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Article: A.J. Benza, magnetic and mysterious TV personality

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A.J. Benza, magnetic and mysterious TV personality

"When you have a position in a New York City paper, especially as a columnist, and when you wield the kind of power that only a New York City columnist can yield, you have a lot of people who need you for help," says former New York Daily News gossip columnist A.J. Benza.  "A lot of people come at you, and a lot of those favors get repaid."

Benza, 35, has since left the world of gossip for the world of TV and movies - but he still keeps in touch with friends "Jack" and "Warren" (that's Nicholson and Beatty).  Since moving to Hollywood, Benza has been busy.  He has an autobiography coming out, is hosting Mysteries and Scandals, a show on E! Entertainment, had a role in Ransom with Mel Gibson and Renee Russo, and has made another independent movie with Steven Segal.  Still, he says that he flies back to New York to hang out with his old friends. "The guys I run with are the same guys I've run with for the last 15 years.  They're names are like Rocko, Vinny Boy and Chico and Frankie.  They keep me grounded. You don't make better friends than you do when you're 10, 15 years old."Vault Reports interviewed Benza about his rise from a sportswriter with Newsday to a player in the entertainment world.  Here are some excerpts.

Vault: When you were talking about how people needed you in your Daily News days what do you mean by that?

Benza: Especially when you're dealing with Hollywood types and movie types and publishing types and music types, people need good publicity, people need certain stories out there.

V: So celebrities would actually contact you?

Benza: Some celebrities would.  Absolutely.  There were some celebrities that would contact me when there was a problem in their lives.  When they anticipated a scandal, so to speak.  There were several big-time celebrities who needed to speak with me and said 'Maybe we can fix this,' and 'Maybe we can frame it in a certain way.' Now, I'd be lying if I said I never got anything back in return for those things that I did.

~ V: What kinds of favors would they do?

Benza: Well, you know, sometimes some of the biggest celebrities in the world would give you a story on someone else as long as you balanced their little scandal.  And if I was a big fan of the celebrity, in most cases I would silence the scandal.  My goal was to come out of the gossip field with a lot of stars and celebrities and powerful people on my side.  It's very easy to alienate those people.  If you really want to go at the core of scandals that exist in this town, you can alienate yourself from everyone powerful.  That was never my objective.

V: How did you get up to this position of power?

Benza: It was totally by surprise.  I was married and then I got divorced.  Once I got divorced I started going out on the town a lot - I was always drawn to Manhattan.  I was a part-time sportswriter at Newsday, and then I started helping out on the gossip page at New York Newsday.  And once I was on the gossip columns, or helping out on the gossip columns, I was given all these invitations to parties and openings and galas, you name it, and it didn't take long before people started giving you winks, throwing you a couple of beers.  You'd mention their restaurant in an item, mention their club, mention their client, and, you know, all of a sudden the invitations pour in, and the favors pour in, and you become a little powerful.