Maybe it's the foods they prefer--lamb, lightly cooked vegetables, whole wheat bread, raw sugar. Or perhaps, the air of artistic freedom they have been breathing. Whatever the causes, Ludmila and Oleg Protopopov, the Soviet figure skaters who defected last fall, are performing like teenagers, although he is 47 and she, 44. The Protopopovs left home because they were no longer able to do the routines that gained them two Olympic gold medals and transformed figure skating from muscular jumps into frozen ballet. Now they can, on a U.S. tour with the Ice Capades, which features the pair glissading and grinning all the way.

Once again it was time for a ten-best-dressed-men list, compiled by a group of custom tailors called the Fashion Foundation of America. The F.F.A. has a suspicious habit of cutting choices to fit names in the news; Jimmy Carter and Anwar Sadat shared top honors, although Co-Peacemaker Menachem Begin was considered too rumpled. This year's 40th annual roll showed a unique alteration: title of the world's best dressed man was awarded to Pope John Paul II, who is into cassocks, capes and red pontifical hats and shoes, rather than business suits and dinner jackets. No matter. The way the Pope wears his traditional raiment, insisted the F.F.A.'s Charles Richman, is nothing short of "elegant."

Following a legend, conceded Composer John T. Williams last week, "will be very difficult." Still he seems a logical choice to take the baton of the late Arthur Fiedler as conductor of the Boston Pops. A month short of his 48th birthday, Williams has written more than 50 film scores, and won Oscars for three (Fiddler on the Roof, Jaws and Star Wars). The new leader will meet his musicians at a Boston rehearsal next week, then conduct his first concert at Carnegie Hall. The parent Boston Symphony Orchestra, which depended on Fiedler's prodigious performances to keep it in the black, hopes the groom in what General Manager Thomas Morris calls "a nice marriage" will provide the same sort of dowry.

It's not easy to look up to the man who is going to make you a star when you're 5 ft. 8 in. and he is 5 ft. 3 in. So Singer-Dancer Ann Jillian, 29, opening a nightclub act last week at Manhattan's Reno Sweeney, looked down--sweetly--on Mickey Rooney, who had got her booking. Since he first spotted Jillian two years ago, Rooney has also wangled her a part as a showgirl in his Broadway hit Sugar Babies and a role in the upcoming movie, Panic on the Potomac, in which they will both play spacepersons who land in Washington. Jillian is described as eight-times-wed Rooney's "official protegee," meaning she gets the jobs because, as Mickey insists, "her looks are superfluous to her talent."

On the Record

Larry Hagman, Texas-born star of Dallas, on the city behind the soap opera: "If we did the real Dallas, they wouldn't let it on the air."

Muhammad Ali, retired heavyweight champ, after his third White House visit: "If there is a black man to be President, they might just run me. I'm getting used to this place."

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