From Deseret News archives:
Elizabeth Smart among People's 'most beautiful'
Dad says it's nice for her to get positive attention
Smart, 17, is listed among People magazine's 50 Most Beautiful People of 2005.
The magazine has a full-page picture of Smart sitting next to her harp in her Salt Lake home with the headline, "Most beautiful rising star."
"It's a nice thing to have happen to her at this time," said her father, Ed Smart. "She was, of course, surprised. It was great for her self-image."
Ed Smart said it was nice for his daughter to make headlines for something other than the kidnapping, an ordeal and attention that members of the family have often said they would like to put behind them.
Elizabeth Smart was abducted from her bedroom in June 2002. She was found alive in Sandy nine months later. Brian David Mitchell and Wanda Barzee were arrested and charged in connection with her kidnapping.
Barzee was found mentally incompetent to stand trial and is currently preparing a possible fight against forced medication. Mitchell's second competency hearing is scheduled to resume in May.
Ed Smart said his daughter was honored at having been asked by People to be part of this year's most beautiful people issue, but she was a little overwhelmed with all the attention.
Elizabeth, through her father, declined an interview request by the Deseret Morning News.
"She doesn't want to make a bigger deal of it than it is," Ed Smart said.
She did offer People some tips on playing the harp, however, such as, "You have to have short fingernails or they'd just break off, and you can't wear red polish — it looks like your fingers are bleeding."
Because she practices her harp almost exclusively indoors the fair-skinned Smart admitted to People she's "pale in the summer" but that she'd "rather take care of my skin."
The other advantage to playing the harp is she has an excuse to buy an expensive dress because she'll wear it more than once, she told People.
Ed Smart said photographers from People visited their house about a month ago to shoot the picture that appeared in the magazine. It was a nice contrast, he said, to the "other picture out there," referring to the cover of the book recently released by his brother, Deseret Morning News photographer Tom Smart.
The new book shows a picture of Elizabeth covered by a veil and robes that was taken during the period she was kidnapped.
E-mail: preavy@desnews.com
