"Wake up and smell the coffee" -- Ann Landers

David Rambo was asked, "So why the fascination with someone as retro as Ann Landers?"

DAVID RAMBO smiles. "First of all," he says, "she's very theatrical." By that he means Landers, a.k.a. Esther Pauline (Eppie) Friedman Lederer, knew how to leave an impression -- from her famously big hair to the snappy advice columns that made her one of the most influential women in America for more than 40 years.

Although Landers could sound like a neighborhood yenta, she also was a social and political dynamo, conservative on some issues and liberal on others. In this age of blogs and reality TV, it's hard to remember that she was ahead of her time when it came to talking frankly about topics such as alcoholism, sexuality and cancer. Her columns appealed to lovelorn teens and bored housewives, but also to businessmen, college students and at least one small-town Pennsylvania boy -- David Rambo, who wrote a play about her: 'The Lady With All the Answers' which provides a portrait of the late advice columnist (NOW PLAYING at the PASADENA PLAYHOUSE).