Elizabeth, 17, joined Jane Fonda, Richard Gere, first lady Laura Bush and hundreds of journalist slobs at the dinner, held at a Washington hotel. She wore a sequined red sleeveless dress and, according to witnesses, looked tall in her heels. Her mother, Lois, wore a cream-colored evening gown; this being a formal shindig, her dad, Ed, sported a tux.
"Is it just me, or is it weird that she's here?" asked one appalled father at the event, according to a gossip column in Monday's Washington Post.
"No, it's officially weird," responded the Post columnist.
The current People, which hit newsstands Friday, features a full-page photo of Smart, her blonde hair styled with wavy curls, posing in her home next to her now-famous harp.
"It's a nice thing to have happen to her at this time," Ed Smart told The Associated Press about his daughter being named on the magazine's "Most Beautiful People" list. "She was, of course, surprised. It was great for her self-image."
The accompanying People text includes Elizabeth's tips on playing the harp ("You have to have short fingernails or they'd just break off, and you can't wear red polish - it looks like your fingers are bleeding"). Smart adds that all the indoor harp-practicing makes her "pale in the summer," but that's OK because she'd "rather take care of my skin."
Hard-hitting questioners, those People reporters. What, no queries about her makeup, her hobbies or her pets?
I'll take know-it-all geeks for $500, Alex! "Saturday's Voyeur," the Salt Lake Acting Company's annual stage spoof of the year in Utah news and culture, opens next month. But let's be honest: These past 12 months, lacking such rich fodder as Olympic bribery scandals or strip clubs in the shadow of Temple Square, have been rather dull. (And, if you're a liberal or a Bush-hater, depressing.) So the show's creators, who write "Voyeur" from scratch each spring, have a challenge on their hands this year.
Then again, we should know by now never to underestimate the inventive satirical minds of co-writers Nancy Borgenicht and Allen Nevins. Word is that "Voyeur '05" features a hip-hop theme and will lampoon "Jeopardy!" champ Ken Jennings.
Sticking around: To the annals of obsessively observed anniversaries, add this one: The Post-it Note is 25. Yup, those sticky yellow squares, which cover your desk until they lose their impact by blending in with the rest of your clutter, are a quarter-century old.
To celebrate this historic milestone, the fine folks at 3M sent us these Post-it Note fun facts:
* Post-it Notes in China and Japan are narrow strips to accommodate their citizens' vertical style of writing.
* A Post-it Note featuring a charcoal-and-pastel drawing once sold during an online auction for $925.
* A 1998 workplace survey found that the average U.S. professional received 11 messages on Post-it Notes each day. (Of course, that was before everyone communicated via e-mail.)
* Airport ground crews in Minneapolis in 1996 once discovered a Post-it Note stuck to the nose of a plane after its flight from Las Vegas. The note, which was intended for the Las Vegas ground crew, survived speeds of 500 mph and temperatures of minus 56 degrees.
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Do you have an entertainment news tip, celebrity sighting or comment about pop culture in Utah? Send it to griggs@sltrib.com
