Liz Smith | 04/25/2008 9:23 am

Favorite Stuff in a Life of Crime!

Here’s an apt quote: "Like the Glenn Close character in ‘Fatal Attraction,’ just when it seemed that Hillary Clinton had succumbed, she sprang from the bath, knife in hand, to continue the fight against Barack Obama." So wrote Toby Harnden of The LondonTelegraph — but remember, he wrote this months ago. Now it has happened again.

In our archives recently we deposited a divine Q & A conducted with none other than Dame Helen Mirren, the goddess of acting. (You can still read it on this site by clicking here.) Now Helen is in Germany playing the wife of Tolstoy for a coming movie. She e-mails us that she saw the wowOwow posting:

"Dearest Liz: Glad you liked the interview, somehow it’s always easy to speak with you, even online and through the computer. I love the site and will visit whenever I can get a moment. I went to Southampton, England, and launched a huge ship in the U.K. called ‘The Ventura,’ a P & O Fleet cruise ship, the biggest built for the English market. How cool is that!

"It was such a great day, culminating in the Royal Marines sailing down the side of the ship to make sure the bottle smashed. Now I am back in 19th-century Russia. If it’s not one thing, it’s another!"

We looked up Helen Mirren’s adventures in the British newspapers and found her fondling the champagne bottle that christened "The Ventura" as she was kissed on each cheek by a handsome Marine. I am sure this suited Helen to the max since she loves handsome guys. (She is even married to one.)

"The Ventura" will carry 3,600 passengers and is regarded as a "next- generation ship” at a time when such holidays are enjoying a surge in popularity. The reason the Marine commandos dropped down to assure that the champagne bottle broke is because when ladies lash out to christen, sometimes the bottle doesn’t break and that’s a bad omen.

I don’t think Helen actually needed help. She can break a bottle with the best of them. This dame is a wOw girl. As she says: "I can’t go on being royal, can I? Have to have a little sex, drugs, rock ‘n’ roll in my acting life."

As long as we’re talking Helen, let’s speak of her scrapbook memoir, just out, titled In the Frame: My Life in Words and Pictures from Atria Books (Simon & Schuster).

This one is simply dazzling, all about how an up-by-the-bootstraps child of Russian parents became so famous that she has played Cleopatra, Queen Charlotte, the wife of King George III, Queen Elizabeth I, and Queen Elizabeth II of England. And for all we know, next Helen may play Queen Maria of Romania!

I guess everybody dreams of seeing their name up in lights in Times Square. When I was first driven into this amazing center of Manhattan back in September 1949, I immediately remembered what G. K. Chesterton had written when he first came to New York from London back in the Twenties: "What a garden of delight Times Square would be if only one could not read."

Funny, that. But finally after living here for many years, I did get my name up in lights. We were promoting my favorite charity Literacy Partners and NASDAQ invited me and my co-workers to ring the closing bell of the stock exchange. Fortunately, this happened on a "good" day; the NASDAQ closed seven points up. And there was I, standing in Times Square with both my name and Literacy Partners up for all the world to see. Excuse me for bragging but that was a helluva lot of fun.

Liz Smith in front of NASDAQ

The best part was the pre-rehearsal for ringing the bell. Our floor director was a young smarty who told us what to do, when to do it and how to act enthusiastically for the camera. I have worked in TV off and on for years — Jennifer Ok, an American-born Korean child was the best floor manager I ever saw in action.

Hooray for immigration in action in the U.S. of A.

Note: Click on this text to read my nationally syndicated daily column.

Read more about: Helen Mirren, Hillary Clinton, NASDAQ, Q & A

10 Reader Comments (so far…) Sign In or Register to comment

Great pix, Liz, and your name in lights where it belongs! Thanks for letting us know about Literacy Partners. BTW, I had a friend with a $1M annual income who barely survived cancer. She decided to quit work and instead teach adult-literacy 20 hrs. a week for $10. hr. and in one of America’s roughest areas. She loves it. Never looked better or happier.

By No GOP on 04/25/2008 12:06 pm

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How spectacular - your name in lights - and for a great cause. The immigrant story of our nation is nothing short of astounding. My grandmother was brought to the US from Poland in 1906 at the age of 4 months. She grew up in Chicago and learned knitting and crocheting from that great American Humanitarian, Jane Addams at Hull House in Chicago. 100+ years later Hull House continues to have an impact on “boot-strapping” immigrants in the most extraordinary way. My grandmother also personally knew Mr. Marshall Field where she worked in the hosiery department at Marshall Field, and where she would take me for lunch in that spectacular restaurant when I was young. http://www.hullhouse.org/aboutus/history.html

By Bella Mia on 04/25/2008 12:17 pm

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Liz please discuss this in your column and urge the Post to do a story - thank you Quoting Dr. Bernadine Healy from an article she wrote in U.S. News & World Report February 19, 2008 : “There’s an argument out there that oral sex is not sex….To some young people , oral sex preserves virginity – technically speaking – and allows for what is perceived as risk-free sexual intimacy. From a medical perspective, however, this is sex – and generally, as practiced, it’s unsafe. People seem clueless that sexually transmitted diseases such as herpes, gonorrhea, chlamydia, and human papillomavirus [and also syphilis] can take hold in parts of the oral cavity during sex with infected partners and that the oral contact can infect the genitals, too….Granted, the major risk for STDs comes with vaginal sex, but the relative ease and growing frequency of oral sex among those engaging in casual “hookups” is a virtual epidemic in the making. Providing our young people with graphic medical information and stern parental and medical guidance is long overdue. ” This information has not been provided to young people and should be provided immediately.

By brad berger on 04/25/2008 4:18 pm

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Brad’s right, sex is still an ever danger. YO DER!

By Jenny Oops on 04/25/2008 4:59 pm

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Helen Mirren is such a class act. A film about Tolstoy’s wife should be interesting. He did not treat her well. My husband and I traveled from Moscow to Siberia in 1990 with amateur musicians, and I felt like an aging rock store. They put on concers for 63 days - from Ulan Ude, Russia, which has the biggest fattest head of Lenin in the town square and a KGB building also I might add. Ukraine stuff was roughing it, but fascinating. Queen Marie of Romania will be interesting also. she was a Baha’i, the first monarch to become one. I don’t know if that is a publicized fact. Also, Tolstoy said “There is a prisoner in a cell in Akka, who has the key” meaning the solution to humankind’s problems. A Russian professor friend of mine in the 1980s gave a talk about that. He was a Pasternak expert and had written a book praised by the NY times. Guy de Mallac. He opened his lecture at UC Irvine with that fact. Interesting. We lived in Ukraine and Belarus for a couple of years, before, during and after the demise of the Soviet Union. My book Without A Net, a Sojourn in Russia, is almost out of print. I write this because of all the connections in your comments about Helen Mirren. Fun references to Wall Street too. When my mom died, my father took my twin and I to New York and to visit his brokerage firm, Hornblower & Weeks. Women were not allowed on the floor of the stock exchange then. That was 1956. We’ve come a long way baby!!!! Thank you for mentioning Literacy Partners. Such a gift literacy!

By Esther Bradley-DeTally on 04/26/2008 11:59 am

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I am a member of the Helen Mirren Appreciation Society, and it is a genuine treat to read emails directly from our adorable girl. Since she seems to be the original Energizer Bunny, I am surprised that she ever sits still long enough to write! This is the woman who proclaims herself “terminally lazy.” We are busy enjoying her delightful memoirs, and anxiously waiting to hear her next bit of news. This is a marvelous website, made that much more so by your correspondence with the ever effervescent Dame Helen!

By Barrie Smith on 05/01/2008 12:59 pm

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Hey Barrie couldn’t have said it better myself, we love the email’s from Helen Mirren. LOL another HMAS’ er

By Barbara Cooper on 05/01/2008 4:09 pm

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And another HMASer who is absolutely delighted to read anything Helen. Since I am a Romanian I am so thrilled to read that it might be possible for Helen to play Quenn Maria of Romania. I would so love to see this project become a fact. I hope Helen knows how very much she is appreciated and what an inspiration she is, even for 22 year old girls like me!

By alina simion on 05/02/2008 12:16 am

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Thanks for showing our favourite Dame’s book, email and interview! Helen Mirren is so liberating and delightful for me and for many women, young or old , immigrant or fifth generation. She makes a difference in life! Love your site, love the HMAS-site :)

By sophia jansen on 05/03/2008 3:06 pm