"I have never snatched so quickly at a role in my life," said Sir Laurence Olivier. Something Shakespearean? Not at all. Next season at London's Old Vic. the 63-year-old actor (who was honored with a life peerage last week, making him the only lord on the British stage) will play Nathan Detroit, proprietor of the oldest established permanent floating crap game in the durable Damon Runyon musical Guys and Dolls. Sir Laurence dismisses suggestions that the accents of the Queen's English cannot adapt to the argot of Times Square. As for Detroit's one song--well, Sir Laurence has carried a tune onstage before (in The Entertainer), though he doesn't much relish the chore: "It hurtsi my throat, and I can't stand the noise."

Time and age had clearly mellowed the antipathies of World War II. As Charles de Gaulle, 79, met Spain's Generalissimo Francisco Franco, 77. somehow the towering caller managed to reduce the distance between them (6 ft. 4 in. v. 5 ft. 3 in.) by the very depth of his bow. What they talked about was nobody's business but theirs --particularly De Gaulle, who is keeping a travelogue for his memoirs. After the 45-minute chat. El Caudillo honored the first-time visitor to Spain by taking him home to lunch.

When Salome begins peeling off those seven veils in the Strauss opera, no one expects her to hit rock bottom --and given the construction of most sopranos, no one much minds if she doesn't. But U.S. Mezzo-Soprano Grace Bumbry, 33, whose physical endowment (371-251-4(H) is as rich as her voice, playfully promised to strip to her "jewelry and perfume" for her opening performance at London's Royal Opera House. To the delight of first-nighters --who couldn't see her brief bikini --Miss Bumbry was almost as good as her word.

They do it in France, but U.S. generals caught kissing each other would be likely to lose their stars. Not any more. Last week in Washington, Army Chief of Staff General William C. Westmoreland, observing the promotion of two WAC colonels, pronounced "a new protocol for congratulating lady generals," and promptly planted a brassy kiss on the mouths of WAC Brigadier Generals Elizabeth P. Hoisington, 51, and Anna Mae Hays, 50--the first women in U.S. Army history to attain the rank.

"I conjure my friends," Charles Dickens wrote in his will, "on no account to make me the subject of any monument, memorial or testimonial whatever." Last week in London, scores of friends ignored that slightly Uriah Heep-ish injunction to honor the 100th anniversary of the author's death. One presence that Dickens himself would have appreciated: his great-great-grandson Adam Dickens, 9, in high collar, waistcoat and chain, looking as if he had just stepped from the pages of David Copperfield.

Twenty years a housefather to singers and never once in a singer's home? How come? asked TV's Dick Cavett of the guest on his talk show. No mixing of business and pleasure? Not that, said Metropolitan Opera's manager Rudolph Bing, 68: "Come to think of it, they didn't invite me." Unappreciative, really, considering all that Bing has done for them: "When I came, we had a deficit of half a million dollars. I've worked hard, and now we have a deficit of well over $4,000,000."

Georgia's most prominent picketer.

Governor Lester Maddox, was knocked out of his one-man crusade against Atlanta's newspapers last week by a stone --a kidney stone. After the operation at Georgia Baptist Hospital, his surgeon reported that the patient would be back in full sign-carrying form within a month.

Knocked off the mound last spring for consorting with gamblers, Detroit Tigers Pitcher Denny McLain has now filed for bankruptcy, claiming debts of $400,000 and virtually no assets other than one of the best right arms in the business (24-9 last season). Trouble is, that arm won't earn him a dime until July 1, when his 75-game suspension ends.

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