Long Live the Queen!

by Lloyd Grove Info

Lloyd Grove is editor at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.

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Andrew H. Walker / Getty Images This week, Liz Smith, the doyenne of gossip columnists, was fired after more than 30 years of writing for New York newspapers. She dishes with Lloyd Grove about why Rupert Murdoch couldn’t save her, Gawker doesn’t matter, the Post isn’t a real New York paper—and how she was abducted by aliens.

After more than three decades as the reigning queen of New York gossip, Liz Smith was unceremoniously let go by The New York Post this week. Editor in chief Col Allan, who arrived from Australia eight years ago to run Rupert Murdoch’s tabloid, informed the 86-year-old legend by letter that tough economic times have made it impossible to renew her contract. (Her final column runs Thursday—though she is still syndicated and will write for wowow.com and Variety.) There is, of course, a backstory and Smith dished about it with former Daily News gossip columnist Lloyd Grove.

Let me ask—as one fired gossip columnist to another—

Yes, I’ve joined the club.

What does that feel like, after 33 years with a column in the New York newspapers, to be canned like that?

It’s emasculating, you know? It makes you feel like you’ve lost your identity to some extent. I think we’ve probably identified ourselves with our work more than we realize we do, maybe even more than is healthy for us and in that respect we place ourselves at the mercy of people who are so much more powerful than we are.

How long ago did you see this coming? It wasn’t a surprise

No, I feared from the beginning I wasn’t Col Allan’s cup of tea. And I didn’t hang around The Post. I never sucked up. I didn’t go up to Elaine’s and hang out. And that’s just because I was busy doing my own thing, and last year when he wanted to cut me down to three a week from six a week, I tried to go over his head, to Rupert [Murdoch] who I’ve worked for off and on for twenty years, and who I like very much. He’s always been great to me. I sat down and told him I wasn’t ready to quit yet anymore than he’s ready to quit. Rupert is a lot younger than I am—I think he may have gotten it—but he is dedicated to Col. I would be, too, if I had ever met with his charming approval. And Rupert said he couldn’t overrule him.

Why do you think you and Col didn’t click?

I don’t really know. I had one little quarrel, just one disagreement with the photo editor who wanted me to kill an item and I said I wouldn’t. It was an item about Mariska Hargitay having a baby. She had called me herself to say she was pregnant, and for some reason, this guy didn’t want me to print it—he said it was his story. I didn’t quite know what that meant. I’d already written it into the column and it had gone, so I appealed to Col over his head and he wrote back that the photo editor had his confidence. I sure didn’t have it. Look, he has a perfect right not to think I’m not his kind of writer. I’m not scandalous enough, I’m not aggressive enough, I’m doing philosophical journalism, if you will, because there’s no other kind now. I didn’t really fit the mold there. He had a perfect right to get rid of me, and he’s done that. I just think that his argument of economic hard times is not in the Post’s interest.

According to what I’ve seen you were making only $125,000 from the Post.

Yes, I was making nothing compared to what I’d made in the past, and I would’ve negotiated again with them if they were in trouble. I mean, I’m a reasonable person, I know that times are tough.

Now Col sent you a letter. Did he ever tell you anything in person about this?

No, no one has spoken to me. At the end of January I wrote a letter to Rupert because Col Allan hasn’t spoken to me in a year, so I said I was anxious to re-sign and wanted to go on working and hoped to die with my boots on at my desk and all that stuff. And Rupert didn’t answer. And then Col sent me a very nice letter saying he was sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings, and they had economic difficulties, et cetera, and they were not renewing my contract. So I’ve never talked to anybody there.

But I will go bravely on, move on more fully to the wowowow.com and keep up writing the column every day to the Tribune Syndicate, and keep writing for Variety twice a week.

Now how many papers does your common appear in now?

I don’t know. They keep saying 70 but I doubt there are 70 papers left in America. You know what? I don’t want to find out. I love newspapers. I love working in New York. I loved working of the New York Daily News for 19 years, I loved working for New York Newsday which was very innovative, ahead of itself, and died, of course, because the Chandler family wouldn’t sustain it. Then I worked for Newsday and the Post at the same time. I was thrilled that the Post took me on, though I knew I wasn’t their kind of person and so they’ve now proved that I’m not their kind of person.

There was a time obviously when gossip was the big thing and it was very remunerative. Weren’t you getting over a million dollars from Newsday?

For a long time, at Newsday I was paid much above my station. [Laughs] Yeah, I made a lot of money from writing this, and I’ve had the time of my life, so I’m not going to complain now. I’m just moving on to whatever is left.