By E. Graydon Carter

Elizabeth Taylor Hilton Wilding Todd Fisher Burton Burton Warner, 49, did it again last week. Or rather, she undid it again. Confirming rumors that her seventh marriage to her sixth husband was shaky, Liz and Republican Senator John Warner, 54, said they would seek a legal separation after five years of marriage. Warner joins an illustrious cast from Liz's previous marital flings: Hotelier Conrad Hilton Jr. in 1950; British Actor Michael Wilding in 1952; Producer Mike Todd in 1957; Singer Eddie Fisher in 1959; and Actor Richard Burton in 1964 and again in 1975. In the early stages of Liz and John's relationship, all was bliss: he was the silver-haired political newcomer, she was his superstar hustings-mate and bubbling party-circuit matron. But when she detoured to her Broadway triumph in The Little Foxes, it was reported that those violet eyes began to wander. At one point, she was linked to Foxes Producer Zev Bufman, 51. Bufman, married to his wife Vilma for 23 years, laughed at the reports. Unlike some of Taylor's splits, this one, says her spokeswoman, Chen Sam, seems free of friction: "Each party accepts this change in their relationship with sadness but with no bitterness between them."

The afternoon sun setting on the Bernini columns that line St. Peter's Square, the sea effaces and outstretched arms, the beaming man in white reaching out to touch those near by. Then the hand in the air, the gun, the explosion, the shouts of disbelief. Even now, those haunting images of the attempt on Pope John Paul II's life last May linger on. For Josef Hartmann, 60, the horror would evolve into an even stronger, more lasting vision. A civil servant from Momlingen, West Germany, on a tour of Italy with his wife Erna, Hartmann was in St. Peter's Square taking pictures of the Pontiff from behind, when shots rang out from the Browning 9-mm semiautomatic pistol of Mehmet Ali Agca. Two weeks later, Hartmann and his wife were showing slides of then-vacation to their son Wolfgang, 33, a schoolteacher. Wolfgang immediately spotted what his parents had missed: perhaps the most chilling photographic record of the attempted assassination.

Looking like the shy and slightly awkward newlyweds they are, Alexei Semyonov, 25, and his wife, Liza Alexeyeva, 26, were reunited in Boston last week after 3 1/2 years of separation. Alexei, the stepson of Soviet Dissident and 1975 Nobel Peace Prizewinner Andrei Sakharov, 60, and Liza, fell in love when they were students in Moscow. Alexei emigrated to the U.S. in 1978 and arranged a proxy marriage with Liza last June. The Soviet government, however, refused to permit Liza to join her husband. Only after a much publicized, 17-day hunger strike by Sakharov and his wife--now living in relative exile in Gorky by the Volga River--did the Soviets relent. Alexei and Liza now are settled in their own home in Waltham, Mass. "Our joy," says she, "is darkened by the uncertain fate of the Sakharovs. There are many prisoners of conscience. I am one of the lucky ones."

When Pianist Justus Frantz, 37, was looking for a third musician to join him and Christoph Eschenbach, 41, to record Mozart's Concerto for Three Pianos in F Major, he considered among others a friend of 20 years. Says Frantz: "I was a student, and he was without a job, and we used to play piano and chess together." The old friend was Helmut Schmidt, 63, now Chancellor of West Germany. When Amateur Pianist Schmidt was told that the project would help raise money for Amnesty International, the Nobel-prizewinning human rights organization, he quickly agreed to perform. Later he learned that he would be accompanied in his recording debut by 60 members of the formidable London Philharmonic. Said Frantz after his old chum had breezed through his part: "I find professional pianists can seldom sight-read as well as Schmidt does." Commented an elated Schmidt before munching some post-recording fish and chips: "You must understand. I'm not a professional pianist, merely a victim."

--By E. Graydon Carter

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