He's just a "publicity hound," grumbled Indiana Congressman Andrew Jacobs Jr. following the latest trouble with his pet Great Dane, C5. Three years ago the dog (which was named after the armed forces plane because he "grew like a military contract") chomped on the hand of Missouri Democrat James Symington. After an exile in his Indiana doghouse, C-5 finally returned to Washington, and last week Jacobs threw a welcoming party. Symington himself came by and, to show his good will, offered the dog some cheese. To show his good taste, C-5 bit Symington on the hand again. Said the bandaged Representative after the recidivist pooch had been pulled away: "Maybe the cheese wasn't good."

"My sister is the real spark plug of the family," cracked Ted Kennedy after Eunice Shriver had assembled a crowd of 1,350 at Washington's Kennedy Center. Eunice's guests had come to see some song and dance by Barbra Streisand and James Caan, stars of the new movie Funny Lady, and to help boost the Joseph P. Kennedy Foundation's Special Olympics for retarded children. The program provided one misstep after another for Today show Empress Barbara Walters, who stumbled on her way up to a stage and grabbed the first helping hand in sight. "When I looked up, I realized it was the President," said Walters. "If I had known it was the President beforehand, I probably would have slipped again." Not even President Ford, however, could save Walters a few moments later. Asked to demonstrate an exercise practiced by retarded children, Barbara kicked off her shoes, linked arms back to back on the floor with Sportscaster Frank Gifford, then gamely struggled to her feet. "I don't do exercises regularly," explained Walters afterward, to no one's surprise.

It was an unlikely performance by an aging socialite. But there on the island of Pate off northern Kenya stood American Tobacco Co. Heiress Doris Duke, 62, pounding a bamboo xylophone and singing along with a chorus of native musicians. "I've long had an interest in African music," said Duke, who joined an almost all-black Baptist choir in Nutley, N.J., back in 1969. For the still stately blonde, the Pate revels were part of an 18-day, 3,000-mile plane safari across Kenya and Zambia. After mingling with swarthy dhow captains, veiled ladies and outdoor coffee sellers in Lamu, Kenya, Duke toured the town's museum, then peeled off a $200 contribution. "It's like a tale from The Thousand and One Nights come to life. All I am thinking about as I leave Africa is coming back," she said before boarding a plane to begin a more sybaritic visit to Europe.

"My husband was up in the attic trying to figure out where the old staircase went," explained Catharine Coster of Newtown, Conn. "He pulled layers and layers of wallpaper off the attic walls looking." What Retired Executive Allan Coster eventually discovered was not a secret passage but precious pentimento. Still on the walls, beneath 40 years of papering, was the doodling of Humorist James Thurber, who had lived in the house in the 1930s. There is "no question" that the art work is that of the former New Yorker writer and cartoonist. Says Helen Thurber, the humorist's widow: "He always did drawings on people's walls."

The crystal Baccarat table was designed for a 19th century Indian maharajah; the gilded piano was once played by Chopin. But the bearskin rugs, emperor-size bed and rhinestone-studded recreation room could belong only to Liberace, 55. Now music's oldest glitter rocker has opened his rococo Hollywood Hills mansion, complete with toothy portraits of the maestro himself, to public tours at $5.90 a pop. His share of the profits, says Lee, will help support aspiring artists like Protege Vince Cardell, 35. Thirty-two guides have been trained by Liberace, and four gold-jacketed salesgirls staff a baby-blue "gift bazaar," where electric candelabras and Liberace records can be purchased. "There are $1 million worth of goodies in this house," beamed the pianist as he pointed out a Louis XV desk. "But they will give me more pleasure if more people can see them. I'll probably live in one of my Las Vegas homes," he mused, "or maybe the one in Palm Springs."

The skies seem to grow less friendly when Norman Wexler is airborne. Last week the Hollywood screenwriter (Joe, Serpico) allegedly bit United Air Lines Stewardess Laura Mansuto on the arm during an argument aloft. The trouble began, say airline officials, when Wexler insulted a cardiac patient who was being outfitted with special oxygen apparatus. After an unscheduled landing in Denver, the writer was tossed off the plane and into the arms of waiting police. In 1972, Wexler had drawn a quick jail stay and a year's probation when, in another mid-flight outburst, he held up a magazine cover of Richard Nixon and announced plans to kill the President. Denver authorities last week accused Wexler of interfering with a member of a flight crew, released him on $5,000 bail, and ordered him to stay in Denver. Police may now regret that decision. Upon his release, the grounded writer ran straight into a minor altercation at a coffee shop, then was arrested again for directing "filthy language and verbal abuse" at an escort-service receptionist. If Wexler ever gets out of Denver, it just may be on foot.

Pianist Van Cliburn, 40, who has created some waves in the music world, reached a high-water mark last week. Before leaving his hotel suite for an evening concert in Roanoke, Va., the virtuoso began running water for a bath. While the tub filled, Cliburn went to his piano, started practicing Brahms' Second Piano Concerto, and quickly tuned out the rest of the world. In a dining room below, guests could not hear the maestro's music, but they were soon aware of the bath water that had flooded the pianist's quarters and started seeping across the dining-room ceiling. After a hotel worker had hurried up to stop the flow, the preoccupied pianist rushed off to his performance, then, next morning, left with scarcely an apology for the $900 worth of damage. "We've written to his agency asking if they have insurance," says Hotel Roanoke General Manager Kenneth Wilkey. "If they haven't, well, we'll pick up the bill. He played a great concert."

"I am a woman who has doubtless succeeded in her career, but surely not in her private life," confessed thrice-divorced Actress Brigitte Bardot, 40, during an interview in the Paris society weekly Jours de France. Her interviewer: French Novelist Franc,oise Sagan, 39, who has known the durable coquette for two decades. "I believe that exhibitionists are repressing feelings of shame," announced the oft-displayed Bardot when asked about eroticism in movies. "For me, love needs mystery, secrecy, silence. It is a very private affair." Will life ever change for the actress? "Perhaps in five years I will be forgotten, perhaps not," said Bardot. "I will be 45, and I will not have lost my beauty. And I will be able to live, perhaps, like everybody. No longer just a beautiful object, you see, but a human being."

Some actors never escape that first big part. Take Yul Brynner, for instance, who keeps time-warping back to his regal role in The King and I. Now touring in a new musical, Odyssey, in which he stars as Odysseus, Brynner has had his secretary send prospective hotels a list of his accommodation needs. Among his demands: "King-size bed in master bedroom (one mattress only, not two). [Room] must be utterly blacked out so as not a sliver of light can enter ... Suite must be immaculate ... Accommodations cannot be within one floor of conventioneers ... A gross of extra wooden hangers in YB's bedroom ... All phones must be Touch-Tone with 13-ft. cords ... Wine: The only one he drinks is Chateau Gruaud Larose '66. If hotel does not have it in its wine cellar, order in advance ... Stock YB's kitchen in advance of his arrival with: two heads Bibb lettuce. Nice, fresh. One dozen brown eggs. Under no circumstances white eggs ... Mr. Brynner brings with him special Canadian bacon. Make sure he can put some of it in the hotel's freezer and the balance will go in his own kitchen." Et cetera, et cetera.

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