Anne Durrum Robinson: ‘C’est La Damned Vie’ and Growing Old Creatively

She once left LBJ speechless. It was the early 1940s, and she was working as a young writer for what is today radio station KLBJ. She was talking to an irate sponsor on the station's only telephone line when a gruff voice cut into the conversation, demanding access to the line. When she refused, the voice bellowed back, "Do you know who this is?"

"Yes," Anne Durrum replied, recognizing then U.S. Congressman Lyndon B. Johnson, co-owner of the station. "You're the second person on the line. Now would you please hang up?"

Johnson never reprimanded Durrum for the remark. If he had, her radio career might have ended there since she's never let anybody push her around.

Even today, sitting in her wheelchair (her 90th birthday was May 14, 2003, celebrated with a barbershop quartet serenade), Anne Durrum Robinson looks and talks like a sweet Texas grandma right out of Central Casting. But, as she explains, "I'm a Taurus: good-natured to a point." After that, one presumes, all bets are off.

Like all strong Texas women. Robinson is a dichotomy of sorts. From her Central Austin living room, surrounded by reams of popular magazines (Martha Stewart Living to Fast Company to Discover) and shelves upon shelves of books, she talks of her past, present and very relevant future.

Click on the title aboove to read the entire interview by Nancy Edwards on Anne's 90th birthday.