Raised alternately among the cognoscenti of New York and Hollywood, the children had parents who loved each other and each of them, but parents who nonetheless lived apart most of the time in separate hotel suites and maintained separate interests and friends. Known also as the man who wrote, “Ain’t She Sweet?,” Ager learned his trade in New York City’s legendary Tin Pan Alley, a single city block - West 28th Street between Sixth Avenue and Broadway - where most of the nation’s music publishers were clustered during the first quarter of the 20th century.Īs successful as Milton Ager was, he was merely half of the parental equation Cecelia Ager, her mother, was a noted critic and columnist for Variety, and later a Hollywood screenwriter for Sam Goldwyn - in short, a thoroughly non-conventional woman who was well ahead of her time.Īs a consequence, childhood for Shana and her younger sister, Laurel, was anything but typical.

Roosevelt, who chose “Happy Days Are Here Again” as the theme song for his presidential campaigns and as the anthem for the Democratic Party. Instead, they are part of a song lyric written in 1929 by Milton Ager, Alexander’s late father, and given everlasting fame by Franklin D. Yet for all of these impressive accomplishments, the one story Alexander wanted for years to tell most was the one closest to home, an omission she has finally redressed with release of “Happy Days: My Mother, My Father, My Sister and Me” (Doubleday, $27.50, 386 pp.).Īt first glance, the title suggests the traditional memoir of an idyllic American childhood, but the “happy days” of the title do not refer entirely to the woman’s youthful experiences.

Kilpatrick on “60 Minutes” during much of the 1970s, Alexander’s credits over the past half-century are formidable.ĭuring the 1950s, she was the first woman staff writer and the first woman columnist for Life magazine from 1969 to 1971, she was the first woman to serve as editor of McCall’s magazine, and from 1972 to 1975, she was a regular columnist for Newsweek.Īs an author, Alexander, 70, has spent much of the last 16 years concerned with the American legal system, producing such highly regarded books as “Anyone’s Daughter” about Patty Hearst and “Very Much a Lady” about Jean Harris, the boarding-school headmistress convicted of killing the “Scarsdale Diet Doctor.” Her other books include “Nutcracker,” “The Pizza Connection” and “When She Was Bad.” There was a time back in the 1950s and ’60s when the noted journalist and author Shana Alexander considered herself “a female Green Hornet,” a pioneering newswoman who not only had the “entire planet” as her beat, but one who could “swoop around the world at will” to cover it.Ī professional more popularly known, perhaps, as the liberal voice on the “Point/Counterpoint” segment opposite conservative columnist James J.

Dearest milton james