Living By the Letter

By ELIZABETH TAYLOR Ann Landers

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.