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| 7/8 |
| 2004/7/12 [Recreation/Dating] UID:32229 Activity:moderate |
7/12 "Frugal Gourmet" Jeff Smith has died at age 65.
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/0711obitsmith11.html
\_ Reading the article, did he really abuse kids when he was a
minister?
\_ It was never settled in court. One side says yes, the other side
says the timing of the accusation makes it look like a blackmail
plot. Regardless, he seemed like a nice man and his show was
what got me interested in cooking. -op
\_ He paid 'em off, didn't he?
\_ Yeah, after they made it public, so it's hard to say...
\_ Not knowing anything else, my money would be on: he
did something bad, and he paid 'em off so his own kids
and wife wouldn't have too messed up a life with
everyone knowning about their child abuser dad.
I mean, the guy is just nice. I don't think you can
get seven guys to lie about his molesting them; guys who
will be attacked by the public as well. |
| 7/8 |
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| www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/0711obitsmith11.html advertisement Sex scandal ruined culinary expert's TV career in 1997 Gene Johnson Associated Press Jul. He had long suffered from heart disease and had a valve replaced in 1981. Smith's enthusiasm for food began during his childhood in Tacoma. When money was tight, grocers would give his mother cast-off produce. Paddleford said Smith's mother would always make do with what she received, and Smith developed a great appreciation for rustic cooking. Wearing his signature striped apron, he prefaced the show with history lessons about the culture of each dish. We would get these letters from people saying that he allowed them to travel to places they would never see and try foods they would never have tried." In the 1960s, Smith, a United Methodist minister, began teaching a course at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma. In 1974, he got his own program on the local PBS affiliate: Cooking Fish Creatively. He moved the show to Chicago, and his career took off with an appearance on Phil Donahue's talk show. The Frugal Gourmet became the nation's most-watched cooking program, and a series of cookbooks broke sales records for the category. But in 1997, seven men filed a lawsuit alleging they had been sexually abused by Smith as youths. Smith was soon off the air, although he denied the allegations and was never charged with a crime. He and his insurance companies paid an undisclosed sum to settle the lawsuit. and the good he had done being taken away by largely unsubstantiated innuendo," Paddleford said. "But he saw there was no way to undo or overcome the public relations and so he decided to retire." |