Aaron Priest, a Doubleday representative, became Bombeck's loyal agent. By 1969, 500 U.S. newspapers featured her "At Wit's End" columns, and she was also writing for Good Housekeeping Magazine, Reader's Digest, Family Circle, Redbook, McCall's, and even Teen magazine. Bombeck and her family moved to Phoenix, Arizona, to a lavish hacienda on a hilltop in Paradise Valley. By 1978, 900 U.S. newspapers were publishing Bombeck's column. In 1976 McGraw-Hill published Bombeck's The Grass Is Always Greener over the Septic Tank, which became a best-seller. In 1978, Bombeck arranged both a million-dollar contract for her fifth book, If Life Is a Bowl of Cherries, What Am I Doing in the Pits? and a 700-thousand-copy advance for her subsequent book, Aunt Erma's Cope Book (1979). At the invitation of television producer Bob Shanks, Bombeck participated in ABC's Good Morning America from 1975 until 1986. She began doing brief commentaries which were recorded at Phoenix, and eventually did both gag segments and important interviews.
TOP 10 Erma Bombeck QUOTES
Humorists can never start to take themselves seriously. It's literary suicide.
Men who have a thirty-six-televised-football-games-a-week-habit should be declared legally dead and their estates probated.
It takes a lot of courage to show your dreams to someone else.
Never accept a drink from a Urologist
It goes without saying that you should never have more children than you have car windows.
Laughter rises out of tragedy, when you need it the most, and rewards you for your courage.
All of us have moments in our lives that test our courage. Taking children into a house with a white carpet is one of them.
You hear a lot of dialogue on the death of the American family. Families aren't dying. They're merging into big conglomerates.
Seize the moment. Remember all those women on the 'Titanic' who waved off the dessert cart.
When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left and could say, I used everything you gave me..
For several years, Bombeck was occupied with multiple writing and TV projects. In 1978, she failed with the television pilot of The Grass is Always Greener on CBS. In 1981, then Bombeck wrote and produced her own show, the also unsuccessful Maggie, for ABC. It aired for just four months (eight episodes) to poor reviews; nevertheless the show meant that Bombeck was becoming quickly overworked, returning from Los Angeles to Phoenix only during weekends. Bombeck was offered a second sitcom attempt but she declined.
In 1978 Bombeck was involved in the Presidential Advisory Committee for Women, particularly for the final implementation of the Equal Rights Amendment, with the ERA America organization's support. Bombeck was strongly criticized for this by conservative figures, and some U.S. stores reacted by removing her books. In 1972 the Equal Rights Amendment was proposed by the United States Congress to the states. Congress specified a seven-year period for ratification. Under Article V of the United States Constitution, ratification by at least three-fourths of the states is necessary, but at the end of the seven-year period, only 35 states had ratified, or three less than the required three-fourths. Of the 35 states that ratified proposed amendment, 5 of them rescinded their ratifications prior to the expiration of the deadline. Bombeck expressed dismay over this development.
By 1985 Erma Bombeck's three weekly columns were being published by 900 newspapers in the United States and Canada, and were also being anthologized into a series of best-selling books. She was also making twice-weekly Good Morning America appearances. Bombeck belonged to the American Academy of Humor Columnists, along with other famous personalities. During the 1980s, Bombeck's annual earnings ranged from $500,000 to $1 million a year. She was the grand marshal for the 97th Tournament of Roses Parade held on January 1, 1986. The parade theme was "A Celebration of Laughter
Erma Bombeck was diagnosed with polycystic kidney disease (an incurable, untreatable genetic disease) when she was 20 years old. She survived breast cancer and mastectomy, and kept secret the fact that she had kidney disease, enduring daily dialysis. She went public with her condition in 1993. On a waiting list for transplant for years, one kidney had to be removed, and the remaining one ceased to function. On April 3, 1996, she received a kidney transplant. Erma Bombeck died on April 22, 1996, aged 69, from complications of the operation. Her remains are interred in the Woodland Cemetery, Dayton, Ohio, under a large rock from the Phoenix desert.
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