23 stories by "Liz Smith"
Next Tuesday, at 54 Below Rita McKenzie will present her acclaimed one-woman show, "Ethel Merman's Broadway." Ms. McKenzie - currently appearing off-Broadway in "RUTHLESS! The Musical" - has…
Others can understand that 'Gypsy' would lose in 1959-1960 to 'The Sound of Music.' But how did 'Fiorello!' wind up in a tie with the Rodgers and Hammerstein hit " leaving 'Gypsy' to finish …
"WHAT people think of me is none of my business!" This has been attributed to Oscar Wilde, Mae West and Gary Oldman. So, who do you think said it? THE music world lost a great champion over …
“Hon-kneeeeee!” said the Hollywood agent Michael Blackkissing me Sue Mengers style after the opening night of Bette Midler‘s one-woman play, “I’ll Eat You Last,…
“NIAGARA Falls????!!!!!! …. slowly he turned ….” God knows who wrote that, maybe someone like the early W. C. Fields. This is the beginning of one of the many nonsens…
“BE yourself! Everyone else is taken!” says the magnificent drag queen star (Billy Porter) in the opening of Broadway’s newest hit musical “Kinky Boots.” THIS i…
“BUT for many years I was in love with journalism. I loved the city room. I loved the pack. I loved smoking and drinking scotch and playing dollar poker. I didn’t know much about…
"I HATE social networking media even more than yucca fries! … I communicate every day with dozens of people I've never met. Meanwhile, real friends never call…People beg you to '…
"I HAD to be cool with everything." That was the eternal mindset of Sachi Parker, the only child of actress Shirley MacLaine and Shirley's distant, mysterious husband, Steve Parker. Sachi ha…
"OH, you weak beautiful people, who give up with such grace …" Those are Maggie the Cat's final lines in Tennessee Williams' classic stage tale of frustrated love, tortured lust, greed…
"EATING! What a concept!" said the actress Holland Taylor to me way back when I first met her when we were both young.
Since then, the art of eating, dining, food, health and restaurants …
"AT THIS stage in my life " and this moment will not last forever " me walking my dog is news … I don't fall out of nightclubs. I don't have photographers catching me spending untold a…
"OH, THE stories, I have. But … they'll have to wait. They make me too sad. Maybe later, when it doesn't hurt too much." That was Liza Minnelli onstage at the Manhattan memorial for th…
"LISTEN could we just say I'm Switzerland on that one? I'd rather remain neutral, publicly." That was Donny Osmond's response when I asked him how he felt about a Mormon candidate for presid…
"LOOK, I'M 26, and I want to make records and party and screw around and wear fake Chanel and do what every other 26-year-old wants to do. I don't want to settle down and live in a house yet…
"WITHOUT MUSIC, life would be a mistake," said Fredrich Nietzsche. SO MANY of you responded to mine here on the unexpected and sudden death of Marvin Hamlisch. Well, his funeral was "the rea…
"But in December there's just one place for me Mid the California flora I'll be lighting my menorah. Like a baby in its cradle I'll be playing with my draydel Here's to Judas Maccabeus, Boy …
"NEVER PASS up a chance to have sex or appear on television," said Gore Vidal famously. This is just one of his many and best quotes which were sent to me last week by his all-time …
"I AM ashamed that women are so simple!" says Katherina to Petruchio in the end of Taming of The Shrew by William Shakespeare. She goes on to say, "… to offer war where they s…
I am sitting here with an open box of mail from and to Nora Ephron between the years of the early 60s and a month ago. It should be crammed but I realize from reading my own answers t…
"TOURISM DESTROYS the object it loves," said travel writer Patrick Leigh Fermor. My friends in London over the last few weeks, complained by e-mail that it rained on them for eleven st…
"FUCK 'EM if they can't take a joke." Bette Midler immortalized that expression. And Tom Cruise must be muttering it himself this week. Although I had a feeling Rock of Ageswa…
Liz reviews la Stritch's Sondheim tribute at Cafe Carlyle
