Two-Edged Sward
Wisconsin's Republican Gov. Lee Sherman Dreyfus let California's Jerry Brown use the steps of the state capitol in Madison for a campaign telecast during the 1980 presidential primary, and he's still reaping political capital from the gesture. It rained that night, Dreyfus recalls, and the Democrat's crew trampled the greenery around the capitol into a muddy bog. "The press was on me," Dreyfus says, "so I had to explain. I said, 'I told Jerry he could use the capitol if he kept his people off the grass. But you know those Californians. They didn't realize I meant the lawn.' "
Olé
While vacationing in Marbella, Spain's Malibu on the Mediterranean, Britt Ekland, 39, took a liking to Jaime Ostos Jr., 17. Britt, who boasts that young men keep her youthful, and the hippie-haired, sleepy-eyed Jaime were seen in passionate embrace at the local discos, and once she reportedly kept him out of circulation until morning. The boy's father, famous matador Jaime Sr., didn't mind. "Yes, I thought to myself. Let him fall for a woman old enough to be his mother and see what happens. It may be good for him." But another woman old enough to be Jaime's mother—Jaime's mother—disagreed. When she heard about the affair, she towed him back home to Seville. Ekland, who may never have lost a man to his mother before, refused to comment. Said Britt, "I think it's beneath me."
Lerner and Lowdown
"When you don't expect to fall in love again, loving is such a relief," says Alan Jay Lerner, the 63-year-old My Fair Lady lyricist, of his marriage to bride No. 8, actress Liz Robertson, 26. Lerner says he's learned that for a man and a woman to be happy together, they have to feel free to say "everything to each other—including the unpleasant things. When I was young, I kept difficulties to myself and tried to rationalize them away. But inside, the annoyance would build up until suddenly one day she wouldn't put the top on the toothpaste and I'd shout, 'That's it. I want a divorce.' "
Cover Girl
Debbie Harry's long-awaited solo album, KooKoo, has just been released, and it's already controversial. The music, which is R&B, isn't the problem: It's the cover showing Debbie as a human shish kebab, with four large skewers through her face and neck. In London, a poster replica has been banned from the subways. "Too personally aggressive," sniffed the managing director of London Transport's advertising. Another honcho declared, "Children seeing it might go stick needles in their heads." Debbie's spokesman said the cover, by the Swiss artist H.R. Giger, was inspired by an acupuncture session, and he complained the Brits are "frightened of injections." So far the flap has raised no echo in the States. At a New York party where restaurateur Jon Simon served medallions of veal to the likes of Carly Simon, Rex Smith and Andy Warhol, only Harry was asked if she wanted hers on a skewer.
Of Meese and Men
Ronald Reagan, whose Oval Office hours generally run from 8:30 to 5:30 (when he isn't on vacation), has fast established himself as a master delegator of power. Reagan, according to Washington jokesters, "even has Ed Meese taking his afternoon nap for him." But the workaholic aide scoffs at the allegation. According to a spokesman for "President Meese" (as the Washington Post dubbed him), the slogan in the office ought to be, "We never sleep."
Furthermore
"I still love Britain, and I come back as often as I can," says Michael Caine, but as a tax exile, he's limited to 90 days a year there. Luckily, he says, "I also love L.A. It's laid back, and I like that. The older I get," Caine adds, "the further back I lay."
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