Psst!
Liz Smith, the grande dame of dish, talks about Texas, her book Natural Blonde, religion, and her pal Ann Richards.
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LS: Gosh, I haven't the vaguest idea. I'd probably try to be acting or something stupid that I wouldn't do very well. I don't know. I'd be writing somehow, I think.
JS: Have you ever been in any movies?
LS: Yeah, I've been in three movies. I was in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I was in The Fan with Lauren Bacall. I was in Garbo Talks, which was a movie that Sydney Lemet directed. I occasionally get little royalty checks of three dollars or two dollars and ten cents, or seventeen cents sometimes. It's really quite funny. And I've done a lot of television shows. I did an episode on Becker with Ted Danson, I did Murphy Brown with Candy Bergen, I did The Nanny with Fran Drescher, I just did the new Martin Short comedy thing called Primetime Glick on Comedy Central. So, I've done a lot of television. But I'm no actor. I know that.
JS: Do you enjoy doing that?
LS: Sure, it's fun. You get to see how show business works. How tedious it is, hurry up and wait. Making movies is really boring for me; it's like watching paint dry. I wouldn't be a very good actor; I'd hate to be an actor.
JS: Of all the people you have interviewed, who's been the most interesting? the least interesting? the best?
LS: Oh, I don't know. My most successful interviews were with Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, when they were still married. I did a series of things on them that were important. All the reporting I did on the Trumps helped make me really famous, but I can't single anything out as being the best. The director Mike Nichols is the most interesting person I've ever interviewed, or known. He's just brilliant and witty and wonderful. I've met so many stars, television stars, radio, media stars, movie stars, you know. And most of them are kind of ordinary folk. There are a few exceptions like Katharine Hepburn and Elizabeth Taylor, where they are just so larger than life that your mouth sort of falls open in their presence. But I just try to treat them like I'd treat anybody I've met.
JS: What about a worst interview?
LS: I haven't had too many bad interviews. You just occasionally have somebody who won't say anything. I had an interview in Good Housekeeping this month with Julia Roberts on the cover, and I felt she was not forthcoming. And now I think it was because she was breaking up with that guy Benjamin Bratt, but she didn't want to say so. I thought it was sort of a diffident, strange interview since I've known her a long time. I didn't feel like I got anything out of her. To me—I love her—but that's a bad interview. You want them to say something. They don't want to.
JS: What's the most shocking thing somebody has divulged to you?
LS: I don't think anybody has said anything shocking to me. I wish I could get them to say shocking things and divulge things, but they usually don't. You know, I don't deal in scandal and shock much. I just try to deal with these people as human beings, which doesn't make me a great reporter. I know you're supposed to trick everybody into saying things they didn't want to say. I can't do that, that's not my style.
JS: Do you think it's really important to stay on the moral side?
LS: Well, I hope so. I've tried to be a good person in my life. I haven't always succeeded, but I would hate to be an unprincipled person, wouldn't you?
JS: Yes, I would.
LS: You know, do somebody wrong, tell a lie about them. Those are just things I wouldn't do. I was raised in the Southern Baptist tradition of "Do Unto Others . . . "—the Golden Rule.
JS: You're no longer Southern Baptist, right?
LS: No, I'm no longer anything. I'm just a doubting skeptic like most people are, really.
JS: So, you don't go to any certain church or anything?
LS: I go to all churches. I love churches. I love to study religions, but I can't embrace any one of them.
JS: Are there any that you like more than others?
LS: I like the whole Christian tradition very much. It's hard for me to embrace all the supernatural aspects of it. But I think there's something wonderful out there. Oh, and I'm writing a book about life after death. I'm writing a novel called . . . I don't know, maybe you'll think of a title for me. I don't have a title yet.
JS: You're writing a book about life after death?
LS: I am. I'm writing a comic novel about life after death.
JS: How far have you gotten?
LS: I'm pretty far along. I'd say it's about a quarter finished. I don't work on it much because when I start working on it I can't do anything else. So I need to go away on a vacation and work on it and see if I can get it a little further along.
JS: What's it about?
LS: It's about a man on 60 Minutes who's killed in a train wreck on his way to the Hamptons and he keeps wanting to go back to earth to finish unfinished business. And he's in a sort of argument with God and the devil and all that. It's supposed to be funny. I don't know if it will be. If I could emulate anybody, it would be Joseph Heller, the guy who wrote Catch-22. He would be my idol for accomplishing this, and I don't know if I can accomplish it. When I say it's supposed to be funny, I don't know if it will be.
JS: If you could go back and start all over, would you change anything that you've done in your life?
LS: Yeah, I wouldn't have married the two men I married. I wouldn't have caused them so much pain. I wasn't meant to be married, so that's all there is to that.
JS: Are you still friends with them?
LS: Yes. Well, one of them is dead. Yes, I'm still friends with my first husband who lives in Austin and is a wonderful guy. But I shouldn't have caused him so much trouble.
JS: Do you have any words of wisdom or something to leave young journalists with?
LS: Learn to type. Learn to use computers. Employ these devices. Read. Get a liberal education if you're going to be a writer. Study history, philosophy, stuff like that. Art.
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