With his prophetlike beard, clear eyes, ever-ready smile and imposing stature, this year's Nobel Peace Prizewinner really looks the part. Rene Cassin, 81, noted French jurist, was a chief architect of the United Nations' 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a document that defines the basic rights of all mankind. Pleased as he is with the prize and the progress that has been made in human rights, Cassin is still very much the judicial pragmatist. "Peace is still distant," he notes, "and much remains to be done. Men of good will do not exist everywhere."

Parishioners at St. Aidan's Episcopal Church in San Francisco were probably surprised to find themselves celebrating the 150th birthday anniversary of Socialist Philosopher Karl Marx during a Sunday Communion service. But the Rt. Rev. James A. Pike, who officiated, found the idea easy to explain. Marx, figures Pike, who resigned as Bishop of California in 1966, would have several things in common with today's Christian church and vice versa. "Both Christianity and Communism have demythologized themselves eschatologically," the bishop said. "Christians no longer believe in a Second Coming, And the Communists have given up the theory that the victory of the proletariat is inevitable. The church is showing an interest in the material order of things, and Marxists now say the spirit is important."

Rome is old hat to gravel-voiced Ernest Borgnine, who has already made four films there. But for his two tykes, Sharon, 3, and Christopher, 2, with him during the filming of his latest, The Adventurers, everything was new and wonderful. "My kids are crazy about Italian spaghetti and ponies," said Ernie. "I always have to ask the pony man where he'll be or the kids get mad." All that, plus the Colosseum, the Forum, and the Villa Borghese have kept Papa hopping. For his taste, a movie star spends too much time away from home. When he was asked if the two imps, each armed with the familiar Borgnine face, might end up actors, Ernie could only sigh: "I hope not."

Though the party was held to introduce fashion favorite Norman Norell's venture into the heady world of perfumery, the star of the after-hours bash at Bonwit Teller's department store in Manhattan was Lauren Bacall, who held court with her left leg propped on a dainty gilt chair. She had torn a cartilage at another party honoring still another designing guru, Yves Saint Laurent. "I thought I was Margot Fonteyn on the dance floor and promptly slipped," said Lauren. "And now as I go spreading joy through New York, I'm paying for it every step of the way."

Many are the housewives who pen poetry in their spare time. But few have so lofty a goal as Mrs. Harold Wilson, 52, wife of Britain's Prime Minister, who once wrote:

If I can write before I die

One line of purest poetry,

Or crystallize for all to share,

A thought unique, a moment rare,

Within one sentence clear and plain,

Then I shall not have lived in vain.

Now, a couple of irreverent postgraduates have nominated her for a five-year term to the chair of poetry at Oxford University. The post is largely honorary, although it does involve three lectures a year. So far, Mrs. Wilson has made no comment, poetic or otherwise, on what is considered by many to be a poor schoolboy prank.

Concerned about inequities in the county tax system, a group of California Democrats formed a watchdog group to investigate and who should be one of the first victims but Republican Governor Ronald Reagan himself. The upshot was the reassessment of Ronnie's Malibu ranch property so that taxes on the spread skyrocketed from $764.17 to $5,520.24. The Gov paid under protest and has now filed suit in Los Angeles County Superior Court for return of the difference. "If that is the assessed value of the property," he says, "I'm in the market to sell. And I'll even give a discount."

"Fourteen years have passed. My subject is transformed, not only in the physical aspect, but by the experience of her family and public life." Thus does Florentine Artist Pietro Annigoni sum up his latest subject, Queen Elizabeth II of England. Early next year he will do a three-quarter-length work of the Queen, which will eventually hang in London's National Portrait Gallery. But there are problems. "The last portrait attained a considerable degree of popularity," says Annigoni. "This time I will be in competition with myself."

When Playboy cornered Comedian Don Rickles for an interview, the editors knew the impresario of the insult might prove hard to handle. But they could hardly have expected so scurrilous an attack on Publisher Hugh Hefner. On Hugh's masculinity: "He wanted to play trick or treat with me in the dark." His vanity: "Hefner puts silicone in his malteds to make his breasts harder." His reclusive life: "What a weirdo. He sits around that meshuganah [crazy] mansion all day writing about the sex life of a guppy."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.