"Liz, you do your column with minor mistakes, so your readers will respond!" said my friend, the late Nora Ephron.
She liked to josh with me about making corrections, saying, "You're the only one who does this!"
So we were ahead of "social media" all along and didn't know it.
• Regarding Elaine Stritch doing only one movie for Woody Allen, September. Well, I continue to be educated about my longtime friend Elaine who frequently forgot to tell me these things.
Susan Conrad writes: "Remember, Elaine Stritch had a charming cameo role in Woody's Small Time Crooks, in which she plays the hostess of the posh party at which Woody's character and Elaine May's character attempt to steal her jeweled necklace. This was precious!"
•"I just finished 'The Hotel on Place Vendome' about the famous Ritz Hotel. I loved it as I did Tilar Mazzeo's book about Chanel No. 5..." writes Nancy Thomsen.
"The only thing that popped out at me being incorrect was her statement about Papa Hemingway killing himself in Key West, Florida. As I recall, he shot himself in Ketchum, Idaho at his hunting lodge." Nancy Thomsen is correct. The author of the Ritz book was incorrect. And so was I, not to have noticed this.
•A THOUGHT from reader Yanthy Martim: "I was born in the 60's to Cuban parents who introduced me to old movies and real movie stars. Today's actors, excluding a few, cannot compare to the actors of the past. Everyone's also now called beautiful where if they are lucky, they should be described as 'reasonably attractive.' Elizabeth Taylor, Hedy Lamar, Lana Turner, to name a few, were true beauties. Today, to qualify for beauty you only need to be young, have huge breasts and two pins that pass for legs. There is also no mystique to these actresses. So thank goodness for AMC and TCM."
• HERE'S A "helpful" suggestion from a guy named Michael Mogelgaard and he wants to enlighten us as to why so many people die of barbiturate overdose on weekends!
"They usually have no commitments so no one checks on them. It's because they wake up, see that the clock says, '4' and think it means 4 in the morning, not the afternoon. They then take more pills as they think their pills aren't working. Then they wake again and, still confused by the time, they take more.
"It's not really suicide; it's an accidental overdose -- like what happened to Brian Epstein, and many others."
•GET READY! Beg, borrow or steal an invite and crash the Arlene Dahl-Marc Rosen anniversary of their happy 30 year wedlock at Doubles on September 30th.
And if you can't get in to nibble on Doubles' delicious food, well, tough! Maybe through the years, you didn't quite appreciate the last great and beautiful star of MGM's Golden Era. Maybe you didn't find enough niceness in her final choice of creative packaging expert Marc Rosen. These two have given marriage a good name!
But until she was packaged by Marc, Arlene defied having wedding anniversaries. She married some of Hollywood's bad boys -- Fernando Lamas, Lex Baker and three others. But she finally got it right.
Fortunately, her adventures led to three divine children and what she did to keep her beauty, I don't know, but it is hers alone.
•Advice from Theater Hall of Fame's Terry Hodge Taylor: "If you want to see the level of Adolph Hitler...go to the Ron Lauder Neue Gallerie Museum on 86th and 5th. 'Degenerate Art' is the theme. It reviews the whole 30's in Germany and the rise of Hitler and his 'purging' of the modern art scene. And just go to see this incredible old mansion turned art museum."
•And Patrick Foy comments about a recent item we did on Helen Mirren. "A few days ago I finished reviewing the 2-disc DVD of her 1971 BBC performance in 'Cousin Bette,' playing Valerie, the courtesan with four clueless lovers at the same time. I have never seen such an ample, tasteful, delicate and erotic display of décolletage anywhere. I understand that in the original in one scene, Mirren bares it all, but at her request it was taken out of the DVD. That's OK. Overall an amazing performance."
•Any excuse to show a fabulous photo by Tom Gates. Yesterday was Andy Warhol's birthday, so here I am peeking at him in 1986 at an AIDS benefit. Yoko Ono, Sean Lennon, Keith Haring, Andy and Andre Gregory are the others.