Liz Smith Biography Quotes 14 Report mistakes

Early Life and Education
Liz Smith was born on February 2, 1923, in Fort Worth, Texas, and grew up with a love of stories, performance, and the bustle of public life. She studied journalism at the University of Texas at Austin, honing the clear, conversational voice that later became her professional signature. After graduation, she headed to New York, the city that would define her career and, in many ways, her identity.

Breaking In and Finding a Beat
In New York, Smith started at the bottom, typing, researching, and pitching wherever she could. She worked behind the scenes for magazines and in television newsrooms, absorbing how editors, publicists, and performers managed the flow of information. This apprenticeship taught her that entertainment news was not simply gossip, but a complicated ecosystem of power, image, and commerce. She learned how to get people to talk and, just as importantly, when not to print something that would needlessly harm a source. That sense of proportion became the foundation of her public voice.

Rise as a Columnist
Smith's big break came when her own column began in the New York tabloids, most famously at the New York Daily News, where her blend of access and civility stood out. At a time when the city's newspapers competed ferociously, she managed to be both plugged-in and readable. Over the next decades, she wrote at different times for the New York Daily News, Newsday, and the New York Post, sustaining a nationally syndicated presence. Navigating changes under powerful publishers and owners, including Rupert Murdoch at the Post and Mort Zuckerman at the Daily News, she kept her footing by offering a tone of affectionate scrutiny rather than bare-knuckled takedown.

Her column chronicled the overlapping worlds of film, television, Broadway, society, and politics-as-spectacle. She wrote about figures as varied as Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, Frank Sinatra, Barbara Walters, and later Madonna and the Trumps, often breaking news about romances, reconciliations, and professional reinventions. She cultivated publicists, producers, and managers who trusted her judgment, even when they did not relish her scoops. Part of her authority came from the way she situated news in a longer narrative of careers and reputations, reminding readers that celebrity is a running story, not a single headline.

Television and a Wider Audience
Smith expanded her reach on television, becoming a regular on WNBC-TV's Live at Five, where her on-camera presence matched the wry, unhurried rhythm of her print work. The show earned her an Emmy, and the platform widened her circle of influence among anchors, producers, and the stars themselves. Television also made her a character in the culture she covered, the rare columnist whose name recognition rivaled many of her subjects.

Books and Later Writing
Late in her career, Smith published her memoir, Natural Blonde, offering a candid view of her path from Texas to the center of New York media. The book balanced industry anecdotes with reflections on voice, discretion, and the compromises of access. As print newsrooms contracted, she embraced new platforms, contributing online columns and essays and continuing to file items that circulated widely among media insiders and fans who had followed her for years.

Philanthropy and Civic Life
Smith used her position to boost causes she believed in, notably adult literacy, arts education, and AIDS-related charities. She became a driving force behind New York's high-profile literacy benefits, helping raise millions alongside allies in publishing and fashion, including Parker Ladd and Arnold Scaasi, whose networks expanded the reach of her appeals. Benefit chairs, society leaders, and producers sought her presence because she could turn an event into a story, a check into a cause, and a cause into momentum. Her connections with Broadway figures and opera patrons brought together worlds that had often operated in parallel.

Style, Ethics, and Influence
Smith's column stood apart in tone. In a field often driven by gotcha headlines, she favored context and an almost old-fashioned courtesy. That did not make her timid; it made her strategic. She understood that relationships were her currency and that her readers valued not just the news but the sensibility that filtered it. She could be tough without cruelty, amused without being dismissive. Colleagues and rivals, including Cindy Adams and the late Aileen Mehle (known as Suzy), recognized that her access came from years of careful dealing with sources who trusted her not to sensationalize. Publicists like Pat Kingsley, power brokers on the Hollywood side of the equation, knew she would listen, verify, and temper, even while printing what mattered.

Personal Life
Smith was protective of her private world but did not hide from it. In her memoir and interviews, she reflected on relationships with both men and women, and for many readers her candid acknowledgment of complexity was a mark of integrity rather than revelation. She enjoyed long, sustaining friendships, notably with the archaeologist and social figure Iris Love, and she surrounded herself with editors, authors, and performers who blurred the lines between sources and companions. She remained rooted in the rituals of New York: theater openings, charity dinners, lunches where half the work happened between the appetizer and the main course.

Later Years and Legacy
Smith continued writing well into her eighties and nineties, an almost impossible feat in a turbulent media era. She died on November 12, 2017, in New York City. Tributes from journalists, publicists, actors, and producers emphasized the same qualities: her steadiness, her generosity, her instinct for the center of a story, and her pleasure in the give-and-take of the beat. She outlasted newsroom shake-ups, ownership changes, and the migration of gossip from print to social media, proving that a distinctive voice can bridge eras.

Her legacy is visible in the columns and podcasts that aim to be both insider and humane, in the understanding that entertainment journalism can be part of the civic record, and in the charitable institutions that benefited from her relentless advocacy. Liz Smith, the Texas-born New Yorker, made a profession of curiosity and turned it into a public service, reminding her readers that celebrities are characters in a collective narrative and that the tone of the storyteller matters as much as the tale.

Our collection contains 14 quotes who is written by Liz, under the main topics: Witty One-Liners - Motivational - Leadership - Learning - Honesty & Integrity.