People

By Guy D. Garcia

At the eighth annual Kennedy Center gala in Washington, the honorees--avant- garde Choreographer Merce Cunningham, 66, Actress Irene Dunne, 81, Comedian Bob Hope, 82, Playwright-Lyricist Alan Jay Lerner, 67, Composer Frederick Loewe, 84, and opera's Beverly Sills, 56--were wined and dined for two days, but not quite as usual. Cunningham, "the non sequitur of the evening," said his publicist, was served special macrobiotic dinners. And Dunne, disappointedly, was unable to attend the grand finale after back-pain medication made her ill. Hospitalized, she sent word that "the show should go on," and that it did, in a star-studded tribute taped for broadcast on CBS next week. Hope was moved to tears by troupers from every branch of the armed services singing Thanks for the Memories. Sills bubbled, "The best part of the whole thing was that the President of the United States called me 'Hot Stuff.' "