Dishing And Taking

Celebrity Gossip Columnist Liz Smith Gives Dan Rather The Scoop On Her Life

(CBS) 
"He was powerful in a not particularly admirable way in the end, you know. One person went to his funeral. But, he had the ear of the President. And President Roosevelt leaked information to him to help influence Americans to go into WWII," Smith reports.

And J. Edgar Hoover used him as well.

"So, here you had these two faucets of information and gossip power. No wonder he became powerful. There's never been anything like him again. And, you know, he would have 1,000-1,500 newspapers. I'm lucky if I've got 70 today," Smith says of Winchell.

Smith grew up in Texas, a horse-loving tomboy.

She arrived in the Big Apple in 1949. For the next decade she paid her dues.

"I got a job as ghost-writing on an old society column called "Cholly Knickerbocker," which was the last gasp of café society in New York.

In 1976, Smith got a gossip column of her own at the New York Daily News.

Three decades later, at age 83, she's still at it -- six columns a week -- in the New York Post and 70 other newspapers. She's said to have made as much as $1 million a year, right up there with some of the celebrities she writes about.

In her time, Smith says the gossip business has become "watered down."

"There are too many people doing it," Smith says. "And now they do it on the Internet. And bloggers do it. And the bloggers don't have to be responsible. They can tell, say anything they want. They aren't substantiated for the most part. So I'm afraid to read them and believe I know something. And then I'll reiterate it maybe down the line and forgotten where I got it."

But she couldn't blame the bloggers when, five years ago, her own life became the stuff of gossip. In her memoir "Natural Blonde," Smith wrote not only about her two divorces, but also that her love life had included women as well as men.

Yet Smith has no regrets about revealing secrets of her romantic life, but says the book did have consequences.

"Because it involved sex, of course, it was the thing people seized on," Smith says, adding, "I think I paid a price for waiting so long. I mean it's not good to have secrets."

And yet, Smith says she's willing to keep other people's secrets.

"I would be reluctant to print husbands and wives being unfaithful to each other. It just seems as I got older, I didn't want to be the one to tell," Smith admits. "I don't like those stories about people misbehaving in bathrooms and doing vulgar things. I could just pass over that. Let somebody else do it."

Perhaps that's why in her recent book "Dishing," Smith's juiciest tidbits center on food. In it, she literally "dishes out" a lifetime of stories about celebrities and food, complete with recipes as proof.

"I liked it better than writing my memoir. In "Dishing" I didn't have to deal with my disappearing sex life," Smith quips.

Though Smith admits she is no master in the kitchen.

"I really can't cook. And I have a hard time following recipes. And it never turns out the way I like. But I sure like food. And I've eaten low on the hog and high on the hog," she says.

But more than that, says Smith, is how much you can learn about celebrities when the conversation turns to food.

For instance, how Georgia-born Julia Roberts craves biscuits and gravy. Or how Renée Zellweger wants everyone else to bulk up when she has to gain a few pounds for a role.

"I don't think Renée eats except for roles to make herself fat like when she played Bridget Jones. And then three week later she's slim as a snake," Smith says. "She always sent to me these fattening cookies. We don't get them all eaten when she sends another batch.

Then, there's Nicole Kidman.

"When I have had dinner with Nicole she eats everything on the table," Smith reports. Recalling their first dinner, Smith says of Kidman, "She ate every single roll in the bread basket at the Four Seasons. And then we had dinner. We became great friends over that dinner. I really love that girl. She's a wonderful girl."

And people say Smith can be pretty wonderful, too. Take her 80th birthday.

"What I said was don't send me sachets and bath powder and you know everybody sends body lotion. All old ladies get this stuff 'cause people can't imagine they want anything else," Smith jokes.

Instead, Smith used her birthday to raise more than a quarter of a million dollars for charity. Over the years, she's charmed her friends into donations totaling some $20 million.

But can a gossip columnist be charming? In Smith's case the answer may very well be "Yes."

Pointing to a comment on her latest book's jacket that reads, "America's Most Beloved Gossip Columnist," Smith asks, "Doesn't that strike you as an oxymoron?"

Which may explain why when you ask Smith to dish some real dirt on big stars like Julia Roberts, Renée Zellweger and Nicole Kidman, what you get back is pretty tame.

"They're not so young anymore. You know, they're all approaching the big four-oh. And they're all nervous," Smith says of the actresses.

And whether it's her longevity, her Texas charm, or her willingness to leave the vulgar to others, celebrities and civilians can understand why the subtitle of her new book is "American's most beloved gossip columnist."