Spit-Spat

"I feel like Dr. Frankenstein. I taught her everything she knows, and she's damn smart." Thus did chain-smoking Houston Post Gossip Columnist Bill Roberts, 43, express his frustration about a journalistic "creation" that has come home to haunt him: blonde Maxine Mesinger, 35, tattler for the Houston Press. Once Roberts' girl Friday on the Press, Maxine last week was still scooping her way through town as his chief rival, barely noting a snippy feud that has Houstonians gabbing as much about the two columnists as about the people they chronicle.

Fear & Confidence. The Houston gossipists' spit-spat has been building ever since Roberts abruptly announced 20 months ago that after 23 years on the Press he was quitting to accept a better offer from the Post Press Editor George Carmack frantically placed long-distance calls for a replacement. When none appeared, he took a slow look around his own city room, finally tapped energetic Maxine, mother of two, who had worked for Roberts since 1956 and knew all of her old boss's news sources. "I was petrified." says Maxine. "I couldn't eat. I couldn't sleep. After all, Bill Roberts had been writing his column for twelve years. Who was I to take him on?" Roberts concurred, warned Maxine: "Nobody's ever been able to buck me. You'll be out of a job in six months."

Rapidly greying Roberts, who recently sported a beard for a local festival, had every reason for confidence; but he failed to appreciate what a good teacher he had been. "Have tongue, will tattle," said Maxine--and she did. Invading the nightclubs. Maxine won palships with such visiting celebrities as Marguerite Piazza and Carol Channing. Businessmen enjoyed boasting to her about real estate .deals and stock market killings. Political dopesters put her so far on the inside that when she accurately forecast that Governor Price Daniel would run for a third term. Daniel himself called Maxine to express amazement. Cried the Governor: "I hadn't even told my wife, and now she's mad at me."

Attack & Retreat. Burned at his own game, Roberts took to poking at Maxine in print as "my afternoon femmitation." used his wife's byline in "memos" to himself that scorned "the newcomer to news ranks," who was "running around like she's just misplaced Rock Hudson." Maxine kept a disdainful public silence. "I'm like the fellow who was kicked by the mule," she said in private. "I just consider the source and forget it."

In recognition of her 18-hour working day, Maxine recently was rewarded with star billing in the Press: "Maxine" in big fat letters above the name of her column. "Big City Beat." As for Roberts, the king of Houston's columnists is learning to share his realm, has tried to call off the one-way public feud. "I stopped her one night at the Shamrock." he says, "and told her: 'Max, I don't want this.' " Max's reaction: "Great, it's about time."

*Who said: "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

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