Liz Taylor starts jewelry line

'Young Frankenstein' sets opening night bash

By LIZ SMITH

Taylor

ELIZABETH TAYLOR still likes her baubles, but she no longer cries when she thinks she can't get what she wants -- like the 69 carat rock Richard Burton paid $1 million for. It was so big, and so heavily insured she rarely wore it. (That made Richard cry.) She later sold it to help pay off Sen. John Warner's campaign expenses. As things turned out, she'd prefer to still own the jewel. Now Elizabeth has her own jewelry line, and on Saturday at Geary's on Beverly Drive, the star will appear to show off her holiday trinkets. Store security is already a bit nervous about the expected crush. One of Geary's people said, "We have barricades, right?" Don't snicker. At this sort of event, Taylor's fans, though hardly teenagers, show up in surprising numbers. And media interest has been piqued anew since ET's coquettish admission to me that she has a new "love" in one Jason Winters.

"YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN'S" opening night party this evening will happen in the Empire State Building and there could be quite a bit of electricity striking, just as onstage. And we thought that building belonged to King Kong ... Charles Strouse says he'll bring his all-American musical "Bye Bye Birdie" back to the Roundabout!

THE NEW YORK Public Library's "Lions" event is one of the city's three or four top drawer events. (No, I'm not going to say what the others are; all these fund-raisers are worthy!) You can't actually, as a reporter, "cover" one of these social hoorays. You just sit where they put you and hope for the best. I had my artist pal Peter Rogers on my left and on my right, Robert Duvall. I also met Tom Stoppard, a Library Lion that very night, sitting with one of his former leading ladies, Christine Baranski, and Philip Seymour Hoffman.