Shana Alexander
| Shana Alexander | |
|---|---|
| Born | Shana Ager October 6, 1925 New York City, New York, U.S. |
| Died | June 23, 2005 (aged 79) Hermosa Beach, California, U.S. |
| Occupation | Journalist |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | Vassar College |
| Notable works |
Anyone's Daughter (1979), |
Anyone's Daughter (1979),
Happy Days: My Mother, My Father, My Sister & Me (1995)
Shana Alexander (October 6, 1925 – June 23, 2005) was an American journalist. Although she became the first woman staff writer and columnist for Life magazine, she was best known for her participation in the "Point-Counterpoint" debate segments of 60 Minutes with conservative James J. Kilpatrick.
Alexander was born Shana Ager on October 6, 1925 in New York City, the daughter of columnist Cecelia Ager (née Rubinstein) and Tin Pan Alley composer Milton Ager, who composed the song "Happy Days Are Here Again". Her family was Jewish. Alexander graduated from Vassar College in 1945, majoring in anthropology. She fell into writing when she took a summer job as a copy clerk at the New York City newspaper PM, where her mother worked. She worked as a freelance writer for Junior Bazaar and Mademoiselle magazines before becoming a researcher at Life for $65 a week in 1951. During the 1960s she wrote "The Feminine Eye" column for Life.
In 1962 she wrote an article for Life Magazine entitled "They Decide Who Lives, Who Dies: Medical miracle puts moral burden on small committee," which sparked a national debate on the allocation of scarce dialysis machine resources. Another Life magazine article, about a suicide-hotline worker's efforts to keep a caller from killing herself, was turned into the 1965 film, The Slender Thread.
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