He works eight or nine hours a day on Volume III of his Metamorphoses of the Gods, and spends his rare moments of rest strolling through his elegant garden in Verrieres-le-Buisson with his two cats, named Fourrure (fur) and Essuie-plume (penwiper). Still French Polymath Andre Malraux, 73, took time out to visit the Louvre for a television tribute to Michelangelo in honor of the 500th anniversary of the artist's birth. "Michelangelo invented the hero type. It had not existed before him, and he certainly did not discover it in antiquity, where it does not exist either, despite a well-anchored presumption," said the former Minister of Culture under Charles de Gaulle. Then he added gloomily: "There cannot be another Michelangelo in today's society because our faith in man is too weak."

The gun hand may shake and the stride may falter, but good old cowpokes just never quit. After 34 years of movie retirement between them, Cowboy Stars Roy Rogers, 63, and Joel MeCrea, 69, will be riding the range once again this summer in feature-length films. Rogers, who left movies 21 years ago and now runs an Apple Valley, Calif., museum, will star in Mackintosh and T.J., his 90th picture. "There's no leading lady, no shooting, some fights, but no blood spurting, and that's the way I wanted it," he says. MeCrea, who left 13 years of retirement on his two California ranches, will return to movies in Mustang Country, an adventure set on the Montana-Canada border. "I wake up in the morning wondering why I said yes," he confesses. "I'm torn between hoping it's a hit or a flop. I've decided I'm not going to read any more scripts."

With a marriage breakup of her own, followed by a romantic misadventure with another man, Movie Producer Julia Phillips seems somewhat like the leading character in Erica Jong's novel Fear of Flying. Which may be appropriate, since Phillips has bought the screen rights to the ribald bestseller and will start filming the movie version in August. Phillips, 31, who co-produced The Sting with her now estranged husband Michael, shares her rented Beverly Hills home with Actor Gregory Johnson and her daughter Kate, 1%. She is considering Actresses Barbra Streisand, Brenda Vaccaro, Goldie Hawn and more than a dozen others for the leading role of Isadora Wing, but has not made up her mind. She and Screenwriter Jong are tempted to give the story a women's-lib climax. "We both want Isadora to get on a plane, fly without fear and leave both men. We want a more exhilarating feeling at the end."

After all those concerts with the blue-jeans set, Singer John Denver is finally heading for Tuxedo Junction. For one week in August, the Rocky Mountain balladeer will make his first major nightclub appearance--on the same bill with Frank Sinatra at Lake Tahoe. "I've only seen him perform on television, but I've heard others say he wrote the book," says Denver. "I'm looking forward to learning a great deal that week." The branchwater-and-bourbon combination will feature Denver singing to the supper crowd and Ol' Blue Eyes performing at midnight. "There's that lake, all those mountains, and Mister Sinatra," Denver rhapsodizes. "It's far out."

"I've come all the way from Philadelphia to plead my innocence in this case. I am an attorney and will defend myself," said the distinguished gentleman to Indianapolis Magistrate Phillip Bayt. Few motorists travel 600 miles to fight a speeding ticket (82 m.p.h. in a 55 m.p.h. zone), but veteran Presidential Candidate Harold Stassen, 68, assured skeptical court officials that he had no other business in Indianapolis. With Stassen's arresting officer ill and unable to testify, the judge dismissed all charges, and the five-time Republican loser went home with a victory at last.

"I've been an avid professional basketball fan all my life," points out Politician Larry O'Brien, 57, newest commissioner of the National Basketball Association. "It came naturally to me because I was born in Springfield, Mass., home of the invention of basketball." O'Brien, a former Postmaster General and ex-chairman of the Democratic National Committee, flopped as a high school forward, however, and admits that his playing time was limited to the local Y.M.C.A. courts. None of this mattered to N.B.A. team owners, who last week gave him a three-year contract and a more than $150,000 annual salary. Should the N.B.A. risk antitrust problems by merging with the rival American Basketball Association, O'Brien may soon find himself making a play for special legislation from Congress.

Swinging London may have slowed down a bit in recent years, but U.S. Ambassador Elliot Richardson has not noticed. "When does the music start so we can get on with the dancing?" he asked repeatedly during a lull in a London disco party given by Lord and Lady Harlech. The gathering, held in honor of

Singer Helen Reddy's sell out London concert, attracted Critic Kenneth Tynan, Actor Danny Kaye and scores of others, but Richardson turned into the star attraction as soon as Lord Harlech's 1930s jazz records began spinning. With his wife Anne away in the U.S. for a visit, the ambassador quickly stepped forward with the guest of honor and began to jitterbug, boogie and foxtrot his way around the dance floor. The British duly took note. Observed the London Evening Standard afterward: "Mr. Richardson has a particularly outstanding sense of rhythm and is an energetic and talented dancer in the Fred Astaire mold."

What looked like a blimp in the Macy's parade turned out to be Britain's Prince Charles in an inflatable diving suit. Charles, on leave from his duties with the Royal Navy, came to the far north of Canada, donned insulated swim gear and spent 30 minutes under the ice in Resolute Bay with Joseph Maclnnis, a Canadian expert on Arctic undersea life. Charles' eleven-day trip to Canada included dinner with Prime Minister Pierre and Margaret Trudeau in Ottawa, a dogsled ride at Frobisher, and a tour of Eskimo villages, where he ate raw seal liver and musk ox steak. After his icy dive, the game prince adjourned to dinner at a local hotel, where journalists serenaded him with a medley of songs. Not to be outdone, Charles assembled his personal staff and led them in a parody of the old English hymn Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise:

So where, may I ask

Is the monarchy going

When princes and pressmen

Are on the same Boeing?

"I have one of the great forearms in tennis," suggested Political Trickster Dick Tuck. "To strain my arm in this would have been foolish, so I didn't." Tuck's comments were a waggish explanation for his defeat in the Esquire Gala Celebrity Mixed Invitational Arm-Wrestling Tourney held last week in Manhattan. While bartenders boosted the spirits of waiting contestants, Actor Peter Boyle, Singer Mac Davis, ex-Housewife Pat Loud and nine others soon joined Tuck in the loser's circle. The women's division championship went to Model Margaux Hemingway, whose vigorous gum-chewing may have distracted her opponents. Hemingway's fiance, Hamburger King Errol Wetson, won the men's title. After the competition, he suggested that Hemingway's training program may have given her an edge. Revealed Wetson: "Margaux beats me every night."

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