Joni Evans | 02/24/2009 2:27 pm
Liz Smith Leaves the NY Post for wowOwow!
Beginning next week Liz Smith will be posting more news, hot gossip and opinions all the time on wowOwow — free from the constraints of newspaper deadlines. Thursday will be the last Liz Smith column for The New York Post — the first time in 33 years that Liz Smith’s column will not be in a New York newspaper. This sad news for the New York print business is spectacular news for us. Our fabulous and beloved Diva of Dish will be here on wowOwow, posting exclusive-to-Liz breaking celebrity news as it happens. It will, occasionally, be highlighted with audio and film and all the tools of an Internet entrepreneur.
In addition to her work as a founder of wowOwow, Liz Smith has just been named a Contributing Editor at Parade Magazine. Her next cover story for Parade appears this coming Sunday, and is an in-depth look at Liza Minnelli. Parade has the largest circulation in America (33 million sold, distributed in more than 470 Sunday newspapers and with a readership of over 72 million). Additionally, her column will continue to appear in Variety, in syndicated newspapers and on websites such as MyWay.com.
The New York Post editor-in-chief Col Allen has written to Liz to say, "Like so many other newspapers around the country, we are buffeted by unprecedented economic gales” and could not renew the contract for what he described as a "legendary column."
Liz Smith’s column began February 16, 1976, at The New York Daily News, then the city’s largest newspaper. In 1991, hot with her scoops on the Ivana/Donald Trump divorce, her column moved to New York Newsday. For more than a dozen years, Liz was published in Newsday (appearing in the Queens, Long Island and New York City editions), the New York Post and the Staten Island Advance, making her the first and only columnist to ever appear in three metropolitan newspapers at the same time. In 1995, when Newsday folded its Manhattan edition, she moved to the New York Post. Her column has always been known for wit, humor and a sense of fair play. Liz remarked famously: “Gossip is just news running ahead of itself in a red satin dress."
During a 1979 newspaper strike, Liz’s Daily News editors asked her to appear daily on WNBC-TV’s Live at Five, and she stayed with the program for 11 years. She won an Emmy in 1985. Her 2000 memoir, Natural Blonde, made The New York Times bestseller list. In 2005, Smith published a food memoir, Dishing.
Liz has raised more than $20 million in the fight against illiteracy and more millions in the fight against AIDS. Other causes close to her heart include The Mayor’s Fund to Advance New York City, The New York Landmarks Conservancy, The Police Athletic League and The Ann Richards School for Young Women Leaders.
Born Mary Elizabeth Smith in San Antonio, TX, she has never lost her gracious Southern accent or sense of humor.
For more:
- Interview With an Angel: Anne Rice Catches Up With wOw
- Caption This!
- Liz Smith Confesses – Her Night of 'Broken Embraces'
- Mr. wOw: Falling in Love Again With 'Marlene'
- Should Americans with the higher health-risk profile of obesity pay higher premiums for health insurance?
- Whoopi Goldberg Gets Realistic About Health Care
- Breadwinners in Burqas, by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon
- Announcing the Winner of Our 'Caption This' Contest
- Liz Smith: Let's Get Educated
- Joan Juliet Buck Solves the Health-Care Issue
- Mr. wOw: Falling in Love Again With 'Marlene'
- Liz Smith Confesses – Her Night of 'Broken Embraces'
- Whoopi Goldberg Gets Realistic About Health Care
- Too Much Happiness: Alice Munro at Her Best
- Liz Smith: A Simple Name for a Not-So-Simple Decade
- Candice Bergen on the Latest in Decades
- Joan Juliet Buck Solves the Health-Care Issue
- Whoopi Goldberg's Take on the New York Times
- Should Americans with the higher health-risk profile of obesity pay higher premiums for health insurance?
- Justice Scalia, Revealed, by Joan Biskupic
- Caption This!
- Whoopi Goldberg Gets Realistic About Health Care
- Should Americans with the higher health-risk profile of obesity pay higher premiums for health insurance?
- Mr. wOw: Falling in Love Again With 'Marlene'
- Breadwinners in Burqas, by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon
- Interview With an Angel: Anne Rice Catches Up With wOw
- Liz Smith Wants to Know: What would you name this decade of '00s?
- Joan Juliet Buck Solves the Health-Care Issue
- Announcing the Winner of Our 'Caption This' Contest
- Liz Smith: Let's Get Educated
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130 Reader Comments (so far…) Sign In or Register to comment
Liz has been around forever. I can’t even imagine her leaving the New York Post. Oh well, NY’s loss is our gain.
Angela
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Ms Smith, I registered for this site and will come back to it daily just to lend support. I read and loved Natural Blonde and have followed you for years. In letting you go the Post has again shown its terrible lack of judgement. You are a national treasure.
Hurrah! wOw’s own treasure Liz Smith is ours !!!
I look forward to your delightful dish…keep it coming and keep on, keeping on! Ignore the snarks…
A agree with you! If there is one thing I liked about NYT, it is Liz’s column. It is no less than fabulous news that Liz would be writing for us here, on the web. Let us all support her in her good efforts. Way to go Liz! :)
I hate to be negative, but I think Carmel~by~the~Sea Pebble Beach has a mental or emotional problem. I like the way Liz responded to Juan. That was class. Carmel, try to display some of the same class. I’m sure Liz appreciates your affection for her, but would prefer some "lower case" emotion.
Have a nice day.
Miss Margaret,
You are correct on the number of responses I have posted. I came across this late one evening or early one morning. It is according to how you look at it. Anyway, I was up late fighting of a mild illness I picked up from one of my six grandkids who, through Gods blessings, live next door to my wife and me. I was following links from Drudge Report and I was curious to see who this Liz Smith is. I read her response to an individual who was really rude to her and I was totally impressed with her compassionate response. Me, being an old man, probably did not come across as very compassionate to "Carmel" and I do not know her history on this site or how this site operates and is monitored. It was not my intent to put "Carmel" down, but to let her know, that if she truly admires Ms. Smith so much that maybe she should show here respect and admiration by not blasting someone else on the website. Again, I seldom ever get involved on these comments section of a web-page, but was impressed with Liz Smith and the way she handled a situation in a very classy way. If I have offended anyone, I do apologize. Not that it is important or for that matter interesting but let me tell you a little something about me. I am a happily married (37 years) grandfather of 6 and I am only 57 years old. Yes, I was 19 when I married back in 1970. My wife and I were told at the time that our marriage would never last because we were too young (we were), but through the strength, love and dedication of my wife, we have made it. She has been the glue that has held this piece of heaven together. We had one child, a son, who is now 37. For whatever reason, he and his wife have 6 lovely children, 3 girls and 3 boys ranging from 13 years down to 8 months. My wife and I were blessed with 5 acres of land of which we deeded some to my son and he built his house next door to ours. There is a bumper sticker I once saw that stated "If I knew grandkids were so much fun, I would have had them first." There is so much truth in that statement. Why am I saying all of this … I don’t have a clue. It is late again.
Miss Margaret, thank you for your response. My intent was not to hurt anyone or rock the boat.
Regards,
PapaJack
Please call me Margaret and I’ll call you Jack if that’s okay. I’m impressed that you are a grandpa of 6! I’m a few years older than you and I envy you those grandchildren!
Anyway, back to the subject we were talking about. All I can say is you are most welcome here. You just didn’t know enough about the situation and though I can’t say more about it because it would be an invasion of privacy for her, if you want to know more about people here and how they post or what they’ve said in the past, tap onto their names which are in red (like yours ‘papa jack’) at the end of their post. I had done that after seeing the number of times Carmel had had her posted deleted. I knew that was never something that happened to her, so I looked at what she had written by tapping onto her name and found out what was going on. In fact, I must have done that so early in the morning, that I think I read more than is presently there; in other words, I think some of what she had written was already ‘deleted’ even in the background. That’s all I can say.
But welcome, Papa Jack! We have a few men on this site and though some of the women would rather it be totally for women (give it’s name), if you have something to say, you may find agreement or people will say nothing or someone may disagree (the American way, eh?). We have extremely bright, well-informed women on this site. The panel alone (the ones at the top of the WOW page) who started the site…well, that should tell you everything about the excellent quality of this site.
Margaret
Thank you for the kind words Margaret. After I posted my previous response to you I did go and read some of Carmel’s previous posts and promptly saw were her pain was coming from. It is good she has a place to vent. As I stated before, I came across this site by accident but was surprised by the civility. This is seldom seen. Most comment sites always seem to be "us" vs. "them" and if you don’t agree with "us" then "them" is called all sorts of names and in the course of name calling, the original subject matter is forgotten.
Have a good weekend. —-Jack—-
Liz,
WoW is getting better every day. You gals have created quite an entity, here.
Top notch and professional, that’s you along with all other 15 or so women in this venture.
Liz,
Congratulations on the new endeavors! It is always fun and interesting to read your rports on the people, places and "things" going on around you. I’ll be seeing you here and will pick up Parade to see what you’re up to there. Another bad turn for The NY Post - they’ve been having such a rough time of it lately.
Wishing you love, peace and many more adventures,
E