She was the prettiest girl in the crowd of flowing skirts, crimson lips and bizarre hairdos--and the only one. Actress Meryl Streep had come to Cambridge, Mass., to accept an acting award from the thespians at Harvard's Hasty Pudding Theatricals and to watch some skits from their all-male musical spoof, A Little Knife Music. Streep, an old Eli who studied acting at the Yale School of Drama, was presented with a gold pudding pot, and was also granted custody of one of the burly "chorus girls" who surrounded her--a send-up substitute for the kid she lost to Dustin Hoffman in Kramer vs. Kramer. "I hope my son never turns out like this," cracked Streep good-naturedly, stroking the Harvard lad's muscled shoulder.

He may not represent the U.S. at the United Nations any more, but that does not mean that Andrew Young has slowed his pace or lost his taste for speaking his mind. This time he was in the Western Sahara with leaders of the Polisario Front, an independence movement that seeks to wrest the land away from Morocco. Washington is sympathetic to King Hassan II, so Young's hosts were happy to lay on the hospitality in a desert town and argue their side. The give-and-take got Andy thinking about the folks back home. "In most Government positions you spend your time dealing with cautious, insecure bureaucrats," he said. "I tell you, I don't know whether I'd ever like to go back on a State Department payroll."

The Army coat that General George Custer wore on his Western campaigns is among the items of sartorial memorabilia stashed away in the "nation's attic," along with the coat Admiral Robert Peary took to the North Pole and the top hat Abraham Lincoln wore to Ford's Theater on the night he was assassinated. Now the Smithsonian Institution has chosen to enshrine the brown leather jacket that became Arthur Fonzerelli's trademark through seven hit seasons of TV's Happy Days comedy series. Actor Henry Winkler, 34, who went from unknowndom to stardom as Fonzi, not only made the presentation himself, but donned a tweed suit for the occasion. "There is a lot of 167 episodes in this jacket," said he fondly, reminiscing over the stains that were made on it by hard work, makeup and even a piece of cake that was mashed into it on cue. "It changed my life."

Who else would make the music at Mardi Gras but New Orleans' favorite horn man, Al Hirt, dressed in a flashy festival costume as a French aristocrat? Bourbon Street and the French Quarter may not see as much of the pudgy entertainer as they have up to now. He is putting together a 17-piece orchestra--Al Hirt's Big Band from Dixieland--and taking it on the road. "There's a resurgence in bands," he explains. "The age of the guitars is gone. After the Beatles, there were a few good groups, but most of them were turkeys." But what about his own style? "I never was a Dixieland player. I love it, but I play more of a swing style, a fast four-beat swing, and four-beat swing is what this band is going to be." Says Hirt: "I'm 57 years old, I've been playing for 51 and this is the sound I started with."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.