The Liz Smith Column | 06/29/2009 11:00 pm
Liz Smith: Going to the Dogs With Janice Dickinson
Also from Our Gossip Girl, summer in Central Park with Anne Hathaway … Angelina and Brad – giving millions to charity!

Janice Dickinson © Getty Images
Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt have been said to be splitting up at least once a month since they got together several years ago. The tabloids yell "Now Their Fight Becomes Public!" and cataclysmic stuff of that nature. Inside one magazine, they’re shown at a party and the description under pictures of them chatting with guests is used to suggest they seem sexually interested in people other than one another. This is so silly.
Nobody at these publications bothers to note that Brad and Angelina, making a movie now in Washington, DC, recently gave $1 million to the United Nations refugee agency for Pakistanis who are fleeing the Taliban.
***
In my sympathetic and adoring retrospective of Michael Jackson, which ran last Monday, I forgot an era when I didn’t feel so great about Michael. The Daily News writer Mike Lupica remembered, however, and immortalized me, like this: "Before all the grotesque plastic surgery, before Liz Smith finally – and famously – wrote, ‘Who do you suppose gives Michael Jackson the creeps?’"
So, I do take the blame, or the credit, for writing that, because Michael did get very creepy indeed after 2001. This doesn’t change the fact that he was one of the greatest entertainers of the 20th century.
***
So those reality show demi-celebrities, Jon and Kate, are now divorcing. Good. Just so I don’t have to take custody of either one of them!
Nobody at these publications bothers to note that Brad and Angelina, making a movie now in Washington, DC, recently gave $1 million to the United Nations refugee agency for Pakistanis who are fleeing the Taliban.
***
In my sympathetic and adoring retrospective of Michael Jackson, which ran last Monday, I forgot an era when I didn’t feel so great about Michael. The Daily News writer Mike Lupica remembered, however, and immortalized me, like this: "Before all the grotesque plastic surgery, before Liz Smith finally – and famously – wrote, ‘Who do you suppose gives Michael Jackson the creeps?’"
So, I do take the blame, or the credit, for writing that, because Michael did get very creepy indeed after 2001. This doesn’t change the fact that he was one of the greatest entertainers of the 20th century.
***
So those reality show demi-celebrities, Jon and Kate, are now divorcing. Good. Just so I don’t have to take custody of either one of them!
Read more about: Amy Adams, Angelina Jolie, Anne Hathaway, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Ashley Leeds, Audra McDonald, Barry Diller, Brad Pitt, Candice Bergen, Chloe Malle, Chris Harland, Christine Baranski, Dianne Feinstein, Donald Newhouse, Entertainment, Felix Rohatyn, Gil Garfield, Gossip, Hannah Pakula, Heinrich Zimmer, Janice Dickinson, Jerry Brown, Jon Gosselin, Judith Light, Julie White, Kate Gosselin, Liz Rohatyn, Liz Smith, Louise Grunwald, Marshall Rose, Martin Short, Meg Whitman, Michael Jackson, Mike Lupica, Mike Nichols, New York City, News, Nick Pileggi, Nora Ephron, Sandra Bernhard, Shakespeare in the Park, Steve Martin, Style, Susan Lyne, Susan Newhouse, The Liz Smith Column
























29 Reader Comments (so far…) Sign In or Register to comment
I would think Lisa Fonssagrives would have been the first super model, and she was certainly before my time, but I still know who she was, and Carmen Del Orifice makes Janice look like Kibbles and Bits…even now, later in her career. And what about Dovima? All elegant, aristocratic looking women. Swans. Janice? Quack.
I used to love seeing Shakespeare outdoors in the summer. I wonder why I don’t do that anymore?
I’ve been surprised hearing about Jerry Brown. Hasn’t his peace, love, and harmony sun grope dancing time passed? My instinct tells me he doesn’t stand a chance.
Janice has learned how to keep re-inventing herself. She has mastered extending 15 minutes of fame!
Jerry Brown let it go! Your political sun has set. There are many ways to give back. Volunteer, hold citizen empowerment workshops etc.
Good for Angelina and Brad. I believe it’s our responsibility to give back It’s a human thing!
The term Supermodel is so over used that it really has no meaning.
Like Washington Cube, it has been a very long time since I attended an outdoor Shakespeare production. I need to remedy that.
"Brown says America’s real anger over unemployment has yet to be unleashed."
Sheesh! Same old Jerry with the same old babble that makes no sense whatsoever.
Janice D was not the first supermodel. Sheesh. Janice was hotter than hot in the 70s, but what about Jean Shrimpton or Twiggie or Varushka from the 60’s? Or Suzy Parker, who was the little sister of Dorian Leigh from the 40’s/50s? Janice’s drug use has pickled her brain!
She messed up her face with all the surgery too, so her former beauty is gone, gone, gone.
Liz has a good sense of what’s important and what’s not. I don’t give a tinker’s damn about whether Angelina and Brad are fighting, but the fact they have given a large sum of money to those fleeing the Taliban? Now that’s worth reporting.
Janice Dickinson puts herself on a higher pedestle than anyone else ever could. She also treats people terribly and though that seems to be what people enjoy watching these days, personally, I can think of better ways to spend my time.
I’ve stated on more than one occasion that I think the media blitz over Michael Jackson is too much (not a surprise, mind you, but still…) but amidst all the press, I do have to say one thing. Though I respected Jackson as a young performer, the fact that he became beyond "creepy" (as Liz puts it) completey colored my thinking of him. Now that he’s gone however, and I see how the media is acting, how his family is acting (his father is a piece of work), and the push and pull of all of those close to him, I almost understand and feel sorry for him. If this is the way people treated him throughout his life, no wonder he left reality.
Jerry Brown? Hmmm… I think this will be a very telling campaign for California.