By E. Graydon Carter

Four months pregnant and blooming, Diana, Princess of Wales, ventured last week into London's seedy Brixton area. Predominantly black, and the scene of last spring's fiery riots, Brixton was staging a fair to raise funds for a local, racially mixed school. Dressed in a turquoise coatdress and squired by beaming Expectant Father Prince Charles, Diana was greeted with an impromptu baby shower. Among the gifts: a Teddy bear, a toy corgi (her mother-in-law's favorite breed of dog), a 12-lb. loaf of West Indian bread baked in the shape of a duck, and a lapel button that said CHARLIE IS MY DARLING. The royal couple never carry money, so an aide had to slip Di and Charles a few pence when they decided to play bingo. Di proved lucky, walking off with a set of plastic spoons and forks, just the thing for the next royal picnic. Charles won nothing. During the 90-minute visit, Diana demonstrated her concern for the family budget. Told that tickets for a local disco night of reggae and soul music were going for $3.78, she mentioned that the price was steep. Informed that she could come as a guest, Di took the free tickets, smiled impishly and declared: "I might just turn up."

The tumbling brown locks, the widow's peak, the natural eyebrows, the full lips, the dimple on the right cheek. They are all there, only smaller. Much, much smaller. For those who loved the movies (The Blue Lagoon, Endless Love) and bought the Calvins, it is now time for the next artistic level: the Brooke Shields doll. Beginning in April, LJN Toys will flood toy stores with some 2 million Barbie-size, $12 replicas of Brookie in a hot-pink sweaterdress, ribbed tights and white plastic cowboy boots. LJN paid Shields, 16, $1 million for the privilege, and she dutifully sat through several modeling sessions while the doll was fashioned. The first versions of the doll did not measure up to the standards of Mother Teri Shields, 48, who rejected one sample because the dimple was missing and the nose, well, it wasn't quite right. Examining a later attempt, Teri complained that the dollmakers had made Brooke a bit too busty. The final product did please the subject. "Wow!" said Brooke. "It really is me." No word yet on prospects for an adhesive companion Teri doll.

"Paul and Bill are very chummy," says Painter Elaine de Kooning, 61, of the decade-long friendship between her husband, Artist Willem de Kooning, 77, and quondam Beatle Paul McCartney, 39. It would certainly appear so, if a recent portrait of the pair, taken by Paul's wife, Photographer Linda Eastman McCartney, 39, is any evidence. Actually, the curious sitting, a kind of Hampton gothic, was an accident. Paul and Linda were visiting the artist's East Hampton, N.Y., studio when McCartney spotted an 8-by-10 camera hidden in the basement. "It was a nice, sunny, lighthearted sort of afternoon," says De Kooning, "and so we decided to take snapshots of each other." Elaine set up the props, and Paul selected as background a 1981 De Kooning, Untitled V, for its bold flourishes of color. The result is a picture-perfect portrait of Beatle and brushman as just plain folks. "We talk about many things," says De Kooning. "I'm very much at home with him even though I don't know anything about his field of work, and I suppose he doesn't know much about mine. But it's always nice to see him again. After all, he is Paul McCartney."

--By E. Graydon Carter

On the Record

William Proxmire, 66, Democratic Senator, to Admiral Hyman G. Rickover, 82, on the admiral's retirement: "Frankly, I believe the Government is making a terrible mistake in letting you go. We need you urgently. You've never been more vigorous, forceful and intelligent. You are a national treasure, a giant." Rickover's retort: "Well, what are you going to do about it?"

Ronald Reagan, 70, reflecting on the movies that were made when he was a feature player on the back lot: "I liked it better when the actors kept their clothes on."

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