Liz Smith calls herself “The 2000-year-old gossip columnist.” Arriving in Manhattan from the University of Texas journalism school in 1949, she has worked in celebrity/show biz for 57 years. She has written for seven different NYC newspapers and for almost every ...

Liz Smith calls herself “The 2000-year-old gossip columnist.” Arriving in Manhattan from the University of Texas journalism school in 1949, she has worked in celebrity/show biz for 57 years. She has written for seven different NYC newspapers and for almost every magazine. She was a CBS radio producer for Mike Wallace, then an NBC-TV producer in the Fifties. Later she went on camera at NBC and won an Emmy reporting from the Battleship Intrepid on the 40th anniversary of World War II. In her best-selling memoir Natural Blonde, she wrote about being a war bride.

She appears on Fox News and in 70 newspapers. She has become a voice of reason and common sense, observing popular culture. Her philanthropy is legend -- raising millions for AIDS, Literacy Partners, N.Y. Restoration Project, P.A.L., the Mayors Fund to Advance New York and the Landmarks Conservancy. (They made her a “Living Landmark" in 1996.)

Liz is amused when dubbed as “too nice.” Says she, “If this is true why did Frank Sinatra denounce me on world stages? Why did Donald Trump try to buy my newspaper so he could fire me? Why did P.R. flack Bobby Zarem say I’d had a woman killed? Why did Sean Connery want to stick my column where the sun don’t shine? Why did Sean Penn run out of a building when we were introduced?”