Liz
Smith cont.
JJ:
Yeah, that's really true. But every time I see them together
Frank always seems to have a guilty look.
LS:
I think he is pretty guilty. He's a nice guy. He got caught
in a really nasty situation. It ruined his life. Why did she
make him go on television and do mea culpa with Diane Sawyer?
I don't believe he'd have agreed to do that in a million years,
and it didn't do any goodit was bad! They should have
just left it alone.
JJ:
As an observer, what's gossip taught you about human nature?
LS:
That it's always the same. People are obsessed with sex, and
power, and greed, and being somebody, and that never changes.
So the nature of things people gossip about is still the same.
"People
are obsessed with sex, power, greed, and being somebody."
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JJ:
You say in your book you hate the idea of public humiliation
and someone being angry with you. How can you be a gossip
columnist and avoid it?
LS:
Well, you can't avoid it, but I still hate it! [laughs] I
don't like it when people are mad at me or when I've made
a big mistake or a fool of myself. Nobody does. I suffer a
lot over it. I'm a devout coward most of the time.
JJ:
What's your biggest scoop?
LS:
I guess it was the Trump divorce, but I didn't think that
was a very important story.
JJ:
But you were the first to break it.
LS:
Right. And it went on for three months, that's why it became
so big. And it caused New York Newsday to hire me
and pay me more money than anybody's ever been paid, so that
was great.
JJ:
What's the difference between your mentor Walter Winchell
and yourself?
LS: He finally went power-mad
and began to believe his own PR that he was the most powerful
person in the world. And he was really powerful and
popular, hell sure. But he began to believe it and lost his
moral compass so to speak. He didn't have any brakes on himself.
JJ:
What do you want people to remember most about you?
LS: That I tried to be
fair and give everybody a fair shake. And I tried to be entertaining
at the same time.
JJ:
A true art. And not piss too many people off!
LS:
I don't care if I piss people off if they deserve it, but
it's still an unpleasant experience you have to go through.
Because people react in a much more irritated and upset way
to an item in a column than they would to a whole story about
them embezzling in The New York Times! They overreact
incredibly to everything that's said in the column, I don't
know why. It's particularly painful to them.
JJ:
You wrote in your book that you had a Southern Baptist mother,
and after your first affair with a woman you were never able
to say a frank word to her again. What happens to a relationship
without open communication?
LS: We managed to stumble
along and I think that was the way my family wanted it, so
you know it was sort of: "Don't ask, don't tell."
It wasn't just that it was an affair with a womanI could
never talk to her about any of the affairs I had with men
either. I mean she was just very straight-laced. And my father
was even worse. They were not modern people.
Vernon
Jordan
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Lauren
Bacall, Liz, Barbara Walters
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Prince
Edward
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photos
taken by Joan Jedell at Liz Smith's book party for Natural
Blonde at Le Cirque
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