THE VOICE OF CHICAGO'S GAY, LESBIAN, BI, TRANS AND QUEER COMMUNITY SINCE 1985

be found in USA Weekend Magazine

Jeffrey Zaslow. Photo by Sukie de la Croix

Zaslow not only continued the tradition that veteran mistress of advice Ann Landers had begun, he revolutionized the medium, representing a new generation and a fresh outlook. Zaslow decided early on that it was time to connect with readers in the most literal sense. He took his enthusiasm directly into the community, becoming the first advice columnist to make "house calls" in response to letters, he has raised millions of dollars for charities of all kinds. He's even played matchmaker for many singles who are now happily involved with a significant other.

A graduate of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh Zaslow was later hired by The Orlando Sentinel where he exposed the low-pay and substandard working conditions endured by employees of Walt Disney World. Jeff also worked for The Norfolk-Ledger Star as a reporter.

While in Orlando, Zaslow got to meet and interview his predecessor, the indomitable Ann Landers. He soon convinced her that he had the mettle for the job she had devoted a good portion of her life to. She reportedly told Zaslow "You will go far in this business. Be careful what you wish for. You may get it."

Twelve years have passed since Zaslow began writing his now nationally known advice column "All That Zazz," and the experience has evoked many changes in the son of Harry and Naomi Zaslow. A nationally known celebrity in his own right, Zaslow has appeared on numerous TV shows, including The Oprah Winfrey Show, Larry King Live, To Tell The Truth, The Today Show, Good Morning America, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, and Nightline with Ted Koppel.

Zaslow has won several awards including the Will Rogers Humanitarian Award, which he received in 2000. Mayor Richard Daley honored him in 1995 for his efforts on behalf of senior citizens. In 1995 he was awarded the "Keeper of The Flame" award by The Camp Fire Girls and Boys, the 1996 "Family Rescue Award," and in 1999 he received The Park Lawn Spirit Award for his charity projects benefiting children.

Zaslow has also won many journalism awards including the distinguished Peter Lisagor Award for his column writing and The National Society of Newspaper Columnists' Humor Writing Award. He is also the author of three books, Take It From Us, Talk of Fame, and his first book, Tell Me All About It, which was excerpted in The New York Times Magazine. Movies rights for Tell Me All About It were subsequently sold to Tri-Star Pictures.

DAVID GUARINO: You know, Jeff, you've done so much in the way of raising awareness about problems in so many sectors of our society, including the elderly, children's causes, AIDS.

ZAZZ: When I first got the column, I was a little bit of a wise guy. I thought a pithy line was what the job was. And I soon discovered, one, that readers didn't like that. Readers weren't interested in me making fun of them certainly, not that I was always doing that. So in the early years I started to realize the best use of this column is to help people. Not that I didn't know that from the beginning, because I did. But I just sort of saw that I could answer questions from now until I die and the best thing I can give people is maybe a phone number once in awhile to an agency. But if I can get involved and do things that would be great. So early on I started, like I started the "Zazz Bash" in '89. The Christmas program for kids began in '87. And that's been going on for 14 years and we just did $45K last Christmas. ... I've been astounded by how readers help.

About eight years ago a woman wrote to me and said she was living in a homeless shelter. And she didn't have money for school supplies for her daughter. So she ( the daughter ) was also in the shelter, seven years old. So the mother went and gave blood and earned $17. Used the $17 to buy school supplies for her kid. So I wrote about her, and I said in the column there's 3,000 other kids in shelters that need school supplies. It's August and they need school supplies. And readers, boom, $30,000 and thousands and thousands of school supplies. So I was astounded by that too. So each year we've got school supplies, and we get school supplies for every kid in the shelter in Chicago, which I think it's 5,000 kids each year now for that. So I realize it's not what I do exactly, it's just I'm like the middleman.

DG: Tell me about the seniors, you work with seniors do you not, Jeff?

ZAZZ: In recent years I haven't done much, but one year, do you remember the heat wave we had? So in the column I just sort of told some of the saddest stories about older people who were dying in their apartments. I forget the number who died, but I think it was well over 100. So again, all I had to say was, "Hey, let's give them a hand." And, boom people gave money for fans. People offered to deliver Meals on Wheels. I'm never disappointed in how readers respond. Now that the economy's adrift, I'm interested to see what happens in the year ahead.

DG: How did you really get into the business of giving advice?

ZAZZ: I used to work for the Wall Street Journal, it was 1987 and they were having this contest here at the Sun-Times. ( to replace Ann Landers ) ... I entered the contest in order to get an angle for a story and I kept making the cuts. Twelve thousand down to finally seven finalists and the editors of The ( Wall Street ) Journal were going to force me to drop out. But then I was out of town; they couldn't get me on the phone.

DG: Why did they want you to drop out?

ZAZZ: Well, it's a little silly for a Wall Street Journal Reporter to be entered in this contest to work for another paper while he's still working at The Wall Street Journal. It was nice of them to let me stay. And they did let me stay in the contest. And once I got it, I didn't think for a second that I wouldn't take it, and I have no counseling background, I'm not a doctor, I'm not a therapist. I mean, I have skills as a reporter but that's about it. People said I was leaving journalism when I took the job. And I don't see that at all. Because I have a window into people's hearts and souls that I didn't have when I was a reporter. As a reporter, people were a little more wary of me, cautious, they wouldn't open up the way they open up now and even let me in their homes.

DG: You have done something very unique in conjunction with your series, "All That Zazz." I'm referring to the fact that you have made what you refer to as "house calls" where you have actually gone to people's homes and sat with them and listened to them and counseled them.

ZAZZ: You know reporters go all kinds of places all the time. It's not such a big deal. I've run into some funky situations sometime. There was one family that invited me over because their four-year-old son could do impressions of The Wizard of Oz. And they said, you know, we have this fun house; come on over for dinner. So I went, and sure enough the kid did all these caricatures. While dinner was started, they told me that the real reason they invited me was that the father had tried to commit suicide the previous week. He'd been in the garage with the motor running; the 11-year-old had pulled him out of the car. So suddenly I was dealing with a very different situation from the premise upon which they had invited me there. So, I understand that. What can I do for them except be an ear for them to talk to and sort of be the compassionate person at the table? And I'm happy to do that. ... Sometimes in all the letters I get, it makes me appreciate my own life, my own kids, and my own wife and the life I'm living ... rather than be depressed, I'm grateful.

DG: Who was the first person you gave advice to? Can you remember?

ZAZZ: Maybe my kid sister. I'm always telling her what to do. She's only a year and a half younger than me. ... I used to come home from kindergarten and teach her what I'd learned. Like I'd sit her down and force her to listen. ... I always had a wise guy tendency as a kid. I was always sort of quippy, I was a good kid, but just over the line. I think it was in a news story where it was reported that I got in trouble once, and I was told to write "I will not talk with my friends" and I wrote, "I will not chat with my chums." ( We both laugh )

DG: Has anyone every written to you about a problem that was so personally repugnant that you didn't respond?

ZAZZ: Well I will say that sometimes when there are abuse issues. Someone writes in and says, "My husband's abusing me." I'm sometimes afraid to put that in the paper and I'm certainly afraid to write back by mail or even by E-mail because the abuser could get hold of it, and perhaps beat up the person more. That sort of thing. I'll mean I'll get like Nazi stuff, things about Blacks, you know this sort of racist, hateful stuff. Negative letters about gays, too. Yeah, and I don't respond.

DG: Jeff, you meet many celebrities as a columnist for USA Weekend and in your many guest appearances on TV and radio shows. Who were you the most awestruck by?

ZAZZ: I can name you one person that I haven't interviewed. I can name you a million that I have interviewed. I'd love to interview Bruce Springsteen; he's my hero. Though I'd be afraid I'd be disappointed not because it would matter so much to me if he weren't nice, but everybody who's ever met him seems to say he's a nice guy. So I assume he'd be fine, but I'd be afraid to interview him. I mean, I've interviewed Bush years ago, when he was Governor of Texas. He didn't seem like a dummy to me, he seemed OK. When I left there I didn't think he was the next president but he listened to my questions and he answered them speaking personally about his daughters and his family and his thoughts. He was OK. Not that I voted for him. ( We both laugh )

But who really left me awestruck, huh? You know, I'll tell you something. Most of them ( the celebrities ) are pretty bright, even the actors. Well, I learn lessons when I interview. Things that I'm always reminded of. Coretta Scott King told me about her blind date with Martin Luther King Jr. And how she thought he was full of himself and she thought he was short and he wasn't very attractive. And she said, "Well, I'll give him a second chance." So when I speak to young people I often tell them that story. I say, "Look, she was going to throw him off after the first blind date and she gave him a second chance. So give people a second chance." When I interviewed Ray Charles, you know he told me that when he was young he went to school for the blind. White kids, Black kids, all blind. They were segregated in the school. The kids didn't know who was Black and who was white, because they were all blind. And here they're being segregated in the school. So he ( Ray ) said "Racism is pretty stupid; we don't know who's Black and who's white and they're segregating us."

DG: In terms of complaints or questions that you get from gay men, could you isolate one of the most common problems gay men write to you about?

ZAZZ: I wouldn't say that I get many questions about the relationship between two people. It's more institutional homophobia questions, or my family doesn't understand me. It's more "I feel alone in the world." And maybe that's because there are people, whenever I write about a gay issue, there are readers who assume I'm gay. And I've even printed letters saying, "Are you gay?" And I'll say in the column that I have a wife and kids and I'll let people assume what they want. I got a letter from a teenager who said, "I think I might be gay." I get letters like that. So I forget the name of the agency, but I suggested a United Way Agency that counsels young people who think they might be gay. It's not for me to say you are, you aren't. The best thing I can give in that case is a phone number, so I did that. And heard from an editor at the paper here ( Sun-Times ) telling me that "I don't think that we should be telling teens to be homosexual." The editor is no longer here, by the way. So I said, "It's a United Way Agency. They are ( the teens ) what they are. I'm not telling them to be anything. I'm just trying to help a troubled kid who's trying to come to grips with himself like all teenagers." Whether you are or you aren't ( gay ) you're struggling with your life. This is another way of struggling. So even in the enlightened media there are not always people who understand. Anytime I give a sympathetic answer on a gay issue, I will hear from the unsympathetic. It doesn't stop me.

DG: What about the struggles of lesbians? Are their issues the same?

ZAZZ: I just ran a letter from a woman who wrote and said "My niece was abused as a kid and she's got a girlfriend. My niece is a lesbian. She's got a lover who also was abused. Is it more likely that women who are abused when they're young would become lesbian?" was her question. And so I had several books, I'd have to find them in the column, that said that there is a segment of the lesbian population that was abused when they were young. It's hard to know where or how people are created, how God made us. And what about the lesbians who hate men? Do they hate men because they're lesbian or are they lesbian because they hate men? And then of course not every lesbian hates men. I had to very careful how I answered the question. But I did say, you know, in studies there are a percentage of women who were abused as children by men and now are lesbian. Again, I don't get as many letters like, "My girlfriend doesn't understand me." They're usually more serious than that.

DG: Based on the letters you get, why would you say that loneliness is such a pervasive problem in our country?

ZAZZ: Well, I'm not the first one to say this, but people don't know their neighbors, people turn to their computer instead of a friend. A computer is an impersonal way of talking to people. It's like, you feel like you're curing your loneliness, but are you? You know, years ago nobody sat around looking at a television all day long. And now, how many hours a day do people do that? So it's just generally, even though there's more people in the world, we're lonelier, which is a shame. You know, I'm not like Ann Landers where I've been around since 1954 to judge whether there's an increase in loneliness. It seems to me like I hear from a lot of lonely people. Whether it's worse than in '54, I would say it's worse now. But I wasn't around then. There are people with a houseful of kids and a husband and they're lonely. Yes. I would say that another way to describe loneliness is a need for love. So I would say if you could take all the letters I get what's the No. 1 issue? It's a need for love. Even a need for love from the boss. Some people need their boss to say "You're doing a good job," and they don't hear that.

DG: Do you think that GLBT loneliness has a different spin than heterosexual loneliness?

ZAZZ: Sure. It can be worse. You might be without somebody to love you, you know there are many heterosexuals who don't have any body to love them. But when you're heterosexual your parents love you. Your friends love you. Your teachers love you. But there are gay teens who have told their parents ( that they're gay ) and they've thrown them out of the house. It doesn't happen as much as it did, but it happens. Or the gay person tells their parents and their parents are struggling for years and eventually they're going to find each other, but they haven't yet. So I would say the loneliness can be stronger. And there's a whole mentality ( I know even in my daughter's school ) THE insult is "you're a faggot." If there's a kid in the sixth grade who's having feelings like "I might be gay or lesbian," I mean, that's a lonely place to be in school. So I would say it's harder.

DG: What was one of your most embarrassing moments since you started with the Sun-Times and became a nationally known figure?

ZAZZ: Once after I got this job, somebody from The Skyline newspaper said to me, "Why do you have the Zazz Bash?" So I said when I got the job I wanted to help people, etc. And I said, "Some advice columnists sell pamphlets at the end of their column, I always vowed I'm not going to do that. I'll play matchmaker, I'll do whatever I need to do but I'm not going to sell pamphlets at the end of my column." So the woman who did, ( sell pamphlets ) Eppie ( a.k.a. Ann Landers ) read it and was very upset. I was embarrassed, it was wrong of me to say that. She's been a great helper of people, and though I didn't use her name in that story I was embarrassed that I had implied it.

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Jeff and I could have gone on talking for several more hours, but he was due for a speaking engagement after which he was flying home to Detroit, where he lives with his wife, Sherry Margolis and his three daughters, Jordan, Alexandra and Eden.

Zaslow has definitely kept his job acceptance promise to be "off the wall and on the mark." But he has far surpassed that goal. He has proven to be an enemy of poverty, loneliness and despair for millions.

Since I interviewed Jeff in February, he no longer writes for the Chicago Sun-Times, as his contract was not renewed. He wrote a good-bye column in April. I spoke with him by telephone this month and he cited not belonging to the newspaper union and other issues as being responsible for the separation. He continues to write for USA Weekend in addition to making numerous radio and television appearances. Although the details are not yet available for release, we should expect to see Jeff Zaslow on his feet and off and running soon. Notwithstanding his amazing humanitarian efforts in the private sector, Zaslow is truly a modern-day anomaly who spreads more than his share of wisdom, humor and good will to an audience that's more than happy to have him close at hand.