EASTSIDER LIZ SMITH

EASTSIDER LIZ SMITH
Queen of gossip

3-8-80

Like most of the kids she grew up with in Fort Worth, Texas during the Great Depression, Liz Smith was star-struck by the movies. "They told me there was a whole world out there where people were glamorous¹, where men and women drank wine with dinner and wore white tie and tails and drove cars with the tops down and danced on glass floors," she recalls, smiling dreamily. Her soft, languid accent, dripping with Southern charm, echoes through the coffee shop at the NBC building in midtown. Despite her cordiality, she somehow gives the impression of being in a great hurry. And for good reason: Smith is probably the hardest-working — and certainly the most successful — gossip writer on the East Coast.

Unlike Rona Barrett, the queen of Hollywood gossip, Liz Smith does not have a large staff, but relies on a single full-time² assistant and part-time "leg man" in California. Nevertheless, she manages to turn out, each week, six columns for the New York Daily News (syndicated nationally to more than 60 newspapers), five radio spots for NBC, and two television spots for WNBC's Newscenter 4.

"The minute I get up, I go to work. I get up at about nine, and go right to work," says Liz. "I look at the paper right quick, and go right to the typewriter, and work till I finish the column at one. I work in my apartment because I would never have time to get up and dress and go to another place. I would never get to meet my deadline. … I work all the time. I work a lot on the weekends because that's the only time I can even vaguely³ make a stab at catching⁴ up. … I just about kill myself to get everything done. I don't know if it's worth it."

For all her complaints, Liz believes that gossip-writing is well suited for her personality. "I can't help it. I'm just one of those people who likes to repeat a tale," she explains. "I'd be reading every newspaper in America that I could get my hands on and every book and magazine anyway, even if I weren't doing this job."

When she was hired by the Daily News in February, 1976 to start her column, Liz was no stranger to the New York celebrity⁵ scene; she had already been in the city for 26 years, working mainly as a free-lance writer. "I made a lot of money free-lancing. Even 15 years ago, I never made less than $25,000 a year." Besides writing for virtually every mass market publication in America, she spent five years ghostwriting the Cholly Knickerbocker society column in the old Journal American. Her many contacts among the famous, and the resurgence⁶ of interest in gossip, also helped persuade Daily News editor Mike O'Neill that the paper could use a gossip column in which the personality of the writer came through.

Within weeks of her debut⁷, Liz broke some of the sensational⁸ details of Woodward and Bernstein's The Final Days, which was about to be excerpted in Newsweek. She added the TV and radio broadcasts to her schedule in 1978, and avoids duplicating items whenever possible.

Her best sources, says Liz, are other journalists. "Because they know what stories are. I know a lot of very serious and important writers who have a lot of news and gossip and rumors⁹ and stuff that they don't have any place to put, so they're apt to give it to me. They have impulses to disseminate¹⁰ news; I think real reporters do feel that way."

Liz says that, generally speaking, she prefers writers to all other people.
Asked to name some favorites, she bubblingly replies: "Norman Mailer.
I just think Norman is a genius. Oh God, I love so many writers. My
favorite novel recently was Peter Maas' book, Made in America. …
There's Tommy Thompson, who just wrote Serpentine¹¹. Nora Ephrom,
Carl Bernstein are friends of mine. Norman Mailer is a friend of mine.
Oh, I could go on forever."

An author in her own right, Liz wrote The Mother Book two years ago; it sold approximately 65,000 copies in hardcover and 200,000 in paperback¹². "It kind of wrote itself," she says modestly of the acclaimed¹³ collection of anecdotes¹⁴ about mothers. Someday she would like to try fiction; at present she is working on a book that she describes as "a history and philosophy of gossip and what it is and what it's all about."

An Eastsider for half her life, Liz says her neighborhood "has the lowest crime rate of any police district in New York." Most of the restaurants he frequents are on the Upper East Side. They include Le Plaisir, Gian Marino, Szechuan East and Elaine's.

For years she saw her therapist at least once a week; now she pays him just occasional visits. "It helped me enormously in writing. I quit having writer's block. I quit putting things off. I quit making myself miserable¹⁵. I accepted my success, which was hard, because a lot of writers: they don't want to succeed. They don't think they deserve it. It's like people who don't want to be happy.

"Well, I mean you can be happy, you know, if you let yourself, and if you do your work. The most important thing in the world, I think, is to do your work. If you do your work, you'll be happy: I'm almost positive about it."

1 glamorous   

adj.富有魅力的；美丽动人的；令人向往的

参考例句：

• The south coast is less glamorous but full of clean and attractive hotels.南海岸魅力稍逊，但却有很多干净漂亮的宾馆。
• It is hard work and not a glamorous job as portrayed by the media.这是份苦差，并非像媒体描绘的那般令人向往。

2 full-time   

adj.满工作日的或工作周的，全时间的

参考例句：

• A full-time job may be too much for her.全天工作她恐怕吃不消。
• I don't know how she copes with looking after her family and doing a full-time job.既要照顾家庭又要全天工作，我不知道她是如何对付的。

3 vaguely   

adv.含糊地，暖昧地

参考例句：

• He had talked vaguely of going to work abroad.他含糊其词地说了到国外工作的事。
• He looked vaguely before him with unseeing eyes.他迷迷糊糊的望着前面，对一切都视而不见。

4 catching   

adj.易传染的，有魅力的，迷人的，接住

参考例句：

• There are those who think eczema is catching.有人就是认为湿疹会传染。
• Enthusiasm is very catching.热情非常富有感染力。

5 celebrity   

n.名人，名流；著名，名声，名望

参考例句：

• Tom found himself something of a celebrity. 汤姆意识到自己已小有名气了。
• He haunted famous men, hoping to get celebrity for himself. 他常和名人在一起, 希望借此使自己获得名气。

6 resurgence   

n.再起，复活，再现

参考例句：

• A resurgence of his grief swept over Nim.悲痛又涌上了尼姆的心头。
• Police say drugs traffickers are behind the resurgence of violence.警方说毒贩是暴力活动重新抬头的罪魁祸首。

7 debut   

n.首次演出，初次露面

参考例句：

• That same year he made his Broadway debut, playing a suave radio journalist.在那同一年里，他初次在百老汇登台，扮演一个温文而雅的电台记者。
• The actress made her debut in the new comedy.这位演员在那出新喜剧中首次登台演出。

8 sensational   

adj.使人感动的，非常好的，轰动的，耸人听闻的

参考例句：

• Papers of this kind are full of sensational news reports.这类报纸满是耸人听闻的新闻报道。
• Their performance was sensational.他们的演出妙极了。

9 rumors   

n.传闻( rumor的名词复数 )；[古]名誉；咕哝；[古]喧嚷v.传闻( rumor的第三人称单数 )；[古]名誉；咕哝；[古]喧嚷

参考例句：

• Rumors have it that the school was burned down. 有谣言说学校给烧掉了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Rumors of a revolt were afloat. 叛变的谣言四起。 来自《简明英汉词典》

10 disseminate   

v.散布；传播

参考例句：

• We should disseminate science and promote the scientific spirit.普及科学知识，弘扬科学精神。
• We sincerely welcome all countries to disseminate their languages in China.我们真诚地欢迎世界各国来华推广本国语言。

11 serpentine   

adj.蜿蜒的，弯曲的

参考例句：

• One part of the Serpentine is kept for swimmers.蜿蜒河的一段划为游泳区。
• Tremolite laths and serpentine minerals are present in places.有的地方出现透闪石板条及蛇纹石。

12 paperback   

n.平装本，简装本

参考例句：

• A paperback edition is now available at bookshops.平装本现在在书店可以买到。
• Many books that are out of print are reissued in paperback form.许多绝版的书籍又以平装本形式重新出现。

13 acclaimed   

adj.受人欢迎的

参考例句：

• They acclaimed him as the best writer of the year. 他们称赞他为当年的最佳作者。
• Confuscius is acclaimed as a great thinker. 孔子被赞誉为伟大的思想家。

14 anecdotes   

n.掌故，趣闻，轶事( anecdote的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• amusing anecdotes about his brief career as an actor 关于他短暂演员生涯的趣闻逸事
• He related several anecdotes about his first years as a congressman. 他讲述自己初任议员那几年的几则轶事。 来自《简明英汉词典》

15 miserable   

adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的

参考例句：

• It was miserable of you to make fun of him.你取笑他，这是可耻的。
• Her past life was miserable.她过去的生活很苦。