Mother of ‘Dr. Laura’ Found DeadBy Jill Leovy and Mitchell Landsberg
December 21, 2002 in print edition B-1
Excerpts from the LA Times:
Neighbors said they had last seen Yolanda Schlessinger, 77, in September.
[3-4 months]
In a 1994 People magazine profile, Schlessinger said the estrangement dated to 1986, when her mother walked off the job as Laura’s secretary.
Neighbors described Yolanda Schlessinger as a friendly, pleasant, talkative person who seemed “quite bright,” said Edna Neidorff, a former resident of the apartment complex in the 400 block of North Palm Drive.
Neidorff said the victim was chatty with neighbors. They called her “Lundy,” the name she listed on the condo roster.
Licia Masi lived in the same building as Yolanda Schlessinger. Masi said that earlier this week, her daughter, a building manager, had called police to check on Schlessinger.
The case presents detectives with difficulties because so much time has passed, Gilmond said.
Although not a professionally trained psychotherapist, “Dr. Laura”
She has publicly acknowledged on numerous occasions that she has been estranged from her mother, who she said was “Sophia Loren-like,” since sometime in the mid-1980s.
She has said her parents fought constantly, and her father was physically and emotionally abusive.
In her show, Schlessinger frequently draws a distinction between good and bad mothers. The theme is so typical of her that she and her fans wear shirts emblazoned with “I Am My Kid’s Mom.”
Masi, the building manager’s mother, said Yolanda Schlessinger was a charming, very conversational person, who spoke English as well as Italian and dressed very elegantly.
Although she believed the blond, blue-eyed Schlessinger was in her 70s, Masi said the woman looked much younger and had a youthful, jovial manner.
“It’s so strange that she had no visitors,” Masi said. She said Schlessinger never mentioned her famous daughter.
Neidorff described her acquaintance, Schlessinger, as a “lovely lady” who seemed “very wise.”
“She was very friendly,” she said.
“But very private – an interesting combination. She had an accent that someone told me was Italian
Long Estranged from Her Daughter, Dr. Laura's Mother Dies Mysteriously
By Alex Tresniowski
Excerpts:Lundy never even met Deryk, Laura's 17-year-old son with second husband Lew Bishop, a retired professor of biology at USC. In recent years
Laura claims to have lost track of
Lundy altogether
Lundy altogether
Yet Shelley Herman, a television writer who worked with Laura in the '80s, says Laura "could have found her mother if she wanted to. Why did she have to die alone?" She remembers Lundy as a cheerful assistant who was inexplicably cut off by her daughter. "It's interesting that Laura is always bad-mouthing her mother," says Herman, "but Lundy never said a word about her to the press."
Whatever issues kept them apart will now, sadly, remain unresolved. In her last years
Lundy liked to dress in tasteful St. John outfits and occasionally drive her Cadillac to local bridge clubs. According to someone who spent time with her recently, she also listened to her daughter's radio show. "It just breaks my heart to think of her so alone," says Marcovitch.
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