By Guy D. Garcia

"It's the first time I've been to Boston, and I'll be going back with hair," deadpanned the un-Bondingly balding Sean Connery, 53, as he donned a Wonder Woman wig given to him by Harvard's Hasty Pudding Theatricals. As the band struck up 007's theme, the club's "Man of the Year" got the traditional brass pot, as well as a dart board displaying a picture of Roger Moore, James Bond's alternate alter ego. Connery, however, would probably rather be throwing darts at his former financial adviser Kenneth Richards, who allegedly put millions of Connery's into an unsecured French real estate deal, which collapsed. Richards was ordered by a British court to pay Connery $4 million but shortly afterward claimed he was bankrupt. Great Hera! Probably not even Wonder Woman, to say nothing of James Bond, can recover the loot now.

Phil Mahre, 26, was fast at the Olympics, but not quite fast enough. He had wanted to win the men's slalom in time to get home for the birth of his second child. But Alexander Ryan Mahre slipped across the starting line of his life in Scottsdale, Ariz., half an hour before Dad streaked across the finish line. Barely stopping to collect his gold medal, Mahre hastened home last week to hug his wife Holly, 22, and hold his son for the first time. Reconfirming that he would soon be "hangin' 'em up" (his skis, not diapers), Mahre cooed, "It's great finally to have him in my arms."

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It was the fanciest shindig at the White House since the Reagan Administration started worrying about excessive opulence. But the cause was a sentimental favorite: the Princess Grace Foundation, incorporated after her death "to support educational and cultural activities with a primary focus on emerging young talent in the dance and theater arts."

A weekend-long round of Washington parties (at $5,000 a head for the complete package) was highlighted by a dinner dance, where Prince Rainier, 60, Princess Caroline, 27, Princess Stephanie, 19, and Prince Albert, 25, joined by the President and Nancy Reagan, led the 600-person guest list. Princess Caroline, who took a turn on the dance floor with the President, shed a tear when he toasted her mother. Princess Grace, said Reagan, "possessed not only an outward beauty but an inward character, sincerity, strength of purpose and loving-kindness." When the last of the revelers had jetted and li-moed home, more than $1 million had been raised for the foundation.

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The Sunday sermon at the small parish church in Elles-borough last week concentrated on the evils of wealth, but at least one member of the congregation, Mark Thatcher, 30, may have been distracted. The son of Britain's Prime Minister was visiting Chequers, the P.M.'s country estate, so that Dad and Mum could entertain his new American girlfriend, Karen Fortson, 24. She is the daughter of Ben Fortson, a Fort Worth oil magnate, and murmurings from both families suggest that a match may be entirely suitable. For the Fortsons, a Thatcher might be the next best catch to British royalty. And with Mark's proclivity for controversial business deals and driving fast sports cars, a Fortson heiress should be a stabilizing, not to say supportive, influence. After church, at a gala lunch, with guests including Japan's Prince Hiro (now at Oxford) and Britain's Princess Alexandra, one can imagine that there was more than a single set of crossed fingers under the table.

Over at Buckingham Palace, meanwhile, the reigning royal catch himself, Prince Andrew, was being entertained on his 24th birthday by the family of his latest lovely, Katie Rabett, 23. Andrew, who met the bonny Rabett at a Halloween party last year, is said to have received the nod of approval from the Queen, who was not at all amused by his earlier, well-publicized adventures with Starlet Koo Stark. For their part, Katie's parents (he is a well-established London gynecologist) seemed to have no objections. Their daughter, who has modeled and acted on TV and in the movies, has said nothing about the romance, keeping the hounding press at bay with a pleasant smile and chirpy "No comment."

--By GuyD. Garcia