Singer Frank Sinatra seldom ducks a rumble with a reporter. No sooner had he dropped his $3 million lawsuit against New York Gossip Columnist Earl Wilson, who wrote an unauthorized biography of the crooner, than he filed a $2 million complaint against Los Angeles Times Columnist Jody Jacobs. In an upcoming episode of Laugh-In, Ol' Blue Eyes goes after splashier revenge--by pouring a can of green paint (actually, dyed Cream of Wheat cereal) over a Rona Barrett lookalike. The victim: Actress June Gable, who plays a gossip-caster named Ms. Groana on the show. "He dumped this bucket of slime and let it shlunk all over me," said Gable. "Then he came down from the scaffold and said, 'Hey, babe, are you all right?' " Gable had no hard feelings over the tint job: "He was very sweet and attentive."

Life's a rage these days for Playwright John Osborne. Earlier this year he chastised the governing council of London's Royal Court Theater, calling them "a clique of amateurs who know nothing about the theater." He is still unhappy with some fellow showfolk, and has now placed an ad in the London Times calling for formation of a writers' "fighting unit" to combat unfriendly reviewers. The group will be a "British playwrights' Mafia," according to Osborne, who penned a playlet describing their imaginary first meeting. "Critics are a dissembling, dishonest, contemptible race of men," says the group's godfather--played by Osborne, naturally. "Asking a working writer what he thinks about critics is like asking a lamppost what it feels about dogs."

There is now a bar in place of the famed Round Table where Dorothy Parker, Robert Benchley and other wits from The New Yorker used to dine and quip during the '20s. But that seemed to suit the crowd just fine at last week's 75th birthday party for the Algonquin Hotel. The clubby bastion of New York literati was the site of a noisy celebration for 200 guests including Humorist S.J. Perelman, Actors Kevin McCarthy and Maureen Stapleton and Cartoonist Charles Addams. "You better feel witty before you enter the place; if not, just listen," cautioned Author Norman Mailer, a self-described "Algonquin freak." Playwright Marc Connelly, 86, the only Round Table regular on hand for the party, obviously felt up to the challenge. Asked if the conversation was as lively now as it was in the old days, Connelly answered without a pause: "Mine is."

The giant pumpkin with the eggplant nose and toupee top came from Leon Pappas, a Connecticut Avenue fruit and vegetable vendor. The smiles in the White House China Room came from Birthday Girl Amy Carter and 14 of her Washington schoolmates and chums. With Halloween shortly following Amy's tenth birthday party, the kiddie celebrants carved up pumpkins, gulped down hamburgers and punch, then settled back for a Frankenstein movie. Mom and Dad may have been anticipating colder days ahead, however. Their gift? A sled for Amy's winter visits to Camp David.

Like Charlie Citrine, the troubled, intellectual narrator of his novel Humboldt 's Gift, Saul Bellow is fighting over money with a former spouse. Charged with being $11,150 behind in alimony payments to his third wife, Susan Classman Bellow, the Nobel prizewinning author was sentenced to ten days in jail last week by a Chicago circuit court judge. According to his ex-wife's lawyer, Bellow, 62, earned over $450,000 last year. He has posted a $55,000 bond in order to gain time to appeal the decision. "There's no way in hell he'll ever see the inside of a jail. That would be indecorous," says Bellow's attorney George Feiwell. Maybe not, but the author seems ready for a fight to the finis.

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