Marisa Berenson wore translucent chiffon, Lee Radziwill wore pleated red silk, and Naomi Sims wore a white dress with tightly wrapped top. But even their clothes were no match for some of the costumes in "American Women in Style," the new show that opened at the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute last week. The main attractions of the exhibit, organized by Diana Vreeland, were the eloquently unfettered wardrobes of two great dancers. Isadora Duncan, a free-spirited sensation of La Belle Epoque, considered herself built along the lines of the Venus de Milo and often performed her astounding dances wearing nothing but a chiffon shawl. In an adjoining room, the eye-popping costumes of St. Louis-born Folies-Bergere Dancer Josephine Baker provided a contrast to Isadora's severity. One of them was a sequined fishnet leotard, another a skirt of white satin bananas. "I wasn't really naked," Josephine used to say. "I simply didn't have any clothes on."

It all began when a three-year-old won an amateur contest in Philadelphia with his rendition of a song called I'll Be Glad When You're Dead, You Rascal You. Last week in Las Vegas, Sammy Davis Jr. celebrated his 50th birthday and 47th year in show business, and concluded that getting there was half the fun. "Sure," he admitted, "I get bored sometimes saying, 'Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, here's a little song I have for you.' But it's good money in the bank, and show biz is the only life I want."

Some titles are harder to live up to than others. Take Prince Charles, who last week received the right to list himself as a Companion Rat in the Grand Order of Water Rats, a venerable fraternity of comedians whose peers include Danny Kaye, Charlie Chaplin and Peter Sellers. After his investiture, the Royal Rat fell in with the tone of the organization by noting that next year he will assume command of a Royal Navy minesweeper. "Let me say," he warned, "that if any of you here today are considering sailing in the North Sea ... or own an oil rig in Scottish waters, I strongly advise you to increase your insurance contribution forthwith."

"It looks like I'm gettin' ready to fight someone," Muhammad Ali mused as he stared at the 20,000 people packed into Manhattan's Madison Square Garden last week. The occasion was a battle of sorts: a benefit concert for Rubin ("Hurricane") Carter, a black middleweight boxer imprisoned since 1966 for a murder that he claims he did not commit. "You people out there, you have the connection and the complexion to get the protection," quoth Ah before surrendering the stage to a four-hour musical downpour that starred Bob Dylan, sounding like the old adenoidal prince of protest when he delivered his new song, Hurricane. Also on hand: Joan Baez, Joni Mitchell, Ronee Blakley and Roberta Flack. Sixty miles away in the Clinton, N.J., Correctional Institution, Carter listened to the concert by telephone--and continued to wait for the Governor to act on his appeal for a retrial.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.