The abstract, blotchy strokes on her canvases certainly don't owe much to her old man. And that is just how Jeanne Modigliani, 45, likes it. "Had my name not been Modigliani I would have started painting years ago," said she. In fact, the only thing the twice-married Parisian artist has in common with Papa Amedeo is her painting signature, which is almost identical. But that is enough. Visiting in Israel to set up her first major solo show next month, she offered eight small works for sale. Within two hours all were snapped up for $100 to $150 each. Yet the lady still protests. "Nothing makes me angrier," says she, "than the awe and reverence with which people regard me because of my father's name."

New York Democrats have been scratching around for months trying to find a candidate to oppose Republican Senator Kenneth Keating next November. Now a new name has been suggested. "I have reached a stage in life," said famed (My Life in Court) Attorney Louis Nizer, 62, "in which I would prefer to give such talent as I may have to public service rather than private clients." And he added: "I shall be earnestly receptive to the nomination, making no pretense, according to the political rule, that I am reluctant unless the honor is forced upon me."

Everybody called him Ivan the Terrible, but it must have been terrible for Ivan. He had back trouble, which made him just miserable every time he had to stand up or bend over. No wonder he felt like killing people. This fascinating historical tidbit came to light when the Russians removed Czar Ivan IV (1530-84) from his Kremlin tomb last year and turned the bones over to Anthropologist-Sculptor Mikhail Gerasimov, a specialist in reconstructing physical appearance from bone structure. Gerasimov got the backache idea from studying the skeleton, has now finished two busts of the 16th century ruler--one showing the muscles of Ivan's left side, and the other showing what he looked like. Ouch!

Midst laurels stood: Producer David Merriclc, whose Luther and Hello, Dolly! won both Drama Critics Circle awards as best play and best musical; Socialite Mrs. Winston ("Ceezee") Guest, 44, made a Dame of the Order of Isabel La Catolica, one of Spain's highest honors, in recognition of her charity work for that country; Bandleader Lawrence Welle, 61, created a Knight Commander of St. Gregory the Great by Pope Paul VI for his "wholesome family entertainment."

Bowling is very big in the lives of Mary Ann and Andrew Fischer. They met when both were unmarried mem bers of a home town team, and bowled each other right over, what else. Then, last September, their family of five was suddenly doubled by the arrival of quintuplets. Goodbye ten pins, hello diaper pins. But last week Mary Ann, 30, turned up at the Women's International Bowling Congress at Minneapolis as captain of the United Mattress Team of Aberdeen, S. Dak. Still notably trim despite all, she rolled an average 164 for the tourney, ten points over her previous average. And the ten kids? Why, just like anyone else, Mary Ann got her mom to look after the darlings.

"Have a fag, mate," cracked Ringo Starr. Neither twin was very tony. Still it was hard to tell them apart until someone asked if the real Beatles would please sit down. The ones with the wax between their ears didn't move, and fans at London's Madame Tussaud's were finally sure which was which. Louis Armstrong knocked the rag mops off the top of Variety's singles chart last week, and the whisper was that they had passed their peak. But if their graven images at the world's foremost wax museum were not proof enough of their staying power, Boston Pops Conductor Arthur Fiedler had a bit more.

He started including their songs in his concerts and got a reception on the enthusiastic side of mixed. May Day weekend was at hand, and half of Paris gaily climbed into cars and headed out of the city for three days in the country. Meanwhile, at about the same time, a patient at the Cochin Hospital happily climbed into his car and headed for home. Half of Paris, no longer gay, sat and steamed until he got there. Charles de Gaulle, 73, recovered from his operation, was returning from the Left Bank hospital to the Right Bank Elysee Palace, and the police had thoughtfully blocked off all streets along the route. He made it in six minutes flat; the traffic jam took hours to unsnarl.

Eight and five were the magic numbers. 85 years of life, 58 years of marriage, and James F. Byrnes marked off both mileposts a day early. The former Secretary of State under Truman obligingly posed with a pair of cakes. "This is a great world in which to live so long," he said. And a young reporter asked what his outstanding experience had been. Byrnes smiled, thought back over his 40-odd years of public service and said simply: "Son, I hope you get to be 85 and somebody asks you that question."

Ill lay: New York World's Fair President Robert Moses, 75, in Manhattan's Roosevelt Hospital, "doing exceptionally well" after prostatic surgery; U.S. Ambassador to Japan Edwin Reischauer, 53, in Honolulu's U.S. Army Tripler General Hospital with a "presumptive diagnosis" of hepatitis, which hospital officials say developed independent of the nearly healed thigh wound inflicted last March by a deranged Japanese youth; British Spy Greville Wynne, 45, in London's Gordon Hospital "in an excitable and disturbed mental state" as a result of his 17-month Communist imprisonment.

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