Dear Abby: "What would you do with a man who refuses to use a deodorant, seldom bathes, and doesn't even own a toothbrush?" "Absolutely nothing," she replied. The wry answer from Abigail Van Buren — the pen name of Pauline Friedman Phillips — was typical of the advice she dispensed for more than 40 years to newspaper readers around the world through her "Dear Abby" column, which debuted in 1956 in the San Francisco Chronicle. She got the bug to write it from her identical twin, who was already providing more homespun counsel in a syndicated newspaper column as Ann Landers. Over the decades, Phillips' witty exchanges with readers about snoring or prom dates would give way to more serious subjects as society underwent an upheaval. Dear Abby spanned the sexual revolution (one reader cheekily asked where it was taking place and how he could get there), the women's movement (she actively campaigned for the Equal Rights Amendment), the legalization of abortion (she favored abortion rights), and the advent of AIDS (she advocated frequent testing and education). Phillips, 94, died Wednesday in Minneapolis, according to a statement from Universal Uclick press syndicate. Her family announced she had Alzheimer's disease in 2002, the year her twin sister died. Read more http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-pauline-phillips-20130118,0,861274.story?track=lat-pick
