"If every musician who wanted to pay tribute to the great man had been given a place on the program, we would still be listening to them now," said the organizer of a musical fete to honor Andres Segovia, the world's most celebrated classical guitarist. The great man himself rose from the audience during intermission to accept a gold medal from the mayor of Madrid. "I have always had a great affection for this city," he joked. "But I love it even more so now." After the 3 1/2-hour concert, the Andalusian-born Segovia, 85, signed autographs with the help of his son Carlos Andres, 8. Then, accompanied by his third wife Emilia, 38, Segovia flung a Spanish cape around his shoulders and bid the crowd adios.

Like any visitors to New York over the holidays, the Ullmanns of Norway had a full entertainment calendar: The Nutcracker one day, John Curry's Ice Dancing another, plus the usual shopping and partying. After Mother Janna heads home, Actress Liv and her daughter Linn, 11, will get down to more serious business. Linn is bound for school in Connecticut while Liv rehearses for her musical theater debut, playing the loving matriarch in a remake of John Van Druten's comedy I Remember Mama. The play about a Norwegian immigrant family in San Francisco, which spawned a long-running TV series, will open on Broadway in the spring. "Richard Rodgers has written eight songs for me," says Liv. Will she dance too? "Oh no," she protests. "Mama doesn't dance. She waltzes."

Candidate for 1978's most needed Christmas present: a piggy bank containing $29.84 sent to Dennis Kucinich, mayor of bankrupt Cleveland. Most useful present: a leather-covered toolbox, complete with screwdrivers and toenail clippers, given to buxom, blond-wigged Country Singer Dolly Parton, who says her new toolbox is "very feminine looking" and filled with "things I can use on the road." Most jovially received present: a pound of bacon, presented by reporters to Secretary of State Cyrus Vance before they all landed at Andrews Air Force Base last week. Said the correspondent chosen to hand over the pork, forbidden to both Jews and Muslims: "This gift contains no salt and has been rejected by both parties in the Middle East."

The band struck up Life Begins at 60, and the citizens of Hamburg shouted birthday greetings to the local boy who made good. West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt was especially pleased with his birthday loot: a chess set with porcelain figures from French President Valery Giscard d'Estaing and front-page replicas of 20 German newspapers dated Dec. 23, 1918, the date of his birth. Before the day was out, the Chancellor attended four bashes and pumped 3,000 hands. "I'll certainly have to go to the doctor," said Schmidt. "Some people put the strength of an entire year into those handshakes."

"I like to play around with colors, but I wouldn't want to do art or sculpture, because I wouldn't want the obvious comparisons," says Paloma Picasso, daughter of the late Pablo and his longtime love, Franc,oise Gilot. Paloma, 29, has designed jewelry, furs, and the sets and costumes for two plays co-authored by her spouse, Raphael Lopez Sanchez, and Javier Arroyuelo. Paloma is now making the rounds in Manhattan in search of an off-Broadway producer for their latest play, Success, which is about a tempestuous Hollywood star. Then it's back home to Paris to work on another family project: a national museum devoted to Picasso's works.

Trekkies, take note. Leonard Nimoy, a.k.a. Mr. Spock, the ultracool, ever rational hemi-human of the Star Trek TV series is as accident prone as any non-Vulcan. Besides playing Spock in the new movie version of Star Trek, Nimoy is getting ready to tour as Vincent Van Gogh in a one-man stage show titled Vincent. At home last week working on a prop for the show, he slashed his left thumb to the bone with a razor sharp woodworking tool. A trip to a hospital emergency room and twelve stitches later, Nimoy managed to shrug the whole thing off as slice-of-life realism. Referring to the fact that Van Gogh slashed off his left ear, he says: "Perhaps I'm trying to live the part."

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