“Comment is free, but facts are sacred,” wrote one C. P. Scott some years ago. And that was way before they invented the Internet.

I went to lunch at the hotspot Michael’s on West 55th Street last week. And it didn’t hurt that I was with the sexy, talented superstar and down-to-earth human being, Frank Langella.

Frank looks divine these days. He has an appealing humanness combined with his acting gravitas. Not for nothing was he Oscar-nominated for his astonishing portrayal of the 37th president in “Frost/Nixon.” (It’s not too late for you to catch this wonderful movie which has actual suspense and is a masterpiece of writing, plotting and character.)

Personally, I think Langella should have won the Oscar and although Sean Penn is always great and I am very pro-gay rights, I was the rare person who didn’t find “Milk” such a terrific movie. It was far too documentary-like and fragmented for my tastes. (I know, I am in the minority.)

Many people came by at Michael’s to say hello to Frank and Liz, as I ate my French fries and roast chicken while Frank maintained his Spartan healthy diet. It was nice – a regular “old-home-week” feeling in Manhattan.

Along came the charmer Sherrie Westin of the “Sesame Workshop” who had sent me colored chalk to write on sidewalks with when I lost my newspaper job. With her was the cookbook-product queen Ina Garten who has “The Barefoot Contessa” program on the Food Network. (Once upon a time, Ina was in the Carter White House and didn’t even know how to cook. How times have changed for this delightful lady.)

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We waved at and air kissed Jerry Della Femina, The New Yorker’s David Remnick, publisher Lisa Hughes, TV’s effective Jeff Greenfield, coming dramatist Michael Kramer, Dr. Gerry Imber, agent Luke Janklow, Connecticut’s Jay Kriegel, former ambassador Carl Spielvogel and Showtime’s Matt Blank. The restaurant’s very own Boswell — Diane Clehane — was at the bar observing. (Some of these people sampled Michael’s new chocolate candy made with crackly caramel right off our table. If you order the apple sherbert, they bring you some of this!)

The mayor of Michael’s, my old friend Joe Armstrong, had his boots on the next table and under it too. He was with Hallmark’s Henry Schleiff. 

Rosie O’Donnell’s favorite crush-from-afar, Georgette Mosbacher, entertained a gang of ladies, including Debbie Grubman, at her table.

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And there were those Broadway powers Jimmy Nederlander, Rob Greenblatt and Terry Allen Kramer. The latter lady used to be a decorative fixture at “21” when her famous father, Charlie Allen, practically owned the first booth there, but she has made a youthful shift to Michael’s. She buttonholed me, demanding that I come to her three opening nights ("West Side Story," "9 to 5" and Tovah Feldshuh’s "Irena’s Vow"). I responded that I would, indeed, give up all semblance of a private life and the chance of ever getting some rest to be her ardent first-nighter!

In the ladies’ room, I ran into writer Tracey Jackson and congratulated her on her hit movie triumph “Confessions of a Shopaholic.” She said, “Liz, it was only a moderate hit” but she’d had three projects finalized in the last year so she was one of the rare ones. I touched her for luck!

Then the mighty Jane Friedman, another of Rupert Murdoch’s casualties at HarperCollins, came by and lectured me for printing here that she has an exciting future project on the front burner. After shaking her finger and calling me “naughty,” Jane proceeded to add that she still has “an exciting future project on the front burner!”