

slash old-timey podcast. Hey. Consider becoming a non-threatening fan for just $5 a month. That's a double cheeseburger meal of McDonald's. I don't think it is. I think. Yeah, you know, maybe inflation has changed things. Yeah, yeah.

But, hey, inflation has not changed these prices, Kristen. $5 a month. you get access to our monthly bonus episodes with full video and you get to chitty chat in our discord if you are ready to commit to us full time if you're ready to bust out that ring get in on that ten dollar pig butter investor tier you'll get bonus episodes a sign card and stickers early ad free video episodes access to our monthly trivia parties 10% off all march and ad free episodes of christin's beloved old rotting podcast let's go to that's wow that's Quite a mix of words.

So head on over to patreon.com slash old-timey podcast. And Norm, you know why they should definitely go right now? Why? And not just consider signing up. Definitely sign up. Because this very month, October, we are dropping the good, bad and the ugly of Ann Landers and Dear Abby for our bonus episode. It's going to be a doozy. I'm going to read some wild stuff from the best of books.

We're going to share our own reactions. Who knows, maybe we'll agree. Maybe we'll say to ourselves, you know what, Anne, you're right. You got to look out for these bisexual women offering you gifts and trips. Or not. They're going to get you. Be careful.

And we're also going to take listener questions. Is that right? Yes, yes. Check us out on social media. We'll be dropping the details on how you can anonymously submit your own questions to us. Norm, I'm going to explain. expect you to do all the heavy lifting on any kind of sexual questions we receive. We're going to need your one-liners that you're so famous for. Oh, my one-liners? Yeah, we're going to need you to do some

one-liners, some double entendras, you know, some stuff that might fly over an innocent boy's head, if you know what I mean. What's a double entendre? Oh, my God, Norma. Anyhow, Patreon.com slash old-timey podcast. That's right. Thank you very much for considering supporting this podcast and with that Kristen, how about you recap the last episode? Okay. Previously, on an old-timey podcast. Twin sisters,

Ann Landers, and Dear Abby began their illustrious careers as America's top advice columnists. But behind the scenes, it wasn't all glamour and one-liners. A 1958 article in Life magazine let the whole world know that the sisters were beefen.

In that article, Abby took the crown for meanest gal alive by positioning herself as a better twin, the one who'd won at life. She claimed that Anne was just jealous, jealous of her for marrying rich, jealous of her for her success. Hell, she even claimed Anne was still jealous that she'd been first chair in the high school orchestra. The sisters didn't speak for years as they silently battled to become the top advice columnist. They amassed millions of readers. Their columns appeared in hundreds of newspapers. They released books. And as they did so, they promoted an image of perfection. They weren't just career women, Norm. They were wives, mothers, and they did it all so well. But in the early 70s, Anne's marriage was a far cry from the image she'd tried to project. On the heels of multiple career setbacks, her husband, Julie, 's letterer met a 25-year-old woman. He carried out a brazen affair out of their townhome in London. Meanwhile, Anne was back in Chicago, unaware that her marriage, and in a way, her world, was about

to implode. In today's episode, Anne's marriage falls apart. And the feud gets even feudier. In fact, it's so feudy, it gets passed down to the next generation. Mm. Woo! Love that. Gosh, I was really hoping you would say, and they settled the feud, and they were, they lived happily ever after. Boring! We want drama. Man, it passes down to the kids. Yeah. You want to hear about it?

Yeah, go for it. All right, but first, gather around, won't you, for a love story? Oh, picture it. A man in his late 50s feels sad about his business losses and maybe even sadder about his wife's business success. Is this sarcasm? This is a beautiful love story. Feel free to shed a tear if you need to.

So he finds comfort in a woman who is, oh, wow, younger than his adult daughter. Oh, gosh, stop. It's so sweet. We can't take it. Don't you agree, Norm? Yeah, absolutely. It sounds like he got a lot of support during this time from this 25-year-old woman. Yeah, the sad fact is that Jules' letterer was too chicken shit to just tell Anne that he wanted out of their marriage.

I'm sorry, the love story's over. Hey, the audience loves it. They love it, Chris. They like Sassy Kristen. It appears that he carried out his affair as brazenly as he possibly could, kind of sort of hoping that maybe Anne would just find out through the grapevine. Oh, so he was fine with her finding out, just not directly from him. Well, you know, it'd be a shame to have a direct adult conversation with somebody.

Don't you agree? I mean. Better to just embarrass the shit out of her, be disloyal, and then hope a friend tells her about it. later, right? Sure. Hey, you know, I got to psych myself up to make a phone call sometimes, so. You think maybe if you're going to divorce your wife, it could be more than a phone call. Yeah, I mean, but for him, you know, maybe a phone call's better than nothing, right?

Jeez. Weeks passed and months passed. And it seemed that Anne hadn't heard about the affair. Wait, did she even see Jules? I don't think they saw each other very often. Okay. What was Jules to do? Finally, in 1974, he decided to man up.

He wanted to divorce Anne. He wanted to marry Elizabeth. Yeah. Yeah. He just needed to come clean to the one woman who needed the truth the most. So that's right. Jules came clean to his adult daughter, Margo. Oh.

This had to be the weirdest and most upsetting thing ever. By that point, Margot. was a syndicated columnist. She was a mother of three. She just had a somewhat public divorce from her first husband. Now she was married to another dude. In other words, she had her own stuff going on. And yet, her father came to her.

He showed her a picture of Elizabeth. He said he was in love with Elizabeth. He wanted to marry her. And Margot was just floored. She was like, well, you'd better tell mom. Yeah, what? Why don't you tell your kid first? Okay.

This might be a little strong. I think this is child abuse. Oh. Now I know. That is strong. Let's hear it, Kristen. Well, no, I think... Child abuse.

Hold on. I think parents who put their children in this position are being wildly inappropriate. Wildly inappropriate. I mean, it's definitely inappropriate. Okay, maybe it's not child abuse. You know what? She's an adult woman now. Listen, I'm just really mad.

Okay, I'm going to call it. This is the worst thing that's ever happened ever. Now, if Jules went to his eight-year-old daughter and said, I want to divorce your mom. I'm in love with this 25-year-old woman. Look how hot she is. Ew, gross. That's child abuse. Okay.

All right. I'll allow it. I still don't like it. That's fine. That's fine. I agree. It sucks. It's inappropriate.

Child abuse. All right. You have to be an actual child to suffer from child abuse. I think that's one of the definitions of child. of child abuse that it happens to a child. Fine. So, yeah, she's like, okay, well, tell mom, please. But Jules said he couldn't.

He couldn't do it. Why? He just couldn't, Norm, and so he didn't. In fact, for the next four months, Jules just kept on having the affair. But not a letter. No, no, this is ridiculous. This is your wife of 36 years.

Listen. You have the conversation. I agree. Do you? Do you? Yes. I do. You want Anne Landers's husband to write her a letter and be like, dear Ann, I have a problem.

I am your husband and I want not to be. It can be printed in the column. That's fucked up. Dear Anne Landers, I want to divorce my wife named Anne Landers. But I don't know how to talk to her about it. I'm just not sure what to do. Oh, that's kind of funny. Yeah, I agree.

He needs to talk to her directly. But I'm saying, like, not even like a letter. He couldn't write a letter. A phone call. Norm, he didn't do any of that. Instead, he just a fared even harder. What about like the, um, which is disgusting? What about like Love Actually, where they hold up the signs?

And he's like, I love you. And what if he was like, I want a divorce? Norm, tragically. Stood at the window. Tragically, Love Actually had not come. out yet. Otherwise, Jules definitely would have done that. I'm just giving an example of something he could do. Anyway, so Margo didn't know what to do. She was in a deeply uncomfortable position, which a lot of people have weighed in. They all agree it's child abuse. So I don't know what to tell you,

Norm. Now, didn't Margo have like three hubbies? She was on hubby number. Oh, four. Four total. Bonus hubby. Okay. She called herself a three-time loser. The four-time loser. Guess who the third husband? husband was. Do you know? No. The actor Ken Howard. Who is Ken Howard? Google him. I swear to you, once you see this man's face, you're going to go, oh. Oh. I know. Yeah, he's on the office. Oh, yeah, he was Ed Truck. He's Ed Truck. Yeah, who got decapitated. Wait, was he? No, he, no. Yes, that is, that is Ed Truck. I feel like we might be wrong. No. I feel like we're not wrong. We're also.

not wrong about child abuse. He's Ed Truck and he's also the dad in the movie in her shoes. We're getting some real. This man has bigger hits, but we're learning a lot about what Norm and Joyce. Norm loved the movie in her shoes. In her shoes is a great movie. Damn, so it didn't work out

with Ken Howard, huh? No. And I don't know why, because they dated for three months before they got married. Yeah, here it's spouse Margot Letterer. 1977 to 1991. This is a good run. So Jules was becoming increasingly more shameless to the point that Margo's friends were calling her to be like, uh,

so, hey, I just saw your dad with some woman. And she had to be like, yeah, yeah, that's a thing he's doing. Okay,

bye now. Thank you. They were riding in a swan boat in the park. Yeah. Canoodling. Two-seat bike. Finally, Margo had enough. She needed to do something. So she went to her mom, the Ann Landers, and said,

hey, I think dad is unhappy. I think you need to talk to him about your marriage. Oh, boy. And took her daughter's advice. And the next time they were together, Anne asked Jules if he was okay. Was there anything wrong? Anything he wanted to tell her. Why don't you have a seat right over there? Yeah. She went full Chris Hanson on it. And Jules said, no. Uh-uh. nothing to tell you. But Anne must have sensed that he was bullshitting her. I mean, your adult daughter doesn't come to you randomly and say, hey, I think you need to talk about your marriage.

Right. So the next day, Anne confronted him again. Are you okay? Is there anything wrong? Is there anything you need to tell me? And that's when he finally said it. I'm in love with another woman. Anne was stunned.

But the real shock came when he said he wanted a divorce. because, you know, the truth was that Jules and Ann had always spent a fair amount of time apart. He'd always been a workaholic, and as her career took off, she really threw herself into work as well. They both traveled a lot. It's not like they had the closest relationship, but the fact that he wanted a divorce was almost too much for her to handle. Well, she's got a lot of public pressure. Also, for a certain general. generation, divorce was just not thought of as an option. Yes. I mean, better to be miserable and together than to be a part.

After all, affairs happened. And honestly, maybe Anne would have been the type to look the other way for the sake of keeping their marriage going. A lot of people do. But Jules wasn't giving her that option. He didn't want that option. Oh. So he was like dead set. Yeah, we were getting a divorce.

Yes, Anne was humiliated. She was distraught. She was gobsmacked by grief. She leaned on friends. It felt like everything she had, everything she'd built, everything she'd come to believe about who she was was on the verge of collapse. She'd never approved of divorce. She'd really only changed her stance on it after seeing her daughter Margo go through a divorce.

And even then she wasn't like, yay, divorce. It was kind of like, well, my adult daughter publicly got divorced. So, yeah, I guess I understand now that sometimes it does have to happen. But not to me. And ideally not to anyone else. Yeah. To make matters more complicated, her divorce was going to be public. So public.

Mm-hmm. And what were people going to think? She'd built a career being the person people turned to for advice. And she'd always been a little insecure. about her own credentials. She didn't have a degree. She didn't have a lot of formal training. People came to her for witty, common sense advice.

And maybe they'd stop once they found out that the woman they were writing to for help hadn't figured out how to make her own marriage work. Plus, there was that added element of the longstanding feud with her sister, Dear Abby. Oh, man. Yeah. Abby would be like, oh, oh, a divorce. People want to take advice from her. Oh, you're getting divorced.

I'm so sad for you. I guess that means I'm better again. I've actually never had a divorce. Yeah. I'm not really sure what it's like. I'm so in love with my husband. I call him a love boat. And Norman Caruso thinks that's a great nickname.

No. Maybe a small part of Anne feared that her sister would just take it over. What? Wait a minute. Love boat. What if it's because gets her wet? Ew, Norm. That's enough.

That's enough. Love boat. He's floating in a sea of Poon-Tang. Okay, okay, no. What about that? No. Maybe I get it now. Well, it took you a whole week.

After all, even if Abby's marriage wasn't perfect, it still appeared perfect. It was still a marriage. It was still going. Still swimming in a sea of Poon-Tang, according to Norm. Faced with the choice of asking advice from Abby or Anne, maybe readers would choose the sister who had her act together. Yeah, exactly. That's why Abby would be, like, thrilled about this news. It was terrifying.

As word trickled out and put on a brave face, Abby flew out to visit her. Anne spent a lot of time inside. When she went out, she made a show of being publicly okay, but she wasn't okay. She was reeling, and at the same time, trying to figure out what the hell to do next, because divorces are a matter of public record. And she was a celebrity. And she was divorcing the dude who brought us all budget rent a car. It would be only a matter of time before everyone found out. So she decided to do something, something that a lot of people said was a bad idea. She decided that she wanted to be the one to tell her readers about her divorce.

So, on what would have been her 36th wedding anniversary, Anne Landers wrote the following column. I will read it to you now. Dear fellas, I am single. Oh my God, that would have been amazing. I'm rich and I'm ready to mingle. Dear readers, in my 20 years, years as Anne Landers. This is the most difficult column I have ever tried to put together. I do so after many hours of soul searching. Should it be written at all? Would it be appropriate?

Would it be fair? I have decided yes, because you, my readers, are also my friends. I owe it to you to say something. There should be some word directly from me. The sad, incredible fact is that after 36 years of marriage, Jules and I are being divorced. As I write these words, it is as if I am referring to a letter from a reader. It seems unreal that I'm writing about my own marriage. Many of you may remember the column that appeared in 1969. It was in honor of our 30th wedding anniversary. You may also recall the column I wrote when my beloved mother-in-law, Gusty Letterer, passed away. On both occasions I gave you some intimate glimpses of our life together. Thousands of readers were kind enough to write and say they considered those columns my best. Every word that appeared in those columns

was true when I wrote them, and very little that was said then could not be said today. In complete honesty. Jules is an extraordinary man. His nickname for me was the queen. He was loving, supportive, and generous. He is still all those things. And I was, will always cherish our wonderful years together, that we are going our separate ways is one of life's strangest ironies. How did it happen that something so good for so long didn't last forever? The lady with all the answers does not know the answer to this one. Perhaps there's a lesson there for all of us. At least, it's there for me. Never say, it couldn't happen to us. Please don't write or call and ask for details. The response would be, sorry, this is a personal matter. Time will not alter

my position. I shall continue to say, no comment. There will be no compromising, no exceptions. Just wish us both well. Not only is this the most difficult column I've ever written, but it is also the shortest. I apologize to my editors for not giving you your money's worth today. I ask that you not fill this space with other letters. Please leave it blank. as a memorial to one of the world's best marriages that didn't make it to the finish line, signed Anne Landers. That was incredibly generous to Jules. Yeah. She could have said, this cheating ass hoe went out and got himself a woman who's younger than our daughter.

I mean, she could have roasted this man. Classy. She did a classy thing. Very classy. Yeah. What do you think about her? decision to write that column. Very good move.

Yeah. I think it's always a good idea for a controversial story to come from one of the people involved in it, I guess. Yeah, I think it's funny in a way it reminded me of my own stuff. I was going to ask, I didn't know if I should bring it up. But, you know, your old podcast, one of the big draws of all. let's go to court was the friendship. Yeah, yeah. And then you had this friendship end. Yeah. And it's like, how do I tell people? Well, and really should I? And should you? Yes. And for a year

and a half, I didn't. No. But I, the whole time, I kept thinking, this is wrong. I just need to address it. I keep getting questions about it. And what's the harm in answering? But, answering in a classy way, you know, trying not to be like, I need you to take a side in this, but just to answer it. And I think it was funny to read about Ann's friends and advisors telling her, no, do not go public, do not say anything. But. Because you even received some of that advice. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. In a situation like this, there will always be people and very smart people who say, don't ever say anything ever. And I think after a while I came to see it kind of maybe the way Ann did of everything comes out in the end. Yeah, you might as well hear it for me.

Yeah, if you can just say it and say it in a classy way, why not? Yeah. Wear a top hat when you do the message. That's my only regret is that I didn't wear a top hat. Boatie. Sure. Cape. Well, we don't want to overdo it, Norm. If I can get to a point. my life where I can wear capes. Oh, dear God. That would be pretty special. I mean, nothing's technically stopping you. No, like, you can't look at me and be like, that guy should be wearing a cape. Norm, I've got news for you. I've never looked at anyone ever and thought, you know what they need is a cape. What if you saw a vampire with no cape? Then I would say that's not a vampire. See? He needs a cape. Yeah, you're right. You're right. Fair point. So the news went everywhere.

Everyone talked about it. Reporters called wanting further comment, and Anne refused them. In fact, for the next year, she didn't do any public appearances. But a funny thing happened after she told the truth. Letters came in. Letter after letter after letter after letter of people who'd read her column for years, people who understood that she was more than just a page in the newspaper. She was a person. And she was going through something tough. Something that maybe they'd gone through two. In total, nearly 30,000 letters came in from people offering sympathy and support. Other suspicious divorcees? Probably. On this podcast, we are very suspicious of divorced women. It's true. Anne was touched by their kindness. She hadn't expected it, but she tucked all of those

letters into boxes, and she put them in her bedroom closet. She never got rid of those letters. I bet whenever she read them, she felt very comforted. Yeah. Well, it's a funny thing when you're bracing for everyone to be mad at you. I think this is why it like, I don't know, it hit home for me. Like you are bracing for the worst possible scenario. And then when people instead are kind, it's- Yeah, offer sympathy or even say, oh, yeah, I went through a friendship breakup too and it was really hard.

Right. Yeah. My favorite comment was, I knew they were lying. Okay, well, yeah, we did get some unhinged feedback. That was my favorite. Oh, my gosh. If you're wondering how Jules felt about the column, you might be interested to know that he was upset. Oh, fuck off, dude.

What? You haven't even heard what he said, Norm. I don't need to. No, maybe once you hear it, you'll feel another way. He felt upset because, quote, I was always a very private person. Shut up. What an asshole. Yeah.

Shut up. Go fuck off to London with your 25-year-old girlfriend. Right. Probably leave you soon, realizing that you're... She didn't. Shit. Okay. But isn't that always the way?

Like, she did such a classy job of just telling the truth. And even then. Nope, you were supposed to hide what an asshole I was. Yeah. I mean, what can we expect from a failed veil salesman? and failed the ballpoint pen industry Wow I mean this writes itself

I had the last episode when you When like Anne was rolling in the dough And he was like My feelings are hurt over this It's like oh this guy kind of sucks Yeah And now about now this This crosses the line for me

Oh oh okay Okay I am officially done with Jules And so is Anne Landers in a way I am divorcing Jules too. By the time their divorce was granted in October of 1975, Jules found himself screwed over by the person who screwed him the most in life himself. Now, I'm not sure exactly how this worked out. I don't know a lot about divorce laws and stuff,

but apparently, you know, he'd been so insistent throughout their marriage that Anne's money was her money and hers alone, whatever she made, whatever she invested need to be in her name, It's coming back to bite him. Well, again, I guess I don't understand, because I thought everything was 50-50, but, and maybe because of what he did, he was like, you can keep your money. But anyhow, Ann ended up just fine. It depends on the state. Yeah.

Yeah. I know, shoot, what is that law called? Common something? Community property. Community property. Assets acquired during the marriage are divided equally. in a divorce. I think I learned that from liar, liar.

A classic film. Not quite as good as in her shoes. Don't you agree? Ooh, that's tough. I enjoy both films. Okay, so, yeah, so he's like, yeah, everything you make is yours, Ann, and then they get divorced,

and Anne's like, well, I guess this is all mine, and Jules is left holding his little peony. But he still had money, but yeah, he was holding his little peony as you so beautifully put it. I don't know why I call his dick a peony. That's what I'm calling penis is from now on. Because you're divorced from him.

You're done with him. Him and his little peony can go off to London. I'm calling penis as peonies from now on. One month after their divorce was finalized, Jules married Elizabeth. When they finished their honeymoon, they came back to Chicago and discovered that Anne had stocked their apartment with all the essentials, including new socks and underwear for tools. And that's weird.

Thank you, Norm. Yes, it is weird. And that is fucking weird. I want to defend her so much in everything. But wow, that is weird. Yeah. Norm, tell me more. What do you make of that?

I don't, I really can't gather a thought right now. You are just weirded out. It's just weird. It's just weird. It's just weird. Okay. One is that she felt guilty. She felt like the divorce was her fault.

Oh, poor Ann. That was actually the consensus of a lot of people. I think it was a sign of the terrible times. But the idea was basically, well, she went off and had this career. Oh, God forbid. Right. She had been the problem. It was her ambition that had done them in.

She'd spent too much time being Anne Landers. She'd emasculated him with her success. She'd ignored him when she should have been paying attention. This was all her fault. And if you're wondering, well, gee, Who would say something that awful? Well... Her sister?

Abby later told a reporter, quote, She really lost him a long time before. She was so busy with her job that Jules had a lot of time on his hands. What an awful thing to say. Yep. And definitely struggled in the aftermath of the divorce.

Oh, wait, wait. Okay, hold on. I'm sorry. I said we were going to go over theories about why she did that. There's a possibility that she felt guilty and so she wanted to do this one last thing for him. And that was kind of, you know, she kind of framed it as like, hey, I was just taking

care of him. I took care of him for 36 years. And this is just it. I call bullshit. Here is my personal opinion. Power move. It's weird. It's misplaced.

It shouldn't have happened. But I think back to that book on codependency that I read a while back. Uh-huh. And there was this line that, like, punched me in the stomach. And it was helping. is the sunny side of controlling. And to me, nothing will smack down the new wife, quite like walking into her new apartment and realizing that the ex-wife has filled it with new underwear and socks and filled the

fridge with the husband's favorite foods. Like, that just feels like... It's power move. It's very threatening. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It is, isn't it?

It's like you're going to be thinking about me during this marriage. Yes. I'm always going to be around. Yeah. It's kind of saying, enjoy this man. You are borrowing him from me. That's how I take it. Yeah.

It's weird. I'd be moving away from Chicago. No kidding. Anne definitely struggled in the aftermath of the divorce. But she came through it stronger than ever. The divorce didn't damage her career. If anything, it made her seem more human, more relatable. She began to date.

She had some fun. Ooh. Do you have any info on that? I mean, I do. Sexy times. Thank you, father. Yes, she dated, so not like names you would know, but like pretty big dudes. Ken Howard?

No, that was her daughter's. Gross, no, I'm gross. He's mine. now. And career-wise, she took some stands. Serious stands. In the 60s, she and Abby had both taken what I like to call the freshman year of college approach to feminism, which is to say, no, we're all equal. I've never experienced sexism at all. Therefore, it doesn't exist. And if anything, it's the dudes who have it kind of rough. Yeah, I've heard that before. But that was the beauty of Anne and Abby. Neither one of them was opposed to learning and evolving.

And by the early 70s, both of them came out in favor of the Equal Rights Amendment. Now, okay, side note, the ERA was a proposed constitutional amendment that would prohibit sex discrimination. And boy, you'd hope that wouldn't be controversial, but it sure was. Future topic, Phyllis Schlafly can suck my peony. Oh, Schlafly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. the woman who famously was like, women shouldn't work outside the home. Where did she make these speeches? Believe it or not, outside her home. She had to leave the house? She did. She did. Disgusting.

Yeah, she should have stayed home. Anyhow, speaking of controversial, around that same time, Abby and Ann both began championing abortion rights. Oh. Anne was a much more vocal supporter of abortion rights than Abby, though.

And as a result, anti-choice groups started the dump Anne Landers movement to try to get her column removed from newspapers, which, you know, it was kind of a bad idea from the start. And at a certain point, they knew they shouldn't be doing it. But once they started, they couldn't stop because no one would let them. Anti-choice advocates were obsessed with Anne Landers. Norm, did you get that?

Sorry, I guess I didn't. Sorry, say it again? No, no. No, please say it again. Please Please say it again Can you repeat it? Anti-choice groups

Started the dump Ann Landers movement I remember that To get her column removed from newspapers Okay Got it Which was a bad idea from the start They knew they shouldn't be doing it

But once they started They couldn't stop because no one would let them I get Wait what does that mean What? It's not even that good a joke. It's just like about how maybe at a certain point they wish they had the choice. Don't worry about it.

Oh, I see. Okay. No, I get it now. Well, yeah. Anti-choice advocates were obsessed with Ann Landers. They sent her a ton of copies of this anti-abortion poem. It's called The Diary of an Unborn Child. I'd never read it before.

But wow, the last line in this poem is, today my mother killed me. Jesus. It's rough. It is really something. And that led Anne to say the most iconic thing that has ever been said. Are you ready? Quote, if I get one more copy of the diary of an unborn child, I'll kill myself.

Oh my gosh. The anti-choice folks weren't the only ones who hated Ann. The NRA hated her too. But she kind of took all that with pride. As the years went by, Anne and Abby both came to appreciate the impact of their columns. It wasn't just about one-liners anymore, although it sometimes was. It was really about power, the power of the platforms they'd built, and the power to use those platforms to advocate for real change.

Abby championed the rights of people with disabilities, Anne famously advocated for the passage of the National Cancer Act. So this was pretty cool. In 1971, she printed this call to action in her column, and in it she wrote about the need for well-funded cancer research. She asked readers to cut out her column and send it to Washington. And her readers did. Washington and specifically the White House was inundated with thousands of copies of her column.

And, you know, partly thanks to her activism, President Richard Nixon signed the National Cancer Act with Ann Landers in attendance. Hey. It allocated federal funding for cancer research, started a network of cancer treatment centers, started training programs for medical workers. It's incredible. The amount of good that Anne and Abby did through. their columns. Of course, neither of them were perfect, and there were certainly times when they way missed the mark, but as the years went by and they continued to do good work, you know, might have been tempting to think that the Life magazine debacle was way behind them. After all,

they'd made up in 1964. In interviews, they often alternated between either denying that the feud had ever happened, which is a weird move, or acting as though, oh, it had just been way overblown. by the media. Oh, the media. Not Abby yapping and Tara. I was going to say, Abby's the one yapping to the media. They're just reporting what she says. Exactly.

One thing they always emphasized was that they were good. Things were good. And, you know, they were good-ish. They were both doing their thing, communicating fairly regularly, focusing on their careers, and really reaping the rewards of being rich, fancy ladies.

For Ann, that meant having a lot of cool stuff and all the plastic surgery. Now, for what it's worth, Abby definitely also got plastic surgery. And I know this because I have eyeballs in my head and they work. And I'm not judging her for that, but I am judging her for the fact that when it came to plastic surgery, Anne was open about it, partly because Abby told everyone that Anne had it. And Abby was like, no, me. No, no, my face is tight as a drum naturally.

this is just what happens. Had to put the knee on the back and yank the skin. Uh-huh. Yeah. In 1976, the twins attended their 40th high school reunion together, looking nipped, tucked, and fabulous. They went to their high school reunion? Yeah, it was a big event.

Everyone in Sioux City was just jazzed. I just wouldn't expect them to show up at the high school reunion. That's all. It was a big deal. I mean, it was national news when they did. That's a huge deal. They dazzled, they charmed, they were in each other's arms. Ooh, they were friends again.

Nothing could change it. Everything was great except, oh no. Just a few years later, in late 1979, Ladies Home Journal ran a profile about Anne. Uh-oh. It was written by a pretty well-known entertainment writer named Cliff Yard. The profile was mostly about Anne's divorce. How she'd grown from it, what she'd learned from it.

Nice article. It did ever so much. briefly touch on Anne and Abby's relationship because how could it not? That's just kind of mandatory. And here's the thing. I submit that Anne did a really good job navigating that issue. Because when answering a question about, you know, whether she'd been upset about Abby starting Dear Abby just three months after she'd started her job as Anne Landers, here's what she said. Are you ready for the explosive quote from Anne? It was not all that bitter. There was a problem at first.

She didn't tell me and I was surprised and disappointed, but I soon forgot about it. So that's it. That's it? That's the quote. Okay. Harmless, whatever. Harmless! Oh, boy. Abby didn't think so.

What's wrong with that, Abby? I don't know. We're going to get more into this, obviously, but it's like where Abby was concerned and needed to, well, I don't know what she was expecting. You know, what could Anne have said in that moment and acknowledged the truth that everyone already knew, but downplayed it and kind of said, hey, I soon forgot about it. It's not all that bitter. Yeah, not a big deal. Let's move on. Right.

What do you want from her? Hmm. Well, so Abby was livid. Livid, but, hey, she didn't say anything publicly because maybe Abby was wiser now. Maybe she'd matured growth. we love to see it. That same journalist reached out to her to ask if she'd agree to do an interview

for a lady's home journal. He asked and asked and asked. And for a little more than a year, she just kept saying, no, no, no. And then something happened. Uh-oh. In 1981, Abby went on the Charlie Rose show. Fun fact about Charlie Rose,

that man proved that you can be a PBS nerd and a big, creepy sex pervert. We're never safe. Ladies. That's right. He got in trouble, huh? Yeah. Yeah.

I don't know. I'm always surprised when it's like a nerd. You never expect it. Wasn't the puppet guy from Elmo big creep too? Yes. Let's start naming all the creeps. Unexpected creeps. Big comfy couch is a sex pervert.

Who? Do you remember big comfy couch? No. Oh. Okay. Okay. That joke just didn't land then. No.

And yet you took it to full term and we appreciate it. Hey, now I got that one. Okay. That's an abortion joke. So Abby went on his show. It was filmed in front of a studio audience. She was actually there to promote her new book. But of course, Charlie did ask about her sister.

Specifically, he asked Abby if she read Anne Landers. And Abby said, of course. And Charlie responded with a strange question. And does Anne Landers read, Dear Abby? Abby was visibly annoyed, but she nodded. Yes. And at that moment, Charlie fucking Rose walked so that Jerry Springer could run because he said, let's see what Anne has to say.

And he threw to a video, which for the at-home viewers played in the bottom corner of the screen, and the video was from an interview that Abby didn't know about it. about. It was an interview with Anne. And in it, Charlie Rose asked, Anne, do you read Dear Abby's column? And Anne responded, no. It runs in a Chicago paper, which I do not read. Charlie Rose is a shit, sir. Gotcha! Zing! Abby sat there, looking stunned and angry. She'd been the victim of a cheap TV stunt in front of a live stunt. studio audience. Wow.

But she pulled it together. She was on camera. They clearly wanted a big reaction from her, but she didn't give it to them. Instead, she said, well, I read her column every day. I don't care what paper it's in. I wouldn't miss it for the world. Classy. I agree.

I think that Abby conducted herself very well in that interview. I think this Charlie Rose sucks in multiple ways, but this. This definitely... Not to be confused with Charlie Horse music pizza. Who the hell is that? Kristen, did you watch any PBS growing up? I guess not. Not enough.

Charlie Horse was one of the puppets in the Lamb Chop's universe. Oh, okay. Well, I mean, gosh, how old were you when you were watching that? That was a long time ago from me. I may have been too old, but I enjoyed PBS. Anyway, I was not expecting that from a PBS show to, To, like, show video in the corner. I don't think he was on PBS yet.

Oh, okay. This was his show. Oh, okay. But now I feel like Abby's going to fire back. What do you think of Ann saying that in the interview? That she doesn't read her sister's calling. Just whatever. Okay.

What do you think? I think it's tough. I think the easiest thing, if you are really trying to keep things civil in the public eye, the easy thing is just to be like, yeah. Just lie. Yeah. It's a little white lie. Yeah, which I don't like that.

But, well, in a way it's not because it's impossible that she truly didn't ever read it. So you could just say, yeah, and then hopefully that's it. But I was thinking about this a little more. And I do know that Anne and Abby, one of the things that people in their close circles said was that they would accuse each other of copying one another's columns. Which, to be fair, ladies, they were very similar columns. But I do think that if I had a sister who was always like, you're copying me, you're copying me, I might just decide, well, I'm not going to read her at all. And maybe in that moment you get asked that question and you're a little off guard and you just answer with the truth.

And oopsie, daisy, fudge stripes, here we go. Yeah. Do you ever mimic Kyla growing up to annoy you? her. Are you kidding me? That was like half my childhood. Also, when she would do the thing of like, I'm drawing a line down here, don't touch on my side. And I'd be like, where's the line? Is it here? Is it here? I was hilarious and a joy to be around. What about you? Oh, yeah. I did that all the time. Yeah. Just repeat whatever one of my siblings would say. Oh, my God. But, you know, and then they would do it to me and it would drive me nuts. I was going to say, you are very, I feel like that would be, it would be so

easy to set you off as a kid. Oh, yeah. I definitely had a short temper. You know, it's funny, I asked my mom one time if she listens to our podcast and she was like, no. And I was like, I was like, why not? And she goes, because you guys giggle too much.

I know. Boy, the brutal critique, the brutal critique. I know. I can believe it. Keep that joy to yourself, Norm. So that Charlie Rose interview, I think really rattled Abby. And maybe that was the thing

that made her finally say, you know what? I'm doing that interview for Ladies Home Journal. Buckle up. To tell all. She sat down for an interview with Cliff, the same guy who'd interviewed Anne. And wow, poor Cliff did not know what he was in for.

He thought he was going to do a profile on Abby in the same way that he'd done one on Anne. But right from the jump, Abby absolutely unloading. on her sister. As soon as he arrived at Abby's house, she started showing Cliff pictures of Anne and saying stuff like,

oh, of course, these are before Epi had her face lifted. Oh, my God. Why are you even showing these photos? So that she can say she had her face lifted. Okay, Kristen. Yes. As a former reporter,

yes. What do you do in that situation? When you're going in expecting the interview to go one way, And it goes a completely different way, but it's juicy stuff. I think people who aren't reporters, haven't been reporters, would hear that and go, oh, you'd have to be so excited. You'd have to be so thrilled. I actually think, partly because I read some of an interview with him and it just tracked, he spent several days with her, just like he had with Anne. He really liked Abby.

He thought she was funny, a great storyteller, all. this stuff. And, you know, she's just blabbing and every now and then saying, oh, but that's not for the story. But then she'd say it again later on. And so he would kind of say things to try to remind her like, and what do you want the five million readers of Ladies Home Journal to know, you know, kind of reminding her like, hey, this is going to be published. We're not friends here. Right. I'm a reporter. Obviously, I was never in a situation like this. But especially when it was someone who was not media trained, this was maybe their first interview. If they said something a little off, I didn't include it.

Now, if it was their second interview, third interview, there are a politician, there's someone in the spotlight, then I think, well, no, I'm not going to help you out. Yeah. And, you know, I'm sure there are people who would say you shouldn't help a person out at all in their first interview. But, you know, this one, this is Abigail Van Buren. She knows what she's doing. Absolutely. This isn't, you know, grandma writes a $75 check to the Rotary Club.

You know, this is Abigail Van Buren. Way to roast me for the level of reporting I was doing in my career. I'm keeping it real. You got to start somewhere. That's right. Later, Cliff remarked that some of the stuff Abby said about Ann was so petty. and so minor that he, of course, didn't include it. For example, she told him that 40 years earlier,

when they'd all been living in Wisconsin, she'd had to really pull some strings to get Anne accepted into this volunteer organization. You know, that's how important she was and how unimportant Anne was. And Cliff was just like, okay, like, what? And how long ago was this? 40 years earlier, I had to pull some strings to get my sister. into a volunteer organization. That's so long ago.

I truly do not know what I would do if I were in this situation with this woman was 63 years old. And she's talking this level of shit about her sister. It'd be mind-boggling. The article ran in the September 1981 issue of Ladies' Home Journal. And holy shit, it was brutal. It wasn't so much about Abby and her career. as it was about Abby. Again, I can't stress this enough, a 63-year-old adult woman talking boatloads of crap about her twin sister. Listeners, I need you to brace yourselves. I will now read some of Abby's spiciest quotes from that article.

You see, I always got what sis wanted. She's been hurt more in her life than I, and she suffered a heck of a lot. If she looked old, if she needed a facelift, believe me, it's because she needed it. Oh my God. This is getting brutal. Ready for another? Yeah. I'm quite opposed to chopping myself up, but it was her right. Why not?

When you cry a lot, it's got a show. Oh, Jesus. Yeah, so she was referring to Anne's divorce. That is nasty. Yeah. That is so wild. It makes this seem really tame. And Landers is a boring old bitty.

Well, you know, in a way, compared to Abby, sure. Abby was ruthless. Ready for another one? Mm-hmm. You see, our values are a little bit different. She was going to marry for money, and I was going to marry for love. Oh, fuck off. Well, I married for both, and she married a heck of a nice guy, but he didn't have a quarter.

In O'Clair, she had a little tiny place. Well, I lived in a lovely home with loads of help. Her husband worked for me. I drove a luxury car. She drove a lower-priced model. And that had to hurt. Look, she needs a lot of reinforcement. Jesus.

Can you believe that? She needs a lot of reinforcement. By the way, her husband worked for me. No, he didn't. No. Your husband's family owned a company, and Anne's husband worked for that company. He did not work for you.

For you, Abigail Van Buren. God. In that article, she also claimed that she'd ghostwritten a lot of the early Anne Landers' columns before she started writing as Dear Abby. Okay, well, you may have helped, but ghost written. Here's what she said. Sis got that job and shot those letters to me.

I provided the sharp answers. I'd say you're writing too long. She still does. And this is the way I'd say it. My stuff was published and it looked awfully good in print. I guess she felt threatened because she said, I'm not sending any more letters. My editors don't want me to.

And she yanked them away. So I thought, I can do this. Oh, this is like so hurtful and personal. It's so deeply hurtful, so deeply personal. she did this same shit with that Life magazine article in 1958. Here it is, 1981. She's doing the same stuff. This is way worse.

This is way worse. Yes, it's so much worse. Yeah. It's so much worse. So the feud's back on. Oh, honey. Like the Hatfield McCoys. I'm afraid they're going to start grabbing guns.

Oh, it'd be hard not to. I understand why you had your face lifted because you cry so much. much because your life's so sad. My God. My God. The article was wild and maybe not very well thought out because not long after the article came out, Abby had to go on tour to promote her new book, which meant that she was surrounded by reporters.

And of course, the reporters asked her about the stuff she'd said. Hey, we read your article in Lazy's Home Journal. We read the appalling things you said about your sister. Can you tell us what was going on in your head? And guess what she said? She said. Anne Landers is a boring old bitty. Nope, she said, oh, that was taken out of context.

And, oh, I was misquoted. And, oh, my sister and I are actually really good friends and have been since 1964. How was that a misquote? Exactly. It was not a misquote. I love when people say, oh, was taken out of context. Oh, really? Tell me the wonderful context that makes it okay to say, oh, my sister got a facelift.

It's because she cries so much. She's so sad. So she obviously needed it. By the way, her husband worked for me. Also, I'm awesome. She sucks. It's because the interviewer actually asked, what's the worst thing you could say about your sister? We want to hear the meanest thing.

And she said it. Okay, that would be the one time. She tried to paint herself as the victim, saying, quote, The press has always played up an alleged feud, and sometimes I've been too trusting. The press played up the feud? You know, here's the thing. Once you say that stuff publicly, then, yeah, it's going to go everywhere. If you're famous enough, it's going to go everywhere.

Yeah. And, yeah, I'm sure that any time you're interviewed after that, you might be asked about it. And that sucks for Ann because she didn't say a bunch of stuff. No, Ann didn't want this. But it's exactly what Abby gets because she says. said that stuff. Yeah. But this idea of I was too trusting. How rude to that reporter. I know. Who by the way, recorded everything. So suck on that. She also said, Our differences have been greatly exaggerated. We get along fine. Anne Landers, care to comment?

Yeah, really. Later, when Abby went on the Phil Donahue show, Phil asked her about all those things she'd said about Anne. And Abby said, I was quoted out of content. There it is again. And there was this like weird pause with the studio audience kind of being like, uh-huh. Uh-huh. And Phil said, sometimes it means you're sorry that you said what you said. And the studio audience giggled because obviously that's what was going on. Yeah.

And Abby sat there awkwardly and said, with me, it often, it often means that. Yeah. Oh. Uh-huh. Damn, Phil called her out. He sure did. Well, and I think the audience helped. I don't think anyone was buying Abby's bullshit about this.

No. When Abby and Anne finally talked on the phone about it, Anne was very upset. Why had Abby been so cruel to her? Why had she said those things? This was the Life magazine article all over again. But Abby played innocent. She said she'd been misquoted.

The reporter had made it all up, but Anne didn't buy a word. No, Anne's done all this media stuff too. Why would Anne believe any of that? And Anne literally said, I know him. I was just interviewed by him. I know how accurate he is because he was accurate about what I said to him. Yeah, quit your bullshit. Yes.

Just admit, take the L, as I like to say. Take the L, say, I was wrong. I'm sorry. Those were really hurtful mean things. Honestly, like, this one's so bad to me. And because it's part of a larger pattern, you've got to do more than take the L. You got to be like, not only am I sorry, I'm getting into therapy. I'm doing something because, like, clearly I have a problem. Yes. Yes. I agree with that for sure.

But like start with admitting you messed up. Yes, give me a break. But Abby kept sticking to a problem. her made-up story. And finally, Anne just hung up the phone. Yeah. You'll drive yourself crazy. Absolutely. I think the only thing that would drive you crazier than having that article

out there in trying to have a phone conversation with someone who won't even just own the shitty thing they did. Later, she wrote a letter to Abby. It read, I forgive you, sister. Now forgive yourself. Ooh.

Anne did forgive Abby, mostly because the alternative was too painful. Those years when they'd gone without speaking had been miserable and didn't want to go through that again. She wanted to forgive and she wanted to move forward. They didn't speak for 10 years, right? You know, I realized I said that in the beginning, but then I did the math and I was like, that's not right.

No, wrong. I think it would have, it's probably more accurate that they didn't speak for, well, actually it could have been 10 years because it's possible they weren't speaking before the Life magazine article came out. So different sources have it different ways. Six, eight, and ten are the different number of years I've seen. Even if it was six years, that's a long time to not talk to your twin sister, especially because the law says you're supposed to be living together and sleeping in the same bed.

That's right. That's the law that Norm knows because he made it up in these creepy twin dream world. Visit it, won't you, twins? Don't worry, he'll definitely let you leave whenever you want. Sounds like a great theme park area. Creepy twin dream world. God. So I think Anne forgives her in the spirit of like, well, here's what I'm hoping.

I'm hoping Anne was like, okay, I am never going to share a personal detail about myself with her. I'm putting her on an information diet, you know. Yeah, low contact. Yeah. But I don't want the drama of no. contact. Yes. This is all me making stuff up, but this is what I want. I completely understand that. Yeah. Because, you know, sometimes when you have an issue with a family member, and I've seen a lot of advice online where if you're like, well, just go no contact. Go no contact.

It's like, that's, it's not that easy. Right. Because sometimes the grief of going no contact is worse than what you're currently going through. And it's also like people don't live on islands. So if I'm not talking to my twin sister, does that mean I'm also not talking to my brother-in-law, to my niece, to my nephew, to their, you know, it just makes things complicated. And I think Anne was trying to just move forward. Yeah. But, you know, Abby had really stepped in it. Anne's daughter was, of course, really mad at Abby. But Abby's own adult children, Gene and Eddie, were mad too. Why had she done that? How could she have done that? Abby didn't seem to have an answer other than, of course, to blame the journalist.

She was taken out of context, Kristen. Oh, yeah. But, you know, life went on. At one point, Anne found herself caught in a bit of a scandal. A reporter realized that Anne was recycling old columns, but not acknowledging that they were old columns. Oh, reprints. Yeah.

That quickly became a scandal, largely, I think, because of how badly Anne handled it. She at first tried to just avoid the reporter's questions entirely. Then she tried to deny it. And then when she realized she was really, truly caught, she tried to charm them by showing them the 30,000 supportive letters she'd received after her divorce. I mean, weird move. I think she was desperate.

Yeah, look at these. Look at these. Look at these letters I got. She tried giving them like her personal number, like try to buddy buddy. I mean, she tried a lot. That doesn't work. No. So she got in some hot water for doing that.

And, of course, someone asked her sister Abby for comment on the rerun scandal. I would never do that. No, Abby said, wow, I'm so surprised. Anne has always been the soul of integrity as far as I'm concerned. What do you think? Not great. Yeah, a little shitty. Not super shitty.

Now, she set the bar so high for shitty comments. And, you know, she's just not even coming anywhere. Comparing to the ladies' home journal comments, it's like, well, it's not that bad, I guess. But still, it's got a little, it's got a little shit in there. Okay, just a sprinkle of shit. Let me. Tiny sprinkle of shit. Let me plop on some more.

Okay. Literally like a year later, someone caught Abby doing the exact same thing. And she also had to apologize and admit to rerunning old columns. So to me, that makes it so much shittier. Because she could have called Anne and been like, hey, I've actually been doing the same thing. How do we want to work this out? How do we, you know, they were the two, I mean, top advice columnists in the world. They could come up with some kind of joint apology, some kind of, you know, here's what we're doing to make it right.

They could have worked on this together. Instead, Abby tried to be like, oh, Anne's doing that? My goodness. Boy am I scandalized. Anyway, do-da-do-do. Hope no one catches me. It would have been hilarious if they, if Anne commented on the Abby scandal and said the exact same thing. Oh my God.

That would have been such a power move. She's always been the soul of integrity. I'm just surprised. I'm so surprised. So, you know, life was occasionally rocky, but it was mostly fabulous for both Anne and Abby. I mentioned that Anne dated a lot. She loved the company of handsome gentlemen. She had a ho face.

Okay. It's so funny because some people. And again, I think this is more of like the sign of the times. We're like, oh, it's so sad. She just wanted to get married again. And she never did. It's like, you know, maybe she did want to get married again. But she was never without the company of a handsome gentleman.

So I think the lady was doing just fine. It maybe didn't fit with people's ideas of what a woman should want out of life and should be doing with her life. Right. Maybe she just wanted to go to Poundown Town. A lot of peens. Yeah. Little peonies. Peanies, we call them.

Both Anne and Abby had close relationships with celebrities and politicians. And, you know, despite the occasional scandal, they enjoyed their statuses. They enjoyed their influence. As they got older and kept working, she never stopped. And her work habits were really something. And I propose that we should all work this way, regardless of our profession. Are you ready? Okay.

I'm excited because I am. a little obsessed with self-help. Here's my date, my routine. So like, okay, what's Ann Landers do? You might want to take out a notepad. Jot this down. First off, Anne was a night owl. She loved to sleep in.

Okay, well, that's not going to work for me. Lorm, come on. She also loved to work from the comfort of her bathtub. I do not take baths. That's not going to work for me either. You're going to have to change. Her bathtub had a specially made marble shelf. It was made for holding love.

letters. And Anne never owned a computer or a cell phone for that matter. So she kept a typewriter near the bathtub. That's where she'd write her replies. And guess what, Norm? Over the course of a two-hour soak, she could get through 800 letters. Two hours? Yeah. Why are you acting surprised? That's me. You don't take two-hour baths. That's a long time. Well, I don't get any work done. Maybe if I brought my podcast equipment in there, who knows how long I'd been.

Bring your typewriter in. All of a sudden you get a really echoy episode where I'm recording from the bathtub. Yeah. Folks, Kristen is refusing to get out of the bathtub. So we're recording in the bathroom. Joe just quit. He said he doesn't want to edit the video of this. He can't look any longer. He was like, I was amused for a minute.

And then I got grossed out. And then he realized, oh, the whole episode is like the, So, you know, Anne's doing her thing, but it wasn't quite the same for Abby. Her daughter, Jean, had worked with her for a long time, but in 1987, Jean sort of unofficially behind the scenes took over the Dear Abby column. Oh. By that point, Anne and Abby had reconnected. They faxed each other every day.

Just notes, gossip. Facts. Yeah. Hell yeah. Old school texts. It was their way of staying in touch. But by the early 90s, it was clear that Abby wasn't fully herself anymore. She was showing signs of Alzheimer's disease.

But Anne and Abby kept faxing each other. And sometimes when Abby wouldn't respond, Anne would take a piece of fax paper and write, Popo, put your paw print on this and send it back. And Abby would doodle something and send it back. And they did that little game until it was clear that Abby couldn't do it anymore. God, that is the saddest disease. It is. They were entering a new stage of life. They weren't getting older anymore. They were just old. Abby was well cared for at home, though, but Anne's ex-husband, Jules, he wasn't doing so well. Later in life, he filed for bankruptcy. He'd always been a

smoker and a drinker, but around the time of the divorce, he began drinking more heavily. And when he suffered a stroke, he needed to go into a nursing home. But he couldn't afford that, and neither could his wife Elizabeth. So Anne paid for Jules' stay in the nursing home. She actually paid for a lot of things over the years. He died there in 1999. The next year, Abby's daughter, Gene Phillips, got the recognition that she had deserved for a long time. She began sharing the Dear Abby byline with her mother. Dear Abby was Jeans now. Was she the woman with the short hair? Yes. Yes. So that is how I remember, dear Abby.

Me too. So that was her daughter. Yes. We've been fooled, bamboozled. You know, it's funny early on in this series. You talked about them being born in like the 20s? 1990, I think. And I was like, gosh, she looked great in the late 90s.

But that's her daughter. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. By that point, Anne's daughter Margo had been doing an advice column for slate.com. She wrote under the name. Dear Prudence. Oh, I guess you didn't read that.

Okay. I was waiting for like a budget rent-a-car reaction of, oh, okay. No. No. Prudence is quite a name, though. I actually think she took over the column from someone else. I didn't do a deep dive. Hmm.

But the column wasn't just online. It was also syndicated in 200 newspapers. It may have seemed natural that Margot would take over Anne's column one day. but apparently when Anne offered it to her, Margo was like, not me, honey, I don't want to work that hard. So yeah, both daughters were in the advice column business, but only one of them was the heir to the throne, so to speak. Right.

And as Abby struggled with Alzheimer's disease, Anne discovered that she had health troubles of her own. She'd been kind of walking funny for a while, and in January of 2002, she found out why, when she was diagnosed with multiple myeloma of the spine. In other words, bone marrow cancer. Doctors told her that if she got chemo and was super aggressive with her treatment,

she could maybe have another two years. But Anne didn't want that. Yeah. She was 83 years old. She wanted to go home. She wanted to keep working, and she didn't want people to know how sick she was. She also didn't want to die in pain.

So she had someone come to her, beautiful, opulent apartment, and administer morphine twice a week. Hell yeah, I mean, sure. Yeah, I respect this. Yeah. She told everyone, including her new caregiver, that she actually wasn't super sick. She just had osteoporosis. She'd be on the men soon.

But she died six months later. It's funny, it was about as unexpected as an 83-year-old's death could be. By that point, her column was in 1,200 newspapers. She had 90 million readers all over the world. And since Anne owned Anne Landers, and since she didn't have a successor for her column, it died when she died. That's powerful. Yeah. You know, it's funny, the first time I read that, that it died when she died, I just, I didn't like it at all.

Partly because I guess I have this feeling like, if you've built something big, let it keep going. Let it evolve. Let it do its thing. But the more I've dug into this stuff, the more I've started thinking about how maybe Anne was a person who felt like she never had her own thing. She always had to share something. And maybe this was a powerful final act for her to just say, no, this was mine. I mean, that's kind of how I'm looking at it. Yeah.

Is, you know, she started as she was taking over for somebody, but she was so. good at it and became so successful, it became hers and it defined her. And it's like, there can't be another Anne Landers. Yeah. Now, tell that to all these Superman movies. Keep bringing a new Superman. I didn't know we were going to go there, but sure, I'm mad about it too. Yeah. All the Doctor Who's? How many Doctor Who's have there been? And you know what? Superman? It's a guy who looks good in a Kate, just like a vampire. And just like you one day, Norm, if you keep whatever needs to be kept up in order to look like a guy who wears a cape. I'm not going to go around wearing a Superman outfit.

I want to be like a rich, opulent man that has a cape for the night on the town, you know. I think first step will be getting into a time machine. No, I want to be so classy looking. They're like, of course he has a cape. Okay. You know? Well, you know, in a way, I'm rooting for you because I kind of want to be a woman who wears ballgowns. And it's like, well, you imagine we put.

up to the Outback Steakhouse in a stretch limo. I've got the cape on. On a Tuesday evening. Sure, sure. You've got the ball gown. Absolutely. People say, oh, I bet he's ordering the Blumen Onion to start with. Maybe two.

Well, I would expect that we would be so well taken care of at the Outback Steakhouse that the second they saw our limo pull up, they would have the Blumen Onion ready to go. It's waiting at your table. Yes. We should get back to the story. This is a weird side track. So it would maybe be nice if the story ended there in peace, but just days after Anne died, her niece, Jean Phillips, Abby's daughter, the one who was now, dear Abby, went on Larry King Live.

She cried over her aunt's death. She expressed hurt that there wasn't going to be a few. funeral. She indicated that she didn't agree with Anne's decision to keep her cancer a secret. It was all such a tragedy. Anne's daughter Margo saw that interview. Oh, wow. Norm is shaking his head. I guess you side with Margo. Margo was furious. I mean, yeah, I'd be mad too. Yeah. That is not your storytell and you don't owe anybody an explanation of that. Yeah. Okay. I'm going to say, I'm going to give Margo's perspective here, and then I want to jump on what you're saying. Okay. So Margo was mad because, first of all, her mother hadn't wanted a funeral. That was her choice. Correct.

Furthermore, Jean and Anne were not close. Why was she getting all weepy-eyed on Larry King Live? I didn't know this, but yes, correct. So my thought, and health-wise, I've been very lucky and so I don't have experience with this, and I'm glad I don't. I can see. being upset if someone had some kind of terminal illness and they were young and so they pass away and it's just such a huge shock, even though ultimately I think it's that person's choice, how they want to handle it. But I think that that is completely ridiculous to say about someone who is in their 80s. Because someone who's in their 80s, you know you don't have a ton of time with them. Right. And so if that's how they want to go, that's how they want to go. Yes. And you can't,

you just can't call that a tragedy that that was kept secret. She went out the way she wanted to go out. Yeah. That's not a tragedy. That's a wonderful thing. Yeah. Margot made her disgust known. And soon, the syndicate that owns Dear Abbey released a statement in Gene's defense. Oh, beep, beep, beep, beep, Breaking news, breaking news. I'm sorry, everyone. I just realized I've been pronouncing Genie's name incorrectly. It's Gene.

No, I'm sorry. I just didn't want. It's Jeannie. The E is silent. No, it is not silent. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God.

Oh, my God. It is not Jean Phillips. It is Jeannie Phillips. My God. There we go. Mistakes of shame. mid-episode. I'm going to rub a lamp and hope a genie comes out so that one of my wishes can be used on that

time machine so I can go back and say genie the whole time in this episode. That'd be a real waste of the time machine. I agree. You know what? In fact, I will not do that. It's not a time. Well, yeah, it would be a time machine. I'm sorry.

I'm very flabbergasted that I've made this error. I rarely make errors. This mistake has borked, Kristen. I'm sorry. Everyone, it's also a very late night recording. It's been a rough time. I'm mispronouncing names that are pretty common. Anyhow, dear Abebe.

So Margo made her disgust known, and soon the syndicate that owns Dear Abby, released a statement in Jeannie's defense. There you go. Said perfectly. They clarified that Jeannie had been booked. to go on Larry King live for about a week. She hadn't gone on there specifically to discuss her aunt's death. It was just something that happened, and, you know,

she doesn't control the questions, so she just answered them as they came. Do you want to know why she was actually supposed to go on Larry King? Why? Apparently, some pedophile wrote her a letter, and she turned it into the police, and the guy got arrested. Man, I would watch that segment. A pedophile wrote her a letter for advice? Yeah.

Like, hey, I'm a pedophile. Help me? Look, I didn't see the letter myself, okay? I just know that she did the right thing. Meanwhile, Anne Landers, I mean, get ready for this bonus episode. She got some creepy stuff that she just printed in her book. And I'm like, Anne, did you talk to the authorities at all? Or did you just say, hey, you better cut it out.

D-D-D-D-D-D-E? Wake up and smell the coffee. Quit being a pedophile. What a bold pedophile. Writing into an advice column? But the thing that really got Margo mad. Wasn't that Jeannie got all weepy. Margot's real beef was with a column that Jeannie had written under the Dear Abby byline in the aftermath of Anne's death.

I'd like to read that column to you now. Okay. Dear Aunt Epi, you slipped away. You swore your daughter and staff to secrecy. Nobody was to know. Your wish was to be remembered as vital and indestructible by your public and your family. And you will be. As you directed, there will be no funeral, no memorial, and your ashes will be quietly scattered over your beloved Lake Michigan.

A fine plan. But how are the people you left behind to deal with the grief you have left in your wake? A woman of courage, integrity, and loyalty. You spent your years wisely, speaking the truth as you perceived it. You were one of a kind. You pulled no punches and stuck to your guns. You were willing to look at yourself and those around you without rose-colored. glasses. And so you became a role model for everyone who read your column, including me. Your profound legacy can be found in the body of work into which you poured your heart. You have left a treasure trove of truth and good sense behind. It's something that those who loved you can hang on to. You were not only beautiful, you were caring and generous. When I visited Chicago last October, you treated me to dinner at your favorite spot and invited me to your apartment to see your wonderful collection of

memorabilia. Our evening didn't end until nearly 2 a.m. With love in your eyes, you told me I was talented and that I was doing a wonderful job with my column. You said that I was a good daughter, and you knew my mother was proud of me. I felt like I had just been handed the Oscar. What a loving and generous thing for you to say. I will treasure that memory until I join you in the hereafter. Aunt Eppy, I love you. I know it's time to say goodbye. But the words are impossible to say, because you will always live in my heart and in the hearts of the rest of your extended family. God bless you and keep you forever.

Your loving niece, Jeannie Phillips, aka Dear Abby. Okay. Well, the second half of that was wonderful. The first half was bullshit. Yeah, I think that is nuts. Yeah, lady, what's wrong with you? If you've got a problem with the fact that there's no memorial or no funeral, I don't know what to tell you. I mean, I would say, I guess, maybe talk to your cousin about that, but even then it's like, that's not your call.

And so instead you're printing that, I... Respect the dead. What the hell? I hate that. And I don't know, Norm, I don't know that I fully agree that the second half is good. I think it's weird to include a compliment to yourself from a person who isn't alive to confirm it. I mean, okay. Yeah, that's kind of stupid.

But it's like a nice memory. Like, sharing a nice memory about your aunt and I love you and thank you. I'll cherish that memory. That's fine. Okay. You told me I was the greatest advice columnist ever and, you know. Yeah. You don't like it?

No. And part of it might be what comes next in the story. but I do think if you're going to write something like that, first of all, it needs to be someone you really did have a relationship with. I don't know, I just think it has to be a little more real than this. And yeah, that first half, I just hated it. Yeah, like I said, yeah, complimenting yourself, not great. But like, it's a lot better than that first half.

Well, sure. And now I feel like our relationship's going to be put to the test. So, like, when I die, I have told Kristen, when I die, please don't do some big, expensive funeral or memorial or whatever. I said, I'm dead. I don't care what happens to me. So I requested that my body be rolled up in a rug or old carpet. Either way. Whichever's on hand.

And then you can just dump me, you know, wherever. Let me tell you something, Norm. I thought behind the local grocery store was the best option. So you want me to get arrested. Where several bodies are dumped per month probably. Within reason. I was about to say if and when the time comes. The time will come.

It's just, you know, will I be around? I think funerals and memorials are for the living. Yes, they are. And so, no, I will not roll your body in carpet and put it behind a grocery store. I don't know what I'll do. Well, listen, I'm fine with you throwing a party to celebrate my life. That's fine. But I don't want the open casket and I'm all done up in the cute little makeup and the rosy cheeks.

Something really cool, something baddest. A cape? A cape. A cape for the afterlife. You know, if you did bury me like Dracula, that would be kind of cool actually. No, I'm not going to do that. Oh, God, this is getting sad. It's in my body to like an old haunted castle or something.

That would be a great idea. No, wait, what are you talking? This is too late at night for you. You're coming up with weird ideas that you're excited about. I'm not sending your dead body to a weird old castle. I think you're like a fan of horror films and you could, if you die. Norm, do you know what teenagers would do to your body? No, it's like a private castle cemetery and they send you, they dress you up as Dracula.

Yes. They dress you up as Dracula or whatever monster you want to be dressed up as when you die. choose your choice. Yeah, because maybe you want to be the mummy or the swamp thing. Sure. And they, you know, ship your body to this private castle. Yeah. Where you can, like, rest and, like, haunt the mansion or whatever.

Yeah. I love that it's a private castle because, you know, you don't want weirdos showing up. No. Just totally normal ghosts doing their thing. It's an idea. We got to flesh it out a little more. Sure. Flesh, zombie.

Okay. Yeah. We'll continue to do the podcast until this idea takes off. This is kind of the ballpoint pin business, and we're working on budget rent-a-car on the side. Yeah. And you know we're going to get fired here eventually, so we've got to come up with a plan. Well, you know, I've always told you, based on my diet, I feel like I don't have too much longer. Oh my gosh.

So Norm's diet is really not that bad, but he acts like all he does is eat bagel bites in the morning. noon, evening, even at suppertime. Anyhow. I just, I don't know, I got a feeling. We'll see what happens. So that column, Jeannie offered that column to all of the newspapers that carried the Anne Landers column, and any newspaper, for that matter, free of charge. Oh, freebie. It was an unusual move to let newspapers run a Dear Abbey column for free. Maybe Jeannie offered that letter free to all media out of generosity.

Maybe out of love, to Aunt Epi. Or to promote her own column. Yeah. In an interview, Margo said, My mother has not been gone a full week yet, and I am highly offended by Jean Phillips' not at all subtle move to make hay of my mother's death. It hadn't even been a week? This is not about grief.

This is about new clients. She may have had a point with Anne Landers. and the Anne Landers column gone, that meant that potentially about $12 million in revenue was up for grabs. You know, in case those 1,200 newspapers that carried Anne Landers

might want to make the switch. Shit, I didn't even think about that. That's exactly what she's doing. I hope it's not, but it sure is gross. It's starting to look that way. Margot was not media shy. She did a couple interviews where she talked some more

about that column that Jeannie shared with the world, and she didn't hold back. She called the column, self-serving and loopy. They really had no relationship. My mother was very kind to everyone, but she thought Jeannie had her limitations. Her limitations. She also spoke out about that section where, oh, she was so complimentary to me about the job I was doing with Dear Abby. No, Margot was like, in reality, mom thought that Jeannie was doing a subpar job with the column.

Oh, man. Margo also made it known that she'd heard through the grapevine that Jeannie had been talking about Anne Landers just months earlier saying she was old-fashioned and that she, Jeannie, was the future of advice columns. This, of course, set off renewed coverage of the Anne and Abby feud, this time with an intergenerational twist, of course, in one of my favorite interviews. Margo said that her intent was to stop the feud.

You know, she just wanted to stop the feud. Sounds like you dumped gasoline on it. But that she'd keep responding until, quote, Jeannie decides to shut up. And if Jeannie keeps yapping, then, quote, she's more of a fool than I thought. Sounds like someone struggling for power. That is amazing to be like, I want the feud to stop.

She's a bitch. She's stupid. and I hate her. What do you think about Jeannie's motives potentially? I'm sorry, but sometimes I assume the worst, and I'm assuming the worst here. And that is exactly what she was doing. So I think the Larry King thing,

I'm kind of like, okay, yeah, if you were scheduled to go on a show, obviously you're going to be asked some questions. And you would, I think, you would have to walk into that with something carefully planned and truthful. And it's not the time to be like, you know what I think. I think she handled the cancer incorrectly. And I think, you know, that's, no, keep that to yourself. Yeah. My God, like mother like daughter. Oof. No wonder the feud kept going. Yeah. Eventually, of course, the feud did lose steam. And roughly

10 years later, Abigail Van Buren passed away at the age of 94. Wow. She lived a long time. She did. But I'm guessing those last 10 years weren't. Oh, more than 10 years. I mean, she'd started showing signs of Alzheimer's in the early 90s. So, and she died in 2013.

Mm-hmm. I always actually think it's really sad when someone lives a long time with Alzheimer's. No, that is sad. Yeah. It's just no way to live. You're just, you're not you anymore. No, I always think of, you know, so my grandpa died from Alzheimer's and I remember, you know, toward the end when it was just really awful. I remember my mom went with him to a doctor's appointment and the doctor said something like, well, hey, the good news here is that his body is in great shape.

And my mom was like, that's the good. What? That's not. No, it's not. What are you talking about? Yeah. It's such a terrible disease. It is the worst.

By the time she died, her column was in 1,400 newspapers. She had 110 million readers. And thanks to her daughter, her dear Abby column continues to live on. And it's at this point that I'd like to say how grateful I am that both Anne and Abby, or more accurately, Epi and Popo, shared their talents with the world, and that they used their platforms, by and large, for good. But, man, Abby really needed to get it together. And I'd like to end on a column from Anne Landers.

Ooh. This one stood out to me for reasons that I think will be very obvious. Dear Anne Landers, I have twin girls, two years old. Please forgive a mother's pride, but they are very pretty and loaded with personality. Of course, they attract a great deal of attention wherever they go. People stare, poke each other with elbows, and say, look at the twins! My daughters are aware of the first. they create and revel in it. How did you and your twin, Dear Abby, react to the staring,

whispering, and finger-pointing when you were growing up? Was it annoying? Was it fun? Did it have any impact on the way you thought about yourselves? Did it make you more reclusive or more outgoing? What advice do you have for a mother who is trying to raise twin girls to be normal, well-adjusted human beings? Signed, H.HU in Miami. Well, this will be interesting. Dear Miami, my sister and I were always the center of attention from the day we were born. As if being twins weren't enough, I was born with two teeth and my sis had one. No one could ever accuse us of being reclusive. Since our mother dressed us alike from infancy until we were married, a double wedding, of course, with identical gowns and bridal veils,

no one could miss us. The wonderful thing about being a twin is that you are never lonely. there's always someone to talk to, and talk we did, nonstop, for 21 years. Then marriage provided each of us with a new set of years. The awful part of being a twin is that you are never alone. There was no opportunity for quiet introspection and honest self-appraisal. Granted, the togetherness was great fun, but it denied us the opportunity to develop as individuals. We would never escape the image of the sister act. In retrospect, we grew up, surprisingly unspoiled, although we traded on our twinship shamelessly, a natural and easy thing to do. We got into a great deal of mischief. What one couldn't think of, the other one could. My advice to mothers of twins is this. Do not. Repeat.

Not dress your twins alike. Treat them as individuals, not halves of a single unit. Encourage them to have different friends. If possible, send them to different schools. If that isn't possible, try to put them. put them in different classes. Do not make your twins feel guilty if they fail to stick together on all issues. Encourage them to be independent and have their own point of view. Be impartial and always remain neutral when they have their battles. Don't take sides. Never compare one twin with another

and do not permit relatives or friends to make comparisons. Be aware that sibling rivalry is natural and with twins it is intensified. Not until my my daughter Margo was born, did I realize what a remarkable and heroic woman my mother was. I have thought many times that God must have a special place at his right hand for the mothers of twins, especially if the twins are anything like my sister and me. The perfect column to wrap up this series. And I do feel a little guilty because I'm not balancing it out with a Dear Abbey column. But instead, I'd like to share a quote from her husband, Mort Phillips,

who died at the age of 99 in 2017. About Anne and Abby, he once said, If these are twin sisters, I'll take cobras. And this concludes our series on the fabulous, unstoppable advice columnists, Ann Landers, and Dear Abby. Oh, thank you, Dolphins. Great job, Kristen.

Thank you. And I feel like we were harsh on Jeannie Phillips, but, you know, she is the dear Abby I grew up on. So. Yeah, me too. Yeah. Gotta love her. Wow. You know, that, that's just a topic I knew nothing about.

And you thought, I need four episodes plus a bonus episode on it. No, it was just, it just goes to show like how many, how many interesting stories are out there. Yeah. And things we just don't know. know about. And of course, I feel like everybody knows Dear Abby or Anne Landers or both, but maybe had never known about this feud. It's funny. I think probably our grandparents all knew about the feud and none of us did, you know? Just the idea that these twins who have successful advice columns are also attacking each other. It's a great story. I do want to thank the

listeners because they they they pumped you up for this because I did appreciate that because I really was like I teased it I mean probably like a year ago I was like here's this weird thing I'm into I'm into the feud between Anne Landers and Dear Abby and I really wondered if it was just me but thank you everyone for for being really nice about it yes well I'm excited to jump back into the hot mic. That's what we're calling. This is the hot mic, yep. Yeah.

Whoever presents is on the hot mic. Uh-huh. Yeah, I've got a fun little series coming up. World War II series, just fun little series. Well, I mean, World War II happens during this series, but it's not about World War II. Uh-huh. Listener requested topic. Oh, okay.

Go to our subreddit, our slash old time you podcast. We have a topic suggestion mega thread. I definitely pull from that quite a bit. Okay. How do you think we got the Pat Rock episode? How do you think it happened? Yeah. Anyway, should we wrap up this series?

Yes. Well, Kristen, you know what they say about history, hoes? We always cite our sources. That's right. For this episode, I got my information from articles in Life magazine, Ladies Home Journal, CNN, the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the book, Dear Anne, Dear Abby, the unauthorized biography of Anne Landers and Abigail Van Bier,

By Jan Potker and Bob Special. And the book, The Best of Anne Landers, by Anne Landers. And not to be outdone, the best of Dear Abby by Abigail Van Buren. Plus more, check the show notes for a full list of our sources. That's all for this episode. Thank you for listening to an old-timey podcast. Please give us a five-star review wherever you listen to podcasts. And while you're at it, subscribe.

Support us on Patreon at patreon.com slash old-timey podcast. Join the Reddit community R slash old time you podcast Follow us on Facebook and YouTube and Instagram at Old Timey Podcast You can also follow us individually on Instagram I'm at Kristen Pitts-Keruso And he's at Gaming Historian

And until next time, Tudaloo, Tata, and Cheerio! Bye! See ya!