New York City's Episcopal Cathedral of St. John the Divine was honoring a prodigal son: Episcopalian-born Tennessee Williams, 59. The first recipient of the cathedral's centennial medal acclaiming "the Artist as Prophet," Williams was lauded as "the foremost playwright of our age." But about returning to the fold, a whimsical Williams was equivocal. Born in the shadow of a grandfather who, at the age of 97, was ordained a "High Episcopalian" minister, Williams had allowed himself to be converted to Roman Catholicism during the '60s. "What does it matter, anyhow?" he asked, adding that it was not as if his whole family had been High Episcopalian. "My father," cracked Williams, "was just high." --"There's a man and woman holding each other, sort of frozen from the ashes that came down when the volcano erupted and buried them. They wanted to die together. That's what life is all about-being able to hold on." Thus a bathetic Elizabeth Taylor described her favorite Pompeii fossil in the January issue of McCall's. Erstwhile Separated Husband No. 5 Richard Burton showed his own dedication to holding on by jetting into Los Angeles, draping a new $20,000 diamond necklace around Liz, and sweeping her off for a not altogether unexpected reconciliation in southern Italy-not too far from Vesuvius, in fact. Meanwhile, the London Daily Mirror reported that Los Angeles Secondhand Car Dealer Henry Weynberg said that Liz's seeming romance with him had never really been anything but a ruse: "Liz told me she was still madly in love with Burton and wanted to make him so jealous that he would give up drinking and come back to her."

--He had only to sight a Boy Scout to reach for his chalks-one reason why Artist Norman Rockwell was voted one of America's ten outstanding fathers in 1943. But his youngest son Peter, now 37 and a sculptor living in Rome, remembers Dad differently. "Sometimes it was very frustrating to be a subject and to be seen through his eyes and not in the way I thought I was," he explains. Now Peter has countered with a sculpture of Rockwell pere that would never make the cover of the Saturday Evening Post: a bronze head with a gaping hole in it. Along with 35 other sculptures, including a realistic representation of Norman, it is part of Peter's current

Boston show. Would Papa, 79, journey from his Stockbridge, Mass., home to take in the exhibition? No. He sent word that he was "too busy" with portraits of Golfer Arnold Palmer and Movie Star John Wayne.

--"Son, I'm going to give you some advice: always deal in cash." Then the man in the chauffeur-driven car graciously accepted 8-c- change from 14-year-old Newspaper Boy Bob Hope and vanished into the Cleveland dusk. If John D. Rockefeller were still alive he would no doubt be gratified to see how his words sank in: Multimillionaire Hope, now 70, is among the richest men in America. But, as Bob reveals in the January issue of Good Housekeeping, fellow Cleveland residents were not so impressed with his potential. The mother of one of his first vaudeville partners and favorite date, Mildred Rosequist, was aghast when she saw her daughter tangoing onstage with Bob. "Nothing doing," Mrs. Rosequist snorted. "Mildred's not leaving here with you in that act." --"Pardon me, miss/ But I've never done this/ With a real live girl," sang the 9-ft. monster Thog after Winsome Waif Mia Farrow, 27, reached up and kissed him on the nose. Farrow has played Beauty to a number of beasts, notably in the 1968 movie Rosemary's Baby, but this was different. She was in New York City to tape a Muppet Valentine show for airing Feb. 8. Wally, George, Brewster, Mildred, Rufus the Dog, Crazy Donald and Kermit the Frog all lost their felt hearts to her, and when six months' pregnant Mia flew back to London and Husband Andre Previn, they all cried. Added the show's director: "She cried too." --This Christmas, the New York City Ballet's premier dancer Jacques d'Amboise has made The Nutcracker into a family project. Three of his four children are dancing along with him in the production, which features him as the Cavalier. Christopher, 13, is in his fourth season as the Little Prince, while Twins Charlotte and Catherine, 9, share several under-Daddy's-feet roles as angels and stage children. Offstage the D'Am-boises show no sign of balletomania: Athletic Christopher prefers baseball, Charlotte is nicknamed "Barbra Streisand" because she wants to be a singer, and Catherine aspires alternately to being a pianist and working in a candy factory. "I don't let them dance around the house," D'Amboise says firmly. "I tell them, 'Save that for the theater.' "

--"It's always been my dream to perform for my people," said Jazz Trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, 56. Making his first visit to Black Africa to join Uhuru (freedom) celebrations in Kenya marking ten years of independence, South Carolina-born Dizzy and his trio played to capacity crowds in Nairobi. On Uhuru Day, Dizzy serenaded President Jomo Kenyatta, 82, with a special composition titled Burning Spear (Kenyatta's nickname in pre-independence days). The piece, said Dizzy, included "touches of Indian, South American and African music and quite a few bars of the good ol' American blues." As it turned out, Dizzy was not the only showstopper. Big Daddy Amin, 48, eccentric President of neighboring Uganda, helicoptered in, and hefting his 270 Ibs. with surprising agility, joined the Masai tribal dancers and Kenyatta for some high kicks, to the delight of the celebrating crowds. --"He was a little bit ahead of his time in believing that a President should set some time aside for sex." On this titillating note, Gossipmonger Earl Wilson proceeds in his forthcoming book Show Business Laid Bare to reveal a "dalliance" between President John F. Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe. With details drawn mostly from the deathbed apocrypha that surround the star's suicide in 1962, Wilson constructs a labyrinthine scenario that shuttles Kennedy and Monroe round the country, juggling dark glasses, wigs and stand-ins to cover their trysts. Even Monroe's last words were about Kennedy, claims Wilson. Kennedy's brother-in-law Peter Lawford, by Wilson's account the last person she spoke to, allegedly heard her say haltingly over the telephone: "Say goodbye to the President and say goodbye to yourself, because you're a nice guy."

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