By E. Graydon Carter

Uh-oh. Norman Bates is back. It is 22 years since the friendly motelkeeper played by Anthony Perkins, 50, was led away to a California mental institution after his classic bathroom murder of Janet Leigh, 55, in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho. Middle-aged and pronounced cured, Norman has returned to town and wants to revamp his sagging hostelry. Directed by Richard Franklin, 34, who worked with Hitchcock as a student, Psycho II picks up the few surviving characters from the master's original. Vera Miles, 51, returns as Leigh's sister, "and Mom is definitely six feet under -- in the beginning," says Perkins, ominously adhering to a studio order not to reveal the plot before the movie comes out next year. As for Norman, "In the old story he saw himself as a victim," says Perkins. "He's a smarter guy now. He realizes he has the potential of being dangerous." Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the shower.

Name a cause and Hollywood will give you a benefit. Name the right benefit and you'll wind up with not only Zsa Zsa Gabor, 63, but before you can say "rerun," you better also make room for Danny, Danny Thomas, 70. The benefit was for the Wildlife Waystation, a preserve for homeless critters near Los Angeles. Zsa Zsa decided to throw a theme soiree, and Danny came as a big-game hunter (a curious choice for a function that is raising money to keep animals alive). Also on hand in more tasteful, authentic trappings were a puma, a reindeer, a lioness, a jaguar, a raccoon, a macaw and a Gabor ex-husband--at least one in the group is in little danger of becoming an endangered species.

Still, Zsa Zsa, who keeps four dogs, a cat and a horse, wanted to make her priorities clear. "Ex-husbands, I don't mind if they suffer or starve," she said. "Animals I do."

It seems that Actor Christopher Atkins, 21 (The Blue Lagoon), has reached that difficult age: no longer a teen crush but not yet an adult lead. He does have a new flick (The Pirate Movie), and following the well-trampled path of bubble-gum idols before him, he has cut some wax before he wanes: his first record, How Can I Live Without Her, is currently No. 89 on the charts. But there was still something missing, so his handlers suggested a take-it-off takeoff of the now famous Richard Avedon portrait of Natassia Kinski, 21, with a languorous python at her thigh. For Atkins, that meant posing in the outfit that he is best known for on-screen and lying cheek by jowl with a 6-ft.-long, 20-lb. female boa constrictor. The result is a gripping bit of publicity, although Freud might be puzzled about just what Atkins is really revealing.

Signed to play the Queen Mother in the TV movie Charles and Diana: A Royal Romance, Olivia de Havilland, 66, added a little plump to her circumstances, a net gain of 10 Ibs. to be exact. The film over, the actress weighed in at the tony Sonoma Mission Inn near San Francisco for three weeks. There, in return for $4,725, she got 800 calories a day and a dawn-to-dusk dose of warmups, aerobics, slimnastics and martial-arts classes, plus visits to the Jacuzzi and herbal wraps (using herb-soaked Irish linen sheets). Olivia's gross loss to date: 12 Ibs. And she wants to lose five more. In Beverly Hills, says the longtime star, "the three-letter words are worse than four-letter words. And the worst one of all is F-A-T."

--By E. Graydon Carter

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