Liz Smith | |
|---|---|
 Smith in September 2011 | |
| Born | Mary Elizabeth Smith (1923-02-02)February 2, 1923 Fort Worth, Texas, U.S. |
| Died | November 12, 2017(2017-11-12) (aged 94) New York City, U.S. |
| Other names | The Grand Dame of Dish |
| Alma mater | University of Texas |
| Occupation | Journalist |
| Years active | 1950–2017 |
| Spouses | |
| Partner | Iris Love (separated) |
Mary Elizabeth Smith (February 2, 1923 – November 12, 2017) was an Americangossip columnist. She was known as "The Grand Dame of Dish".[1] Beginning her career in radio in the 1950s, for a time she also anonymously wrote the "Cholly Knickerbocker" gossip column for theHearst newspapers. In the 1960s and early 1970s, she was the entertainment editor for the magazinesCosmopolitan andSports Illustrated.[2] Between 1976 and 2009, she wrote a self-titled gossip column for newspapers includingNew York Newsday, theNew York Daily News and theNew York Post that was syndicated in 60 to 70 other newspapers.[1] On television, she appeared onFox,E!, andWNBC.[3]
Smith was born on February 2, 1923, in Fort Worth, Texas.[4] She graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a degree in journalism in 1949, and she worked forThe Daily Texan andThe Texas Ranger.[5]
Smith later moved to New York City, where she worked as a typist, proofreader, and reporter before she broke into the media world as a news producer forMike Wallace atCBS Radio.[2] She spent five years as a news producer for NBC-TV.[4] She also worked forAllen Funt onCandid Camera.[2]
In the late 1950s, Smith worked as aghostwriter for the "Cholly Knickerbocker" gossip column syndicated in theHearst newspapers.[6] After leaving that column in the early 1960s, she began working forHelen Gurley Brown as the entertainment editor for the American version ofCosmopolitan, later working simultaneously asSports Illustrated's entertainment editor as well.[2] Between 1971 and 1976, Smith was one of the ghostwriters behind "The Gossip Column" by Robin Adams Sloan, which was syndicated byKing Features.[7]
On February 16, 1976, Smith began a self-titled gossip column for theNew York Daily News.[8] During the1978 New York City newspaper strike,[9] herDaily News editors asked her to appear daily onWNBC-TV'sLive at Five, and she stayed with the program for eleven years.[1] Her exposure on television made Smith a regular figure on the Manhattan social scene and provided fodder for her column, which had, by then, been syndicated to nearly seventy newspapers.[6] She won an Emmy for her reporting onLive at Five for WNBC in 1985.[10]
Smith was hired by Fox Broadcasting Company headsBarry Diller andRupert Murdoch to develop a talk show, withRoger Ailes as her producer.[11]
Smith was once reportedly the highest-paid print journalist in the United States.[12] In 1991, shortly after her exclusive interviews withIvana Trump at the time of her divorce from real-estate entrepreneurDonald Trump, Smith moved her column toNew York Newsday, staying until that paper closed in 1995 and then continuing in both the Long IslandNewsday and theNew York Post simultaneously.[1] She worked for Fox News for seven years and was last onFox & Friends.[11] She was the only columnist to ever have her column printed in three major New York City papers at the same time.[8]
In April 2005, Smith leftNewsday following a contract dispute.[13] The official discontinuation of her column came after several months of dispute among Smith, her lawyer David Blasband, andNewsday management.[8] The matter was settled out of court and Smith continued at theNew York Post and theStaten Island Advance.[2]
On February 24, 2009, thePost announced that the paper would stop running Smith's column effective February 26, 2009, as a cost-cutting measure.[14]
Smith, along withLesley Stahl,Mary Wells Lawrence, andJoni Evans, was a founding member of wowOwow.com, a website for women to talk culture, politics, and gossip.[6]
Smith was honored asThe New Jewish Home's Eight Over Eighty Gala 2016 honoree.
Smith married her college sweetheart, World War II bombardier George Edward Beeman, in 1945. She soon left him to enroll at the University of Texas at Austin, where her papers and memorabilia are kept in theDolph Briscoe Center,[15] and they divorced two years later.[15] In 1957, she married Fred Lister; the couple divorced in 1962.[6]
Smith acknowledged her bisexuality (or as she referred to it, "gender neutrality") in her memoirs, but in the December 5, 2000, issue ofThe Advocate, she dug deeper and confided in editor-in-chief Judy Wieder that it was not in her nature to be a role model in theLGBT movement.[4] However, she admitted "I think that my relationships with women were always much more emotionally satisfying and comfortable (than with men). And a lot of my relationships with men were more flirtatious and adversarial. I just never felt I was wife material. I always felt that I was a great girlfriend."[16] Beginning in the late 1970s, the archaeologistIris Love lived with Smith romantically for 15 years.[17]
Smith was a good friend of Texas GovernorAnn Richards, and she helped Richards to acculturate to New York City society after leaving Texas. Smith was also good friends with Texan pundit and writerMolly Ivins, also a friend of Richards.[1]
Smith raised millions of dollars for charities, $6 million for Literacy Partners, millions forAMFAR, theNew York Landmarks Conservancy, PAL, and the Mayor's Fund to Advance New York City under MayorMichael Bloomberg.[1]
On November 12, 2017, Smith died at her home in Manhattan of natural causes at age 94.[1][4]
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