Liz Smith, the 85-year-old gossip columnist whose name, when mentioned in the press, is often accompanied by "industry veteran" or "losing her mind," recently starred in a New York Times photo shoot. It was happenstance; she was dining at Michael's post-Labor Day, so Vibe founder Jonathan Van Meter could interview her for New York, and the newspaper had sent a photog there to snap for Frank Bruni's biting review of the place.

But less about food, more about things that usually accompany Ms. Smith's name. "Gay" is also one of them.

The gossip columnist hasn't hid her sexuality in recent decades, but she's not wearing rainbow flags on her lapels, either. And when she did come out publicly, via her 2000 book Natural Blonde, she did so by saying she divorced her husband after just a year of marriage, which was "long enough for me to know it wasn't working for me." Get it?

Amusing, then, to see Ms. Smith so delicately broach the subject one more time:

Liz Smith is sitting front and center at Michael’s, still a media whorehouse after all these years. It is the Wednesday after Labor Day and everyone is back. Smith herself just flew in from the Hamptons on a helicopter with Pete Peterson and his wife, Joan. You can practically smell the pent-up neediness—the yearning to get back in the spotlight—emanating from all these show-offs in their new fall wardrobes. Indeed, there is so much boldface here today that Smith’s blonde bobbed head is spinning.

Next to us on one side is Les Moonves, sipping a glass of white wine. (“He didn’t introduce me to his lunch companion.”) Kathleen Turner arrives to sit on the other side of us, and Smith jumps up. (“I feel I should rise for her. I can’t let her come to me.”) The handsome young fellow who is keeping Barry Diller waiting for far longer than anyone should has not arrived yet, so Diller pays us a visit, bends to kiss Smith on the cheek, and then talks about his trip through the Greek islands on his “boat.” (“One of the biggest yachts in the world,” says Smith. “When he says we, I am not going to ask who we is.”)

Because only every so often is Diller out yachting with his lovely wife and beard, Diane Von Furstenberg, and not some blonde twink he met in Mykonos. Wink wink. Nudge nudge.

[Photo: Portfolio]