By E. Craydon Carter

Actors are always talking about writing themselves a juicy part. But when Academy Award Winner George Kennedy, 58 (Cool Hand Luke), actually sat down to do a book, he left no doubt as to who would be the obvious choice to play the main character. In Murder on Location, a hard-boiled tale of Hollywood low jinks, the sleuthing hero is an actor, just like George, a private pilot, just like George, and is named--you guessed it--George Kennedy. Avon books has run off 185,000 paperback copies and the film rights have already been snapped up. As for the plot, well, the book jacket copy says it all: "Lights! Camera! Murder! The picture had box-office bucks written all over it. Top talent, a big budget and a great script. Until someone on the set started changing the story line to murder. " Maybe it will all lead to a sequel, say, a psychological thriller about an actor-pilot-writer who while playing himself becomes so enmeshed in the circularity of his various roles that his private persona vanishes forever.

"He's our modern-day version of the great heroes who appeared from time to time throughout history," said President Ronald Reagan. "There were many like him in the past--pioneers, soldiers, lawmen, explorers--people who all went out and put their lives on the line for the cause of good." Whom did he mean? An astronaut, perhaps, or a star FBI drug buster. No, Reagan was praising Agent 007 in a filmed appearance on a British TV special, James Bond, The First 21 Years. The President did not seem troubled by the fact that Ian Fleming's superspy also has a reputation for booze (vodka martinis, shaken not stirred), fast women and a quick trigger--not precisely dear-to-the-heartland pulpit pleasers. White House embarrassment did not develop, however, until a Washington, B.C., TV station, which had picked up the program, began using the President's words for 30-second promo spots. The program went on as scheduled, but before it did, the station pulled the plugs, effectively canceling double R I's license to shill.

"The thrill of a lifetime," proclaimed Vice President George Bush, 59, after he and five-time Wimbledon Winner Bjorn Borg, 27, came from behind in a friendly but hard-fought game of doubles at Stockholm's Royal Tennis Hall to defeat Sweden's former Davis Cup Star Jan-Erik Lundquist, 46, and the country's Ambassador to Washington, Wilhelm Wachtmeister, 60, 3-6, 6-1, 6-3. The winning team's post-mort opinions of each other's play reflected the differing strengths of their diplomatic strokes. "I think he played very well," said Borg of Bush's flashy net game and a serve that was sometimes hot, sometimes not. Of Borg, Bush bubbled, "Fantastic. Anybody that can carry me has got to be good."

Forty years ago, when a decent pair of what used to be called sneakers went for about $5, good college basketball players were about the size of say, Republican Senator Bob Dole, 59, who in his days at the University of Kansas was a guard when the school won the Big Six championship. Today the shoes would set you back $40 plus, and college basketball stars look more like Georgetown University's 7-ft. center Pat Ewing, 20. For the past two summers, Ewing has been playing down his awesome height in an attempt to assume the disguise of a mild-mannered intern with Dole's Senate Finance Committee. Like other interns, the sophomore runs errands, helps out at committee hearings, does research and fits right in. Says the 6-ft. 2-in. Dole: "In Washington it's good to have friends in high places."

--By E. Craydon Carter This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.