What's a Texas girl in New York to do? Party Western-style!

By Eric O'Keefe

It doesn't matter whether you're throwing one or going to one, "everybody loves a Western party," declares native Texan Liz Smith, whose syndicated columns, television reports, and an occasional Emmy Award have earned her A-list honors at parties all across Manhattan--and beyond.

"There's something about cowboy boots that makes people want to get up and stomp around," says Smith. Her parties have raised so many millions of dollars to overcome illiteracy in New York that her cause célèbre, the Literacy Partners, has now created the Liz Smith Fund. The secret of her success? "Every year we threw a Western Hoedown."

Listen to Liz: when it comes to giving a great party, going Western is always a great idea. "Almost everyone has a pair of boots and some jeans--even in Manhattan or Los Angeles--and if they don't, they can always head straight down to Billy Martin's."

According to Smith, Western wear and gear almost always put people at ease. "Even Barbara Walters has a great Western outfit." she says. "And you'll find that once you get someone like Donald Trump in some blue jeans and a pair of boots, a whole different person emerges."

Liz Smith (right) at a 1997 fundraising event with Shirley MacLaine and Diane Sawyer.

She admits, however, that there's much more to a good hoedown than just boots and suits. Smith ensures that her guests get an authentic taste of down home cooking. Cowboy cooking is always a favorite with guests. Barbecue, Mexican food, Southwestern cuisine--or a combination of the three--always proves popular. Add some Lone Star longnecks or icy pitchers of Cuervo Gold margaritas and all you need is the music. "And there are plenty of good choices there as well," she adds.

Smith's love affair with the West can be traced to her childhood. Growing up in Fort Worth. Smith remembers marching up and down her family's driveway in chaps and a Western outfit, all the while proclaiming that she was Tom Mix.

But it wasn't until she went off to college in Abilene that Smith met the real McCoy. "Everyone at Hardin-Simmons wore boots," she recalls, "though unlike today, all the girls wore skirts or dresses because that was 1941."

Smith left the Lone Star State for the bright lights of Manhattan immediately after graduating from the University of Texas at Austin with a journalism degree. She quickly began to stock her resume with the kinds of media industry assignments only the wonderfully young and enthusiastic can endure: proof reading at Newsweek; producing Mike Wallace's CBS Radio Show; working in live TV at NBC; even editing the last of the great movie magazines, Modern Screen Magazine.

It was ghost-writing Cholly Knickerbocker's famous gossip column at the Journal-American that brought out her true colors. A long-time fan of Walter Winchell, the country's best known gossip columnist, Smith proved herself at the Hearst publication and later became the entertainment editor at Cosmopolitan. In 1976, she was hired by the New York Daily News to write what quickly was recognized as the country's best gossip and entertainment column.

Despite East Coast attempts to wean her from her Western roots, Smith has stayed true to her Western ways. "I knew I wanted a fun party for my 60th birthday, so I asked Louise Grunwald to co-host the party with me." Attired in matching blue and red military outfits they found in Taos, they paraded around replete with gold braid and gaudy epaulettes "just like Custer's Seventh Cavalry."

Liz Smith currently appears on the "E" Channel's Gossip Show and Fox TV's Good Day New York. She is syndicated in more than 70 newspapers and is the first and only columnist to ever appear in three metropolitan newspapers concurrently--Newsday, the New York Post, and the Staten Island Advance. Her column can be found at www.newsday.com/mainnews/lizsmith.htm.

Copyright ©1998 Cowboys & Indians

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