Liz Smith (journalist) Smith later moved to New York City, where she worked as a typist, proofreader, and reporter before she broke into the media world as a news producer for Mike Wallace at CBS Radio. She spent five years as a news producer for NBC-TV. She also worked for Allen Funt on "Candid Camera". In the late 1950s, Smith worked as a ghostwriter for the popular "Cholly Knickerbocker" gossip column that appeared in the Hearst newspapers. After leaving that column in the early 1960s she went to work for Helen Gurley Brown as the entertainment editor for the American version of "Cosmopolitan",
Helen Gurley Brown magazine played an important role in helping young women redefine their roles in society." Audie Cornish from NPR said that Helen "has been called a bad girl, a pioneer in Prada, a revolutionary in stilettos." Brown looked at herself as a feminist, but this description was contested by several others. After a brief hospitalization, Helen Gurley Brown died August 13, 2012 at the McKeen Pavilion at New York–Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia. She was 90. In a statement announcing the news of her death, Hearst Publications noted that "Helen was one of the world's most recognized magazine editors and book authors, and a