People

By Guy D. Garcia

He was topping the charts before most of them were born. No matter. The audience at London's Limehouse Studios was dancing in the aisles last week as Singer Carl Perkins taped a rockabilly revival for Britain's Channel 4, to be broadcast on New Year's Day. For the 30th-anniversary celebration of his platinum platter Blue Suede Shoes, Perkins played a set of vintage rock 'n' roll with a little help from such admirers as Eric Clapton, Dave Edmunds, Ringo Starr and George Harrison. Rock groupies were impressed by an even unlikelier occurrence: Harrison, who lost his wife Patti Boyd to Clapton in 1974, joking onstage with his onetime rival. For a night, at least, the two guitarists had obviously decided to let it be.

She was a shy kid from Arkansas who came to New York City, worked her way through 17 secretarial jobs and then became a hot advertising copywriter. But that was just the beginning. In 1962 she wrote Sex and the Single Girl, which made her a best-selling author, and three years later she was named editor of Cosmopolitan, then a publication for staid ladies. Helen Gurley Brown whomped up some flashy first-person ads about the Cosmopolitan Girl, who could be sexy, savvy, successful, and yet loving and interested in raising a traditional family. The formula clicked: the magazine's circulation went from fewer than 800,000 to nearly 3 million. Like the girl in the ads, Cosmo loves to burble about female athletes and politicians, addicts and feminism, but still ruminates on how to get a man in three dates. On the 20th anniversary of her transformed magazine, Brown, 63, vows that you can have it all, down to the crocheted pillow with the words to live by: GOOD GIRLS GO TO HEAVEN. BAD GIRLS GO EVERYWHERE. Yes, you could call her that Cosmopolitan Girl

She made her first impression in a portrayal of Marilyn Monroe for the 1980 TV movie Marilyn, the Untold Story. But Catherine Hicks did not expect to impersonate another sex symbol when she signed up for Fever Pitch. Hicks, 34, plays a Las Vegas cocktail waitress named Flo who, it turns out, bears more than a passing resemblance to Marlene Dietrich. Hicks took on the look of the legendary German actress after Director Richard Brooks suggested that she dress like an old-time movie star instead of your typical casino bunny. "I always loved The Blue Angel," said the star, and happily donned top hat and silk hose. Now that she is a Maedchen in uniform, Hicks finds more contrast than similarity between her current character and Monroe. "Flo's been hurt, but she doesn't go under," says Hicks. "She's a fighter; Marilyn wasn't."

They first performed together in the 1946 production of Lute Song. Critics praised Mary Martin but took little note of a young actress named Nancy Davis. Last week Nancy D. Reagan returned to the Broadway stage to pay tribute, along with Robert Preston, Lillian Gish, Carol Channing and Helen Hayes, to Martin, and the response this time was thunderous applause. The First Lady instantly won over the capacity audience by announcing, "I'm a little out of my element. I really don't go around the White House singing." Then, her clear alto voice quavering a bit, she began the tune Mountain High, Valley Low from Lute Song. Toward the end of the refrain, Martin joined in, and the two finished with their arms around each other, beaming. The First Lady's press secretary admitted, "Mrs. Reagan may have practiced a little at the White House," but whether the President caught her singing to the mirrors remains a state secret. --By Guy D. Garcia