People

"They are like people coming out of a dream, blinking in the light," says Playwright Arthur Miller of the artists, film makers and writers he has been interviewing in China. The author of Death of a Salesman spent a month gathering material for a book, Chinese Encounters, a joint venture with his photographer wife Inge Morath. "I found them remote and totally cut off," Miller said of his subjects. Until the government's recent liberalizing trend, they were "sequestered on farms feeding pigs." Although none of the Chinese Miller met knew of his work, there were some recollections of an earlier era. "They wanted to know a lot about people like Clark Gable and Charles Laughton," said Miller. "And Rita Hay worth."

Sacked from the baseball diamond, former Yankee Manager Billy Martin has turned businessman square. Well, not too square. A lover of Western boots and country music ever since his Oklahoma-born buddy Mickey Mantle introduced him to them, Martin plans to open a chain of Western boutiques. The specialty: boots. His first shop, Billy Martin's Western Wear Inc., opened last week in Manhattan, and Mantle, Whitey Ford and Phil Rizzuto stopped by to check out the fancy footwear. "It's just a sideline," cautioned Martin, who has a commitment to manage the Yankees again in 1980. To keep in touch, he has roped in all the Yankees to come to a social at the store next month and has even issued a welcome, pardners, to the Mets.

Lucie Arnaz is a chip off the old carrottop. The daughter of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, Lucie, 27, graduated from playing her mother's daughter on Ball's TV show Here's Lucy to leads onstage and in films. She has also published some song lyrics and seemed the natural choice to play the lyricist to Actor Robert Klein's songwriter in Neil Simon's new play, They're Playing Our Song. So Simon said after trying out 300 other actresses for the role. The critics agreed when the comedy opened a pre-Broadway run in Los Angeles. Mother agreed too. Said Ball: "It's very proud-making. I enjoyed it so much I'm going back for a second performance." She has asked for tickets for a third too.

Scene 1: Hollywood actress takes the Concorde to Paris, where she will make a movie called, of all things, Airport 79, the Concorde. On the flight, she chats with a handsome Republican Senator from Illinois going to Europe to evaluate the reaction to President Carter's energy policy. Scene 2: On a boat trip on the Seine the next day, the Senator and his wife pass by the film location. He is hailed and invited to be interviewed by his friend from the plane, who plays a TV anchorwoman in the movie. Ending: Senator Charles Percy winds up getting a cameo in Airport 79 ("It's about time we bite the bullet," says he), and Actress Susan Blakely has a new associate in Washington.

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