Outfitted in an orange and white soccer uniform--and mink warm-up coat--Glitter Rocker Elton John came to the Los Angeles Coliseum last week to greet his newest employee. George Best, 29, aging soccer superstar and flashy fixture on the British pub scene, had signed on with the L.A. Aztecs, the American team of which Elton is part owner. Best, who claims he is "better than Joe Namath in both sports that he participates in," bested Elton 5-1 in a quick scrimmage, then considered his chances for making a hit in the colonies. "We've got some good lads on this squad," mused Georgie about the Aztecs, which finished third in their division last year. "We need, I think, a few more."

"I know a lot of people, but in this field you can't have too many friends," noted Ballet Dancer Fernando Bujones back in 1974. "To really trust someone, you have to be careful." Some of Bujones' colleagues probably wish they had been more careful as well. Florida-born Fernando, who turns 21 this week, has spent most of his time recently serving as supersubstitute to a trio of ailing defectors from Russia's Kirov Ballet: Mikhail Baryshnikov, who injured an ankle before his Toronto performance in La Sylphide; Rudolf Nureyev, who missed his Los Angeles production of Raymonda because of pneumonia; and Valery Panov, who pulled a calf muscle while performing his new ballet Heart of the Mountains in San Francisco. "I know 5 --and everyone says--I'm as good as the three of them," boasts Bui jones, whose confidence suggests early Muhammad Ali. "I am the best American dancer."

He had wanted to do a TV gig with Actress Mae West for years, recalled Nostalgia Hound Dick Cavett. "But she always resisted, especially talk shows, which she thinks destroy a star's mystique." Mae's mystique stayed fully intact last week, however, during a six-hour taping session for Cavett's April TV special, Backlot U.S.A. "This is the kinda room I like, wall-to-wall men," growled la West, surveying the 50 male extras hired for the session. Mae, 83, sang Frankie and Johnny and other oldies, hugged herself suggestively, and then fretted: "I hope the television censors don't fool with that number. After all, I kept my clothes on."

"It was a memorable event, that fall day in 1929," writes Comedian Groucho Marx, recalling the publication of his first book. Titled Beds and based on his 1920s contributions to old college humor magazines, it was a string of one-liners and double-entendres detailing uses and misuses of the mattress. It also sold like common stocks after the Crash. In fact, recalls Groucho, now 85, "during the next 40 years, people refused to have anything to do with beds. Whole families slept standing up." This month the author will try again with another edition of the book. The 1976 version will include a new introduction by the comedian and some snaps of Groucho in bed with friends like Comedienne Phyllis Diller, Actor Burt Reynolds, Actress Valerie Perrine and dog. As for those first-edition copies of Beds, "they have become a collector's item," insists Groucho, "that not even I can afford."

"Everyone in the business has their favorite disease or something, but convicts are usually overlooked," observed Comedian George Carlin, 38. So, accepting an invitation from the California Hell's Angels, who sponsor concerts at San Quentin prison, Carlin showed up to put on a free show for 1,000 inmates. Bowing to prison regulations against blue jeans on visitors ("They don't let you out if you show up in blues"), the comedian came with pastel pants, some off-color jokes--and a couple of semiclad go-go dancers recruited by the Angels. "They were a little reserved," said Carlin of his captive listeners afterwards. "But then, they're not in training as an audience for a comedian."

Billionaire Howard Hughes, master of the peek-a-boo lifestyle, has found a new hideaway, according to reports coming out of Mexico. Although some stockholders in one of his companies tried to have him declared officially dead last year, he is apparently alive and well enough to have moved from the Bahamas to the Acapulco Princess Hotel owned by Shipping and Real Estate Tycoon Daniel Ludwig. Hughes, 70, is reportedly paying $10,000 a week for the top floor of the 19-story pyramid-shaped structure, where his digs include the penthouse, presidential suite, Roman baths, a board room and bedrooms with velvet-covered walls.

Her stage patter may have been on the gushy side, but the old footwork seemed as solid as ever during Ginger Rogers' opening at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York last week. "The amount of perspiration that comes off my brow would equal three sets of tennis," said Ginger, 64, who cavorts through The Continental, Carioca and a songbook of other tunes from her movie days with Fred Astaire. Following a month of limbering up, and three months of rehearsals for her first nightclub appearance since 1958, Ginger's gams still looked golden to the opening-night crowd that gave her a standing ovation. Said she happily to her fans: "I wish I could freeze-dry you all and show you to my mom."

"I'm an atheist. I don't believe in a hereafter or a God," announced Actor Burt Lancaster in London. Or, evidently, in good timing, since Burt's remarks came just hours before a royal command performance of his movie Moses. Partly recycled from his six-part TV opus Moses The Lawgiver, the feature-length film shows the actor as bearded religious leader rather than dashing ladies' man. "Since I'm 62, that gets a bit embarrassing," Lancaster allowed, "although I am still susceptible to the charms of a 19-year-old girl. Like any man, I suppose, I'm still a bit of a 'dirty old man.' "

When he is not throwing temper tantrums, Ilie Nastase can play a mean game of tennis. Last week the rowdy Rumanian stopped complaining about linesmen long enough to trounce Ken Rosewall 6-0, 6-2, 6-2 at the Avis Challenge Cup competition in Hawaii--a $10,000 victory that made him the fourth professional to win more than $1 million on the tennis tour (the others: Arthur Ashe, Rod Lover and Rose-wall). "I never count how much I make, only how much I spend," commented Nastase, who keeps a fancy flat and a Lancia and a Bentley in Brussels. Do his Communist countrymen ever fret over his capitalistic success? Says he: "Everyone is jealous if you have a lot of money."

Canadians who wanted one of their own countrymen to open the Olympic Games this summer have been grumbling ever since their government tapped Britain's Queen Elizabeth for the honor. Now, at least, they can claim victory in a minor skirmish over the Queen's visit. It seems that the royal yacht Britannia, which will carry Her Majesty to Montreal, has old-style lavatories that empty directly into the waves. Royal flush or no, that is a violation of the St. Lawrence Seaway's antipollution laws, ruled Canada's Ministry of Transport. Denying the Royal Navy's pleas for an exception, the Canadians then flew a modern pushbutton, chemical commode to London for inspection by Buckingham Palace. Not up to royal standards, huffed the Queen's advisers, who have decided to modify holding tanks--at taxpayers' expense --aboard the royal yacht.

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