As one of the most popular talk show hosts in radio history, Laura Schlessinger offers no-nonsense advice infused with a strong sense of ethics, accountability, and personal responsibility.
Background
Mrs. Schlessinger was born in Brooklyn, New York, United States, on January 16, 1947. She was raised in Brooklyn and on Long Island. Her parents were Monroe "Monty" Schlessinger, a civil engineer, and Yolanda (Ceccovini) Schlessinger. Mrs. Schlessinger has said her father was charming and her mother beautiful as a young woman. She has a sister, Cindy, who is 11 years her junior. Laura Schlessinger has described her childhood environment as unloving and unpleasant, and her family as dysfunctional.
Education
Laura Schlessinger received her Doctor of Philosophy from Columbia University right after her graduation in 1974. She also earned postdoctoral certificate in marriage, family, and child counseling from University of Southern California in 1980.
Mrs. Schlessinger's first appearance on radio was in 1975 when she called in to a KABC show hosted by Bill Ballance. Impressed by her quick wit and sense of humor, Mr. Ballance began featuring her in a weekly segment. By 1979 she was on the air Sunday evenings from 9:00 to midnight on KWIZ in Santa Ana, California.
In the late 1980s, Laura Schlessinger was filling in for Barbara De Angelis' noon-time relationship-oriented talk show in Los Angeles on KFI, while working weekends at KGIL in San Fernando. Her big break came when Sally Jessy Raphael began working at ABC Radio, and Maurice Tunick, former Vice-President of Talk Programming for the ABC Radio Networks, needed a regular sub for Raphael's evening personal advice show.
In May 2002, the show still had an audience of more than 10 million, but had lost several million listeners in the previous two years as it was dropped by WABC and other affiliates, and was moved from day to night in cities such as Seattle and Boston. These losses were attributed in part to Mrs. Schlessinger's shift from giving relationship advice to lecturing on morality and conservative politics. Pressure from gay rights groups caused dozens of sponsors to drop the radio show as well.
By November 2000, advertisers that had committed to Mrs. Schlessinger's show had pulled their support due to plummeting ratings. CBS was displeased enough with the ratings that it began looking to either drop the series or move it to late night slots on its stations within two months of its premiere.Other stations outside of CBS did the same thing, while others moved it to weaker sister stations. Dr. Laura aired its last first-run episode on March 30, 2001 on the stations that continued to air it, with reruns continuing until September 2001.
On August 17, 2010, during an appearance on Larry King Live, Mrs. Schlessinger announced the end of her radio show saying that her motivation was to "regain her First Amendment rights", and that she wanted to be able to say what is on her mind without "some special interest group deciding this is a time to silence a voice of dissent." Several of her affiliates and major sponsors had dropped her show after her on-air use of a racial epithet on August 10.
On January 3, 2011, Laura Schlessinger's show moved exclusively to Sirius XM Radio.
For several years, Mrs. Schlessinger wrote a weekly column syndicated by Universal Press Syndicate that was carried in many newspapers, and in Jewish World Review. She discontinued the column in July 2000, citing lack of time due to her upcoming television show. She wrote a monthly column for WorldNetDaily between 2002 and 2004, with one entry in 2006. In 2006, Mrs. Schlessinger joined the Santa Barbara News-Press, writing bi-weekly columns dealing with Santa Barbara news, as well as general news and cultural issues discussed on her radio show. She suspended the column in mid 2007, resumed writing it later, then discontinued it in December 2008. She currently writes columns on her blog, on a variety of topics.
Achievements
Laura Schlessinger is a famous media person, who gained her prominence as a talk radio host, reaching approximately 8.25 million listeners weekly. She's a best selling author of thirteen adult books and four children's books. Her support of children and family values is legendary, and she is called "her kid's mom."
Laura Schlessinger was non-religious until she and her son began practicing Conservative Judaism in 1996. In 1998, Mrs. Schlessinger, Mr. Bishop, and their son converted to Orthodox Judaism, and began instruction under Rabbi Reuven P. Bulka of Ottawa, Canada. During this time, Mrs. Schlessinger sometimes used Jewish law and examples to advise her callers about their moral dilemmas. She occasionally clarified ethical and moral issues with her local Orthodox Rabbi Moshe D. Bryski, before mentioning them on the air.
She was embraced by many in the politically conservative segment of Orthodox Judaism for bringing more awareness of Orthodoxy to her radio show. Some of her expressed views were explicitly religious and are referenced her 1999 book The Ten Commandments: The Significance of God's Laws in Everyday Life. Although her other books have stressed the importance of morality, they are more secular in nature.
In July 2003, Mrs. Schlessinger announced on her show that she was no longer an Orthodox Jew, but that she was still Jewish.
Views
Quotations:
"Feminists said you should be having sex with the same freedom as men. Multiple lovers? Getting divorced? No problem. Work should be the foremost thing in your life. You should put your kids in day care... The feminist movement was supposed to free us up with our opportunities. Instead, it degraded our femininity."
"This is what the feminist movement is perpetrating, women are weak and have no control. They are helpless corks hobbling around on the ocean. A wave comes. They’re drowned. I can’t stand this. It enfeebles women and it treats them [as] second-class."
"We pick our education, the time we conceive, the man we do with. I’m just begging them to pick with more courage. ... If a guy is screwing around in front of his girlfriend, he’s a jerk. If she keeps him in her life. she’s a jerk."
Hapkido karate (earned black belt, 1992), powerboating
Connections
Laura Schlessinger met and married Michael F. Rudolph, a dentist, in 1972 while she was attending Columbia University. The couple had a Unitarian ceremony. Separating from Rudolph, Mrs. Schlessinger moved to Encino, California, in 1975. Their divorce was finalized in 1977.
In 1975, while working in the labs at USC, she met Lewis G. Bishop, a professor of neurophysiology who was married and the father of three children. He separated from his wife and began living with Mrs. Schlessinger the same year. They married in 1985. Laura Schlessinger's only child, a son named Deryk, was born in November 1985.
Mrs. Schlessinger's husband, Lewis G. Bishop, died November 2, 2015, after being ill for 1.5 years.
