"Only a psychiatrist would know why I really did it," mused Photographic Cartoonist Alfred Gescheidt of his latest creation. After superimposing the face of Jackie Onassis on Mount Rushmore ("to show her place in history") and on the head of the Sphinx (because "that is the natural place for a woman"), Gescheidt has now fitted the former First Lady into the Mona Lisa. "The Mona Lisa is forever, and people are always interested in Jackie," said the artist. "She has the same inscrutable smile; it's dead perfect."

With an entourage of 40, Uganda's eccentric and frequently brutal President, General Idi Amin Dada, set off on his long-planned tour of Europe. First stop: Castel Gandolfo, Pope Paul's summer residence outside Rome. Though Big Daddy showed up 20 minutes late for the audience, Pontiff and President met for more than an hour and discussed some of the problems facing Catholic missionaries to Uganda. Chief among them was Amin himself, who has restricted the entry of the clergymen into his country. Afterward, while acting as host at a cocktail party for 160 at the Grand Hotel in Rome, Big Daddy scoffed at any suggestion that he might be worrying about his public image. "I am a big man," he explained. "I don't mind if some people don't like me."

"I'm tired of playing beautiful-girl-friend parts. I'm getting choosy," asserted Maud Adams, 30, Swedish-born starlet and former cover girl for Elle and Ladies' Home Journal. After secondary billing in six pictures, including The Man with the Golden Gun and Rollerball, Adams insists in the traditional publicity cliche that she is ready for some roles that dramatize her emotional depths rather than her physical projections. "I'm grateful I have good looks because they brought me into the business. But I want a different image." Then why keep posing for those cheesecake publicity pictures? Her startlingly honest reply: "I always posed for ladylike pictures and nobody used them."

Four hundred dollars for a hand-crafted doorknob? It did seem sort of funny for a law-and-order mayor like Philadelphia's Mayor Frank Rizzo, whose official salary is $434 a week. But according to a series of stories in the Philadelphia Daily News, he has invested more than $400,000 in a swank new home in the Chestnut Hill section--including $20,000 for a three-car garage, $30,000 for stonework and $7,000 for a patio. "These are pure and simple political charges made by a newspaper that blatantly seeks to influence the outcome of the mayoral election in November," responded Mayor Rizzo. "This is a sad day for journalism."

When tax troubles closed his Manhattan watering hole nearly two years ago, Restaurateur Toots Shor, 72, seemed to be down for the ten-count. Not a chance. Last week the Runyonesque drinking companion to personae athletic, literary and political opened the swinging doors of a new bar across the street from Madison Square Garden. "A good saloonkeeper is the most important man in the community," philosophized Toots, whose jampacked first-night crowd included Yankee Manager Billy Martin, ex-Met Yogi Berra, former Heavyweight Champ Jack Dempsey and Basketball Commissioner Larry O'Brien. And what had the legendary raconteur been doing during these past two years of unemployment? "I've spent my time going to other bars," answered Toots.

Hardly a bobby-soxer could be found, but the silk-stocking crowd showed up in force as Crooner Frank Sinatra, 59, Singer Ella Fitzgerald, 57, and Bandleader Count Basie, 71, took to the stage of Manhattan's Uris Theater. Sinatra sounded fuller of voice than he has in years, Ella delivered her love songs like a woman who realizes she looks more like a schoolmarm than a possible vamp, and the Count, how roly-poly in old age, played only three numbers with his band, which was a shame. But their fans have not faded away. The opening-night audience included former New York York Mayor Robert Wagner, 65, ex-Governor Averell Harriman, 83, Lauren Bacall, 51, and Gregory Peck, 59. With mezzanine seats selling for $35 each and orchestra seats going for $40, Uris Theater managers expected to take in close to $1 million for the 16 scheduled performances.

Most people could not pronounce his name. He came from the back courts; he applauded his opponent's best shots; if he thought an adversary had got a bad linesman's call, he would chivalrously knock his next return into the net. He smiled his toothy grin when his rivals snarled or cursed. But last week Manuel Orantes, 26, an optician's son from Barcelona, took the center court at Forest Hills in the U.S. Open tournament and beat the stuffing out of Jimmy Connors, 23, who has a lot of stuffing and some of the best shots in all tennis. Orantes dinked, he dunked and he tossed top-spin lobs just over the head of the hard-charging Connors. He won his final point with a soft passing shot to the coffin corner that caught Connors going the other way. Manuel fell to his knees in ecstasy, gratitude and delight--a posture that would occur to few other tennis players. With Jimmy already signed up for another lucrative 'elevised match in Las Vegas early next year, Orantes suddenly found himself looming as the logical challenger. Said the young Spaniard happily: "I think now he has to challenge me."

"Characters are like boarders," observed Actress Elizabeth Ashley, 36. "Some stay an hour; some stay weeks. I like the second way of acting. You transcend to the character, and she takes you through her journey. What you seek is to be possessed." Earlier this year Ashley was totally possessed by the role of Maggie during her highly acclaimed New York performance in Cat On a Hot Tin Roof. Then cast as Sabina in Thornton Wilder's 1942 comedy The Skin of Our Teeth, she showed herself to be equally consumed during the show's 2 1/2-month tour through Birmingham, Washington. D.C., and Boston. ("It's the hardest thing I've ever done," she said at one point. "You can't act an idea.") In New York, alas, the magic ran out. Though the New York Times called Ashley's performance the "one good reason" for seeing the play, Wilder's 33-year-old parable showed a bit too much age for most of the critics, and the show closed last week after seven performances.

Although he is a veteran of seven marriages and seven divorces, Actor Mickey Rooney seems determined to keep repeating that big wedding scene. So it was hardly surprising when a Hong Kong tabloid reported last week that Rooney, 54, had settled on Wife No. 8. "At long last I've found the girl of my dreams," the newspaper reported Mickey as saying, adding that he planned to wed Jan Chamberlain, 25, a singer-composer whom he has known for eight years. Not surprising, perhaps, to anyone but the supposed groom, who is now in Hong Kong working on a film. "I'm really sick of Mickey Rooney getting married," complained the star, as he denied the reports. "Who gives a damn? If we were going to do something, we'd do it, not talk about it."

"Can the girl who took a midnight plunge and came up a celebrity learn to live with her reputation?" The question jumps from the book cover of Fanne Foxe, The Stripper and the Congressman. Since her Tidal Basin swim and her romance with Arkansas Congressman Wilbur Mills went public last October, Fanne Foxe has made one R rated movie (Posse from Heaven), and has plans for a second, as well as a Las Vegas nightclub opening in December. Her new book, in which she tells of her alleged pregnancy by Mills and an abortion, is headed for a press run of 1 million paperback copies. Fanne herself has already headed for a promotion tour through 13 states. All of which will probably keep the Argentine Firecracker apart from her three children, her new $175,000 Connecticut estate and the new sobersided Wilbur for quite some time. "I still love Mr. Mills," said Fanne last week. Small wonder.

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