On the Record

"I get no respect. They took the shirt right off my back," says Comedian Rodney Dangerfield, 60, head bobbing nervously, eyes bulging like a pair of hard-boiled eggs in a bowl of oatmeal, and his left hand grabbing at the spot where his tie once hung. It's tough, as Rodney will tell you, it's tough. What's a guy to do when the Smithsonian asks for a donation of his trademark white shirt and red tie for its permanent collection in Washington, D.C.? "I was a little hesitant at first," says Dangerfield. "I only have two ties." The $5 cravat--identical to the one he wore for his first television appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show, 15 years ago--is a veteran of 65 Tonight show appearances. The shirt is an $85 white voile Beck & Sobel number (18-in. collar, 33 1/2-m. sleeve). Shrugs Rodney: "They'll probably use the shirt to clean Lindbergh's plane." Now Lindbergh, there was a fellow who got respect.

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Faster than a hungry agent! More identifiable in cape than collar! Now able to deliver long sermons in a single breath! Look! Up in the pulpit! It's a man! It's a priest! It's Christopher Reeve not playing Superman! In Monsignor, the Man of Steel quick-changes to become a man of the cloth. Reeve, 29, plays an Irish Catholic priest from New York's Lower East Side who rises to become a Cardinal. The actor, a lapsed Episcopalian, spent seven weeks taking Catholic instruction from Paulist priests. For one location scene in Sicily, he performed a Communion rite for 300 extras. Recalls Reeve: "My mother said, 'Call me if you convert.' That didn't happen, but I developed enormous respect for the ritual I was performing." Does this mean he has put away childish things like playing comic-book characters? Lois Lane and other fans of Krypton's finest surviving hunk can relax. Reeve will shortly pull on his red-and-blue undies and rev his wires for takeoff in Superman III.

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The 1967 autobiography of Kathryn Crosby was entitled Bing and Other Things (sample chapters: "How to Marry Bing"; "How to Have a Baby--or Three"). Well, Bing is gone, and soon a lot of the "other things" will be too, says Kathryn, 48. Late this month at Butterfield's auction house in San Francisco, she will put virtually her entire collection of Bing-a-brac on the block. Included is Bing's first recording, I've Got the Girl, made in 1926 with Don Clark and his Los Angeles Biltmore Hotel Orchestra. Also up for bids: Bing's fishing gear (fish too, sold separately), the Crosby family Bible and most of his trophies and awards, from a plastic "The World's Best Dad" loving cup from Son Nathaniel to his platinum record for Silent Night. Says Kathryn: "This will allow some other people the opportunity to polish them."

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Proposed story line for A Popsicle Now, or Gotfatter III: an intense, suicidal diet specialist--played perhaps by Richard Simmons--is doing squat jumps in his Bel Air, Calif., home while the overhead fan churns the night air. A messenger from the studio brings a recent photograph of Marlon Brando, 58, arriving at Los Angeles International Airport, looking like Orson Welles in an ad for a Paul Masson Tahiti treat. Clearly, someone has made him too many Stouffers he couldn't refuse. Simmons is asked to travel to Brando's South Seas retreat on the island of Tetiaroa and slim down the actor. After making his way to the island hideaway, Simmons is about to blow up Marlon's Cuisinart when he realizes the futility of his task. The film ends with Brando gazing out over the remains of a lavish banquet, muttering to himself, "The horror. The horror."

--By E. Graydon Carter

Ingrid Bergman, 66, on her battle against cancer: "I have accepted it. Victims who don't accept their fate, who don't learn to live with it, only destroy what little time they have left."

Prince Philip, 60, author of Competition Carriage Driving (a new book about one of his favorite sports), on the work involved in the literary trade: "I don't enjoy writing, and I certainly would not do it for a living. Some people do, but some people enjoy flagellation."

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