"Dad said not to worry. He speaks French and said he'd poke me when I'm supposed to say oui," laughed Model Margaux Hemingway, 20, shortly before her Paris wedding to Entrepreneur Errol Wetson, 34. While some two dozen family members and friends hurried to France to attend the hastily arranged civil ceremonies last week, Errol and Margaux sped through a battery of blood tests and physical exams. At week's end, with Papa Jack Hemingway and his longtime friend Hotel Owner Charles Ritz as witnesses, the pair were pronounced Mr. and Mrs. by the mayor of Paris' first arrondissement. Afterward, there was a reception at the Ritz Hotel. Quipped Jack: "I spent the first 50 years of my life just being the son of somebody. Now I'm going to spend the rest of it just being the father of somebody."

"The kid rides real good," judged veteran western Actor Slim Pickens after a day on the trail with Steve Ford, 19. With six saddle-wary Secret Service agents in tow, the President's son had gone to the athletic community of San Diego Country Estates for some lessons in bareback riding, bulldogging and other cowpuncher skills. Although Ford, who went West last September to work as a ranch hand, had the benefit of instruction from nine-time World Rodeo Champ Casey Tibbs, his first two rides aboard a bucking horse lasted a total of 13 seconds and ended with hard spills into the California dust. Conceding that all this might be causing motherly concern back in Washington, Steve quietly predicted: "I imagine I'll be getting a call."

As if Hugh Hefner didn't have enough problems with the financial side of the Playboy empire, last week he faced a revolt in the bunny hutch. Protesting company rules that prohibit Playboy Club employees from dating customers, as well as visiting the club as private citizens after working hours, a ten-member bunny brigade hoisted placards and took to the pavement in front of the Chicago Playboy headquarters. The high-heeled picketers easily carried the day. Hefner, obviously sensing a way to inject some new life into his ailing clubs, readily acceded to demands for dating freedom, then proclaimed all bunnies honorary club members with full access to facilities. Confessed Hef at day's end: "Maybe I've been just a wee bit overprotective."

"SIT WTD: EDITOR/WRITER, HARDWORKING, WELL-CONNECTED, SEEKS MORE INTERESTING MEDIA POST. CONTACT Julie Nixon Eisenhower." That ad never appeared, of course, but such was the message distilled from friends of Julie's who passed the word that the former President's daughter was growing tired of editorial duties at the Saturday Evening Post. "She's looking for opportunities," confirmed Husband David, a law student at George Washington University. He then offered a sterling, if somewhat biased reference for his wife, who will continue as sometime "consulting editor" for the Post: "She's very creative. I feel she's capable of doing anything she wants to, as long as she can do it from Washington. That's where our life is, at least for the next year."

Life must seem like a labyrinthian novel to Doris Kearns, 32, a lightningly articulate associate professor of government at Harvard. Chapter 1 began in 1970 when Kearns, a public critic and private confidante of Lyndon Johnson during the last years of his life, contracted with Basic Books to write a psychohistory of the L.B.J. presidency. In April, after finishing 480 pages, Kearns returned her $24,000 in advance royalties and negotiated a new contract with Simon & Schuster. She would produce an even broader study to be written with former L.B.J. Speechwriter Richard Goodwin, 43, a widower with whom Kearns has been living for the past year. Their new contract: $150,000. Basic Books promptly sued the authors. In addition, Harvard, which had planned on giving Kearns tenure on the basis of her manuscript this summer, decided to wait until fall. Last week Goodwin withdrew from the project, bemoaning "public innuendo that Doris is incapable of doing her own work without my help." He added: "Neither my work nor its rewards have the slightest significance beside this harm to a woman I love." Kearns, who was left holding the book, vowed to continue alone. Now in Chapter 2. . .

Secretary of State Henry Kissinger is far better at handling complex American foreign policy than he is at simple house repairs. At least that is what Wife Nancy reports during an interview about homelife with Henry in the current issue of W. "Odd jobs are not his forte," she reveals. "If something breaks, he just looks at it and says, 'It's broken.' " Nancy adds that family discussions fall a few steps short of the summit as well. "I know it sounds odd, but we really don't talk about foreign policy," she discloses. "By 8 or 9, or whatever time he gets home, I think he's pretty well sick and tired of whatever he happens to be doing."

"Out there on the desert--just the dunes, me and my feet," mused Telly Savalas, domical Big Daddy of TV's Kojak series. On location in the Namib Desert in South West Africa, where he filmed a thriller called The Diamond Mercenaries, Savalas polished up his soft-shoe shuffle for a new cabaret act. With a record album also to his credit, the bald one has begun talking like the new hero of the beer-and-T-shirt set. "When the viewers look at me, they see me as their Prince Charming," he boasts.

"The work I'll be doing is similar to the work I've done before," said former Presidential Assistant Jeb Stuart Magruder of his new job. There will be some differences, presumably. Magruder, who served seven months in jail for his work in the Watergate coverup, has been hired as an administrative vice president of Young Life, a nondenominational Christian organization that claims 75,000 teen-age members. The job came about, he said, thanks to the help of his old friend and Young Life board member, Senator Mark Hatfield of Oregon. Because of the skepticism that greeted another old Nixon hand who suddenly turned to religion, however, Magruder declined to talk about his own beliefs. "It's a difficult subject to discuss," he explained. "You've seen what happened to Chuck Colson

The cheap seats sold for $50, and some front-row spots went for $10,000. At those prices, scarcely a ticket holder failed to appear at last week's Manhattan benefit for the Martha Graham Dance Company. The guest of honor of the evening, which starred Rudolf Nureyev and Margot Fonteyn, was First Lady Betty Ford in a flowing purple Halston gown. She was escorted by Woody Allen in tux and sneakers ("I think those black shoes they have with tuxedos are terrible"). But the evening's most eye-opening costume belonged to Nureyev, who danced his role clad only in a solid gold mesh dancer's belt. After his performance, the very bare dancer greeted the First Lady with the poise of a man wearing tie and tails. When asked later what Betty had to say about his threads, the Star responded: "She did not say anything. Why, does it bother you?"

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