See Lennie Run

Among other things, Leonard Lyons: has loaned Sophia Loren his thermal underwear; buys his hats from Lock's of London; once beat Ernest Hemingway in a nose-measuring contest; purposely keeps his gold Bulova set eight minutes fast; dined alone with the Trumans their last night in the White House; can get away without tipping hat-check girls at New York's Inmost restaurants; introduced Two-Ton Tony Galento to Noel Coward and Marc Chagall to Richard Nixon. Leonard Lyons also is the last syndicated celebrity columnist who does all his own legwork.

Lyons has been legging it for 35 years. He broke in during the gossip column's heyday: among New York's reigning tyrants were Walter Winchell, Damon Runyon, Mark Hellinger, Ed Sullivan, Louis Sobol, John Chapman. "I was at the bottom of the pile," says Lyons, "so I went out and started digging up my own news." He has seen the name-dropping column go through a steady decline, but the rise of Suzy Knickerbocker is a sign that people still long for columns that celebrate celebrity. There will always be newspaper readers, says Lyons, "whose appetites are for kings and stars and villains and dog biters." To satisfy those appetites, he forages six days a week, following an incredibly intricate and precisely plotted daily routine.

Counterclockwise. At noon, Lyons wakes up and hits the floor running. "He has an internal clock," says Wife Sylvia, "and the alarm is always on. We should have a fire pole in our room." TIME Correspondent Jill Krementz jogged along with Lyons on his recent rounds. After a light breakfast (juice, coffee, Rice Krispies), the legman is off to Sardi's, the first stop on a whirlwind tour of mid-Manhattan's choicest restaurants. Already he sounds like Alice's white rabbit: "I'm late, I'm late."

Within minutes, he is sprinting to the Algonquin, where he table-hops counterclockwise, pausing for quick chats with Norman Mailer and Bruce Catton. Lyons, who has a law degree from St. John's University (it was Sylvia who talked him into giving up law for newspapering), stops to say hello to a judge or two. But his eyes keep flicking ahead.

Lyons dodges crosstown traffic en route to The Ground Floor, where he pauses with Producer Joe Levine. "What about the Andy Wyeth show at the White House?" Lyons wants to know. "How many paintings have you got in?" Levine doesn't want to discuss it--"Don't want to blow my invitation." Says Lyons: "I have my own sources." Levine: "Who do you know at the White House, the President?" Lyons: "Exactly."

Muffed Point. At Toots Shor's, Lyons nods to Peter Duchin ("He's three months older than my oldest son") and sits down for precisely one minute with Ray O'Connell and Paul Screvane. On the way to "21," Lyons talks briefly about his work and public image. "People only think I'm a nice guy because I don't give them away. I don't think it's my professional duty to break up marriages." Occasionally he muffs the point of an anecdote, or scrambles a story's details. No matter. As Critic John Mason Brown once put it: "Lyons' ear may be defective, but his heart never misses a beat."

Upstairs at "21," Angier Biddle Duke, gauze-wrapped lemon wedge in hand, is poised over a plate of bluepoints, but stops in mid-squeeze to greet Old Friend Lennie. Quick kisses from salad-eating ladies, then Lyons darts downstairs again to say hello to Walter Cronkite, who is lunching with Dinah Shore. On his way out, Lyons helps himself to two of the hard candies in the bowl near the door --one for himself, one "in case I meet somebody."

A behind-schedule glance into La Grenouille, and Lyons is off to the Cote Basque: Hurok's come and gone, but there's Artur Rubinstein, who puffs a long Havana and says his wife cooked Polish chicken for an after-concert gathering the night before. Out comes Lyons' black lizardskin notebook and tiny gold pencil. A few cryptic notes, and he Ts off to Le Pavilion and, finally, the Four Seasons. The latter has a coat hook marked MR. LYONS. A coat, is already there. "Who's been hanging their coat on my hook?" In his consternation, Lyons, of all things, fails to recognize a celebrity: John Updike, sporting a new beard.

On File. Lyons rushes downtown to the New York Post, where he runs his notes through a battered Royal. Somewhere amid the clutter of his small office is the famous Lyons card file: every time someone is mentioned in his column, the date and a key word or phrase are entered on his card. A card is good for about 20 entries. Then another card, and another. George Jessel, Barbra Streisand and John Lindsay all have 22 cards. J.F.K., R.F.K. and E.M.K. have, respectively, 47, 18 and five. Harry Truman leads the pack with 70.

Lyons is small and frail-looking; on the rush-hour subway home to West 81st Street, he is just another straphanger. He demonstrates his own unrecognizability by spotting people reading "The Lyons Den" and saying to them, just before he gets off the train, "Not a bad column." Sylvia is always home to greet him, and if she sees lipstick on his cheek, she knows he's having a good day. "I figure Charles Revson kissed him," she says.

Counting Olives. A quick nap, a bath, a change of clothes, dinner at home. Lyons is ready for his nightly round of clubs and restaurants. At "21," he notes: "There's a recession--only three Rolls-Royces outside." He drops in on Fiddler on the Roof for the "80th time--and each time I cry." At the Plaza's Oak Room, Non-Drinker Lyons walks past the bar: "You can tell how good business is by how many olives are left."

Lyons is home for good around 2:30. In pajamas, Japanese silk robe and needlepoint slippers, he writes his column in about two hours: a Post messenger has been waiting in the lobby. And so to bed. At noon, Lyons wakes up and hits the floor running . . .

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