Born in California and raised in Texas, Ivins attended Smith College and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

The Forbes Media Guide Five Hundred, 1994 said: Ivins's pithy assessments of politics and life at large crackle with broad Texas humor.

She had her first pieces of journalism published in The Review, the official student newspaper of St. John's School, though she never wrote any of the political columns that would become her specialty later in life.

During that time, she became romantically involved with Henry "Hank" Holland, Jr., a family friend and student at Yale whom she referred to as "the love of my life".

[2] She spent her junior year at the Institute of Political Science in Paris and received a Bachelor of Arts degree in history in 1966.

Her jobs there included the complaint department as well as "sewer editor", as she put it, responsible for reporting on the nuts and bolts of local city life.

After graduating from Columbia, she took a job in the Twin Cities at the Minneapolis Tribune, where she covered "militant blacks, angry Indians, radical students, uppity women and a motley assortment of other misfits and troublemakers".

[2] She covered the Texas Legislature and befriended folklorist John Henry Faulk, Secretary of State Bob Bullock and future Governor Ann Richards, among others.

[7] She also gained increasing national attention through op-ed and feature stories in The New York Times and The Washington Post along with a busy speaking schedule inside and outside Texas.

[citation needed] Ivins also wrote the obituary for Elvis Presley in The New York Times for the August 17, 1977, edition.

[9] Generally, her more colorful writing style clashed with the editors' expectations, and in 1980, after she wrote about a "community chicken-killing festival" in New Mexico and called it a "gang-pluck", she was recalled to New York City as punishment.

When Abe Rosenthal, editor of the Times, accused her of trying to inspire readers to think "dirty thoughts" with these words, her response was, "Damn if I could fool you, Mr.

Ivins wrote a letter of apology to King, but characteristically ended it with: "As for the rest of your observations about me and my work ..., boy you really are a mean bitch, aren't you?

[20] After her death, George W. Bush, a frequent target of her barbs, said in a statement, "I respected her convictions, her passionate belief in the power of words.

"[21] The Molly Ivins Papers are at the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, while her personal library was donated to the Witliff Collections at Texas State University.

[22] From August 23 to October 28, 2012, actress Kathleen Turner portrayed Molly Ivins in the play Red Hot Patriot: The Kick-Ass Wit of Molly Ivins by twin sisters and journalists Margaret and Allison Engel at Arena Stage in Washington, D.C.,[23][24] and at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre in Berkeley, California.

Janice Engel (no relation[25]) produced and directed a documentary, "Raise Hell: The Life & Times of Molly Ivins," inspired by the play.

How do they know it was the dearest wish of Thomas Jefferson's heart that teen-age drug dealers should cruise the cities of this nation perforating their fellow citizens with assault rifles?

Channelling?When outraged by instances of what she considered malfeasance or stupidity on the part of public officials, she couched her argument in an air of stunned amusement.

Ivins supported affirmative action and denounced President Bush for choosing Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday to announce his opposition to the use of racial quotas at the University of Michigan.