COLD OPEN: Why did Frank Sinatra denounce me from stages all over the world? Donald Trump said he was going to buy the New York Daily News in order to fire me. Sean Connery called me up one day, he told me he would like to stick my column up my ass. I said, well gee, that’s the nicest offer I’ve had all week. (LAUGHS) WITH A REGARD THAT BORDERED ON THE PROMOTIONAL WHILE SPICING UP THE HEADLINES WITH AN OCCASIONAL NEWS-GRABBING FEUD. “Like the marital dispute between Donald and Ivana Trump” IN HER 60 YEARS IN YORK CITY JOURNALISM, LIZ SMITH BECAME A ONE-WOMAN PHENOMENON. SHE WAS THE MOST INFLUENTIAL GOSSIP COLUMNIST OF HER ERA, THE QUEEN OF DISH WHO MINGLED WITH SOCIALITES, POWER BROKERS, BROADWAY ACTORS AND HOLLYWOOD CELEBRITIES, AS IF SHE WAS ONE OF THEM. (00:38:51;26) Q: Gossip is gossip and a good friend of yours, Kate Hepburn said to you once, how do you write this drivel? SMITH: No, she said, how can you stand to do the things you do? (LAUGHS) Q: Did you ever feel compromised that you’d gone from quote-unquote, “journalism” to quote-unquote, “gossip?” SMITH: Well I had tried to be a standard journalist. You know I had gone to the Times and to The New Yorker and everywhere else and I couldn’t get arrested. I wasn’t an Ivy League.... I mean I wasn’t Vassar, Smith. Those were the kind of girls they were hiring. I was just this little hick with a journalism degree from University of Texas which didn’t mean much. So that sounds a little defensive, but I think the question is did I ever feel I compromised? Yes. I don’t think anybody can write, I’m not just talking about gossip, I don’t think anybody can write entertainment journalism without feeling a little compromised. I went along probably with it too much. Q: in what way? 0:39:42.7 SMITH: But I did work hard. I mean I worked hard to try to tell the truth and draw the lines. But I want to tell you something, when you’re writing, I think all writers, they have to reinvent their ethics every day. CRITICS SAID THAT BY BEFRIENDING HER SUBJECTS, SHE COMPROMISED HER JOURNALISTIC OBJECTIVITY. She’s been accused of being “too nice“. I went along probably with it too much. Q: in what way? 0:39:42.7 SMITH: But I did work hard. I mean I worked hard to try to tell the truth and draw the lines. But I want to tell you something, when you’re writing, I think all writers, they have to reinvent their ethics every day. CRITICS SAID THAT BY BEFRIENDING HER SUBJECTS, SHE COMPROMISED HER JOURNALISTIC OBJECTIVITY. She’s been accused of being “too nice“. Smith believes these kinds of cheap thrills have replaced the glamorous world she covered during most of her career. SMITH: I think things are very, very different in the last ten years from the entire rest of my life. You know in New York alone, I lived through all of the ‘50s, ‘60s, ‘70s, ‘80s, ‘90s and here we are in the 21st Century and things are very different over the last ten years. I would just say over you know the millennium things have been going downhill. They’ve gone downhill culturally. /// (00:18:35;05) It seems trite to say this, but what changed is television first changed everything because it began to dilute talent, dilute effort, dilute creativity. And now the internet has come along, everything is known instantly, there’s no thrill of discovery. // (00:24:25;04) I don’t see it as adding glamour and fun and you know any real meaning to life. So I’m sort of disillusioned with my chosen profession. MARY ELIZABETH SMITH WAS BORN ON FEBRUARY 2, 1923 IN FORT WORTH, TEXAS, ONE OF THREE CHILDREN BORN TO AN ECCENTRIC, FUN-LOVING COTTON BROKER AND A STRICT, SOUTHERN BAPTIST MOTHER. SHE WOULD THAT SAY HER CHILDHOOD COULD BE DEFINED BY THE TRAVIS AVENUE BAPTIST CHURCH ON ONE SIDE, AND THE TIVOLI MOTION PICTURE THEATER ON THE OTHER. THERE, EACH SATURDAY, SHE DREAMT OF MAKING HER FAME AND FORTUNE IN THE BIG CITY. SHE WOULD DO JUST THAT - WITH A TEXAS ACCENT. (00:04:55;26) I had rea