In her most famous movie, "Never on Sunday" was her credo, but Melina Mercouri is now on the streets seven days a week--campaigning for election to the Greek parliament. In 1974 Actress-Activist Mercouri was defeated as a Socialist candidate from Piraeus, which includes the red-light district in her 1960 film. Back on the hustings again, she is confident of victory this time. Says Mercouri, 52: "They trust me not as a star, but rather as a woman with dynamism who knows how to fight, how to go on strike. I want to be a thorn in parliament."

Even for a queen, a $522,000 raise is a princely sum. Although British Prime Minister James Callaghan is struggling to keep pay raises no higher than 10%, Parliament last week awarded Queen Elizabeth an 18% hike in her allowance--to $3.4 million. Besides the toll of inflation, said a palace spokesman, "there have also been extra costs due to the Silver Jubilee." Other royal coffers will get some extra coins as well. The Queen Mother is to get an additional $27,000, bringing her allowance up to $279,000, and Princess Margaret, who was awarded a $9,000 raise, now receives $99,000. Princess Anne gets $90,000, upped from $81,000, which will come in handy for her new $180,000 stables and heated swimming pool for her horses.

After donning five stars as MacArthur, Gregory Peck is marching to a different tune. For one of the few times in his 34 years on-camera, Peck, 61, is playing a villain. His role: Dr. Josef Mengele, Hitler's SS physician in the movie version of Ira Levin's bestseller The Boys from Brazil. Living in exile in Paraguay, Mengele, with the help of a Nazi collaborator (James Mason), is involved in a bizarre scheme to clone 94 duplicates of Hitler. The evil machinations don't faze perennial Good Guy Peck. "Being obsessed and sadistic is not so hard to do," he reflects. "I am thoroughly enjoying myself."

The subject enthusiastically approved of the portrait that went on display at Manhattan's Coe Kerr Gallery. "It makes me look as jolly as you could after a hard day's work," said Dancer Rudolf Nureyev. Artist Jamie Wyeth had dogged his footsteps, making sketches "before, during and after" each performance of the three ballets Nureyev performed on Broadway last winter. As for Jamie, he had second thoughts about the portrait. The fur coat suddenly looked odd. "I mean, he doesn't wear it at the bar," he objected, then reconsidered. "But I was interpretive in my painting, just as Rudi is interpretive in his dance." Wyeth's current project: illustrations for a children's book that is being written by his mother Betsy and takes place on the often-painted family farm at Chadds Ford, Pa.

"I'm more appropriately attached to a Campbell's soup can than I am to Marilyn Monroe. You don't look at me as the world's greatest sex symbol," reflects Cincinnati Reds Pitcher Tom Seaver. His remark was `a propos of his new portrait by Andy Warhol, who, of course, has also immortalized both soup cans and Monroe. Seaver's likeness, done in acrylic and silk screen on canvas, is part of Warhol's new series, which also includes Muhammad Ali, Dorothy Hamill, Chris Evert and Jack Nicklaus. Why Warhol's current interest in athletes? He has become a sports fan. Besides, he says, "sports figures are to the '70s what movie stars were to the '60s."

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