I never spent a single hour at Columbia School of Journalism, except when I gave a lecture to journalism students - and I was about as popular as a fire hydrant at the Westchester dog show.

It's only those who are lucky enough to work for Rupert Murdoch who know what I am talking about.

Wouldn't that mean "extremely popular?" I guess we'll never know.

• Madonna and Alex Rodriguez had a big secret dinner at Dos Caminos Third Avenue in New York. They arrived half an hour apart, sat in the back at a quiet, "alcove-like" table and left by separate exits. Then they denied the Mexican food rendezvous to the press, since Rodriguez's soon-to-be-ex-wife has the crazy idea Madonna sneaks around with A-Rod . But Us Weekly and Page Six each has a source who saw the dinner, so it's basically confirmed.
• The other big rumor about Madonna is that she isn't eating anything at all, ever, with anyone and that her skeleton is terrifying the innocent people of Gotham. [Sun]
• It wouldn't have been a proper farewell to Steve Dunleavy if Geraldo hadn't spilled a martini on Cindy Adams' handbag at some point in the evening. [Post, bottom item]
• Instead of taking meetings with book publishers he want to advance her $6 million, Tina Fey is personally calling celebrities to beg them to do 30 Rock cameos. Salma Hayek is the latest and she's signed on for two episodes. It's not clear if she forced Fey to do her Palin impression as part of the negotiations, but she totally should have. [P6]
• Natalie Portman sold her $6.5 million West Village condo because she is "valuing her privacy more and more."
• Jennifer Aniston complained to the press that the press falsely accused her of using her relationships to get more press. This got her more press, although not as much as a celebrity relationship would. Still: Excellent flackery. [Hollyscoop]

When the video was done, Mr. Murdoch was handed the microphone. "Your whole career defies description," Mr. Murdoch said. "You were not always the most reliable person. I once wrote you a check for $30,000 as a surprise bonus. You were so surprised you spent the whole night in Costello's. The next morning you had to come to me to confess that you'd lost the check. So I wrote a second check. But I didn't give it to you. I gave it to Gloria, who used it to make a down payment on your house, the one you are still living in."

He was also toasted by firemen and the police chief and a priest along with his press baron patron. Lots of drinking was involved. All in all, appropriate. Adios, Dunleavy. Enjoy the Obama administration in peace. [NYO; pic via Tabloid Baby]

[The story] goes like this: As a young copyboy in Australia 55 years ago, Mr. Dunleavy was so hungry for a story that he popped the tires of his father’s car at a murder scene. His father, a photographer at a rival paper, could not get to the post office to transmit photos, and Mr. Dunleavy, then about 15 years old, earned his paper a big scoop.

That is how Mr. Murdoch remembers it.

Mr. Dunleavy tells a different version. Yes, he punctured the tires of a car, but it was owned by his father’s newspaper and he did not know his dad was there. And it was not a murder but the story of a group of missing hikers.

“That story gets told and told, and each time it gets a little bit more whiskers on it,” Mr. Dunleavy said.

Missing hikers, murder, accident, whatever: The point is Dunleavy pushed past his own dad to get a story. Those are some great competitive instincts.

As a bonus, the story helps alleviate any lingering guilt among those of us who, say, woke up early to snatch a tape recorder out of our girlfriend's car for similar purposes.

(Our prior Dunleavy retirement coverage is here, here and here.)

• From Paul Malmont: "I was in a car with him on the way to Amityville, hearing great stories about his career. For example, he had once slit the tires on his own father's (also a reporter) car to keep him from beating Steve to a story. Another thing he was quite proud of was he claimed to have written the book that killed Elvis. Apparently it was rumored that a book Steve had written, Elvis - What Happened? had been pried from The King's cold dead fingers - he had been reading it on the toilet when he'd had a heart attack.
  After A Current Affair I went to work on the rookie season of Good Day New York - Fox's local morning show. My job was to get in early, get the coffee going and pull gossip stories from the wire. When I say early, I mean like 4AM early. On more than one occasion I would come in to find Steve and several author Aussie reporters and producers crashed out on office desks they had pushed together. Apparently they would drink hard at the Racing Club across the street and not bother going home."
• "When ever Steve was covering a mob trial that was being heard in Brooklyn, he would stop into my local watering hole which was a Thai restaurant with a bar in front that seated about ten. The crowd was always mixed, middle age Gays and Brooklyn Heights locals . Steve would come in and after two visits knew and remembered everybodys name. Over the course of an evening he would consume about 10 to 15 drinks and still appear coherent . He would then use the pay phone to phone his story in and uaually a drive came in to scoop him up and drive him home.
  The first time he came in I was wary of speaking to him knowing his politics and the Post’s. But the funny thing is he never pushed his politics at the bar Instead he would talk of mob trials old time Hollywood , New York , movies and whatnot. He was actually fun to talk, never condescending. He had a great memory. Never saw him drop dead drunk but I heard the stories and seeing him in action I can believe them."
• "A favorite Steve story told by reporters covering the Michael Jackson child molestation trial is how he would turn up in the middle of the day or later, already trademark soused. One day he was so drunk he came out of the courthouse men's room having forgotten to tuck himself back in, let alone do his fly up, and walked unsteadily away down the corridor, to the gapes of onlookers."

• "The Star's rival, the National Enquirer, had "paid a ransom for the exclusive serial rights to the hottest book of the decade — Judith Exner's revelations about her affair with President Kennedy".
  Kerrison says: "The book was under lock and key, guarded tighter than Fort Knox. One day, I told Steve, 'We've got to get a copy of the book and beat the Enquirer to the punch'. Steve said, 'Boss, gimme some time and I'll get it'.
  "He disappeared. A few days later he turned up in my office, clutching a copy of the Exner book. I couldn't believe my eyes. 'My God,' I said to him, 'Where the hell did you get that?' Steve looked a bit sheepish and said, 'Boss, don't ask. You wouldn't want to know.'
• "It is said Dunleavy would f..k anyone or anything for a story, and that is true.
  He got a scoop for the News of the World when he wined, dined, seduced and ignobly reported the pillow-talk and tears of one of Teddy Kennedy's "boiler room" girls after the Chappaquiddick scandal. I visited him one evening in his New York apartment. He opened the door and greeted me, naked, before introducing me to a star witness in a police corruption investigation, also naked. They were engaged in an in-depth, probing interview of sorts — another scoop."
• And one from Gawker commenter Baroness: "My favorite Dunleavy moment was on TV. He was covering the Palm Beach Kennedy-Smith rape trial for A Current Affair I think. Some bigmouth girl who went to school with the victim was looking for her 15 min., blabbing personal details with any tabloid who'd listen, and presumably pay.
  Dunleavy took this chick for a long, very liquid lunch at a posh place, plied her with drinks and she sang like a canary. When she was well and truly sloshed and giddy, Dunleavy pulled out some dirty Polaroids of Blabbermouth with a big dick in her mouth, close-ups he had bought off one of her treacherous friends.
  The hilarity of her drunkenly trying to grab those pictures out of his hand, as he held them high in the air making her jump for them, was unforgettable, wicked, and very funny. He was gleeful as a kid on Christmas morning, loving life and his job at that moment."

How did he get that book? Theories? Have more Dunleavy stories to share? Email us.

[Mark Day via Tabloid Baby]

Dunleavy was born in Sydney, Australia in 1938. He moved to New York as a stringer in the mid-1960s, and made his way to the Post after Rupert Murdoch bought it in the late 1970s. In 1977 he found time to publish a book called "Elvis- What happened?", a behind-the-scenes look at the life of The King that came out just weeks before Elvis died. Hm. In the 80s Dunleavy was a lead reporter on A Current Affair, the Post of television.

He was famous for being a rabid right-winger—the type of man who figured that if you got your head cracked by the cops, you probably deserved it—and for being a lush. Some of the typical Dunleavy stories:

• "There was the night a blizzard buried Manhattan and Dunleavy, "reclining" with a young woman in a snowdrift outside Elaine's, and had his foot run over by a snowplow. Snarled Pete Hamill of the Daily News, 'I hope it was his writing foot.'"
• "Celebrated for first-punch fights at Costello's now defunct saloon and for sleeping overnight in a straight-backed wooden chair in the Post's city room when the paper was on South Street, in recent years Dunleavy has been favoring a booth at Langan's, a pub near the Post's current midtown HQ, for his recuperative overnight naps."
• Dunleavy hated Bill Clinton, and during his presidency loudly advocated for the release of Wayne DuMond, an Arkansas man in prison for raping Clinton's third cousin in 1984. DuMond was almost certainly guilty. But "Dunleavy also referred to the young woman, a minor at the time of the assault, on the record as the 'so-called victim,' and asserted 'That rape never happened.'"
• And a classic Dunleavy Gawker Stalker: "I was at Langan's on 47th at 5 p.m. on Wednesday, and Mr. Dunleavy was there. We only noticed him after he fell into some chairs and onto the ground. The hostess rushed over and immediately started saying loudly that the chairs were in his way (despite the fact that he was obviously sauced). He got up and then propped himself by the doorway, until a bartender came over with a glass of water for him. Dunleavy took it and left the bar."

He inspired a lot of outrage, but at least he was a character. Now that he's retiring for good, fellow rabid Post columnist Andrea Peyser is truly the Last Man Standing.

We'll see you all at the party.

The biggest contributor, of course, is Scientologist Tom Cruise, who has supported the program with a $1.7 million gift and has helped raise an addition $4 million.

But other contributors who have allowed their names to be used include showbiz luminaries Paul Newman, Paul McCartney, Adam Sandler, Leah Remini, Will Smith and wife Jada Pinkett Smith. None is a Scientologist.

CRUISES'S CLINIC OK [NYP]

I was at Langan's on 47th at 5 p.m. on Wednesday, and Mr. Dunleavy was there. We only noticed him after he fell into some chairs and onto the ground. The hostess rushed over and immediately started saying loudly that the chairs were in his way (despite the fact that he was obviously sauced). He got up and then propped himself by the doorway, until a bartender came over with a glass of water for him. Dunleavy took it and left the bar.

Earlier: It's Time For A Steve Dunleavy Intervention

11:45 a.m., outside Maxie's Restaurant & Bar on 7th Avenue and 48th Street. Steve Dunleavy was having a smoke outside (after how many drinks inside?). A huge, unpleasant head atop a tiny, emaciated body. His appearance perfectly matched his persona. All alone.

One NYT auto writer is notorious drunk driver, fond of racing hoopties^* down the Lodge FWY at 110 miles per hour back when he worked at Detroit Free Press. The auto insurance premiums Knight-Ridder had to pay for him were allegedly astronomical. Even better, he told me personally he used to be a coke dealer but narrowly escaped conviction—in what is an inarguably brilliant plan, he was paying for J-school with the profits. And perhaps even better than that: the Free Press let him go to Cuba, via Canada, to do story on hoopties there and he managed to get his guide/interpreter PG, and has a 5-year-old kid there he's utterly uninterested in. Nothing Steve Dunleavy has ever done could top that!

Earlier: New York's Drunkest Journalists

*We're assuming this is some type of automobile. Where the fuck are we, Jalopnik?

Silent Bob vs. Crazy Blob: Let's see. Noted eccentric Nikki Finke wrote something mean about Kevin Smith's new movie I Tried To Grow As An Artist And It Bombed, Here's More Convenience Store Workers Cursing. The tubby Truffaut responded with a post that runs longer than the average line of dialogue in one of his films, which is saying something. Still, Smith used both the phrase "tempest-in-a-douchebag" and called Finke a "crackpot," which, as past experience shows, amps up the crazy. We won't see the movie, but we're scoring this one for Smith.

Giant Walking Liver vs. Lycra-Wearing Twats: After The Post's ascitic defender of all things cop-related penned a column on the menace of Critical Mass, bike riders, who run a close second to animal rights folks on the self-righteous meter, went predictably apeshit, going so far as to fact-check Steve's column, which is something the Post hasn't done in years. This is a tough call: Steve's populist ravings can claim a large part in sliding standards of discourse that we've seen over the last few years. Bike riders, on the other hand, so frequently display the arrogant self-regard of someone who knows he's more virtuous than you that you practically cheer every time you see a cab open his door on an unsuspecting Schwinn. We're gonna reluctantly give this one to Dunleavy; at least he'd be more fun to drink with.

Jessica Simpson vs. Vanessa Minnillo: All you need to know about this feud is that it's centered around Nick Lachey. Advantage: Susie Castillo.

Israel vs. Hezbollah: Yeah, right, we're going to weigh in on this. Mocking the Catholics is one thing; all you get is a blustery response from Bill O'Donohue and some thoughtful e-mails wanting to understand you. But the Jews and the Arabs? They don't pay us enough. Let's call it a draw.