With shirtsleeves rolled up and rubber boots protecting his feet, the grey-haired man bent like a peasant to the task of planting rice shoots in the flooded paddy. That might seem plebeian labor for an emperor, but Hirohito of Japan, 75, has always shown deep sympathy for the farming millions of his subjects, and made it a royal duty to take a personal part in opening the rice-planting season. Come fall, the monarch will return to the same paddy in the imperial palace compound and harvest a crop of about 300 lbs., part of it destined for the Ise Grand Shrines as an offering to the sun goddess Amaterasu.

Members of the British royal family rarely give interviews, least of all to publications that are handed out free on airplanes. But there she is, Princess Anne, in the current issue of High Life, British Airways' freebie magazine. Turns out that Anne does not take offense at reporters' endless attentions--even, she says, "those fantastically inventive articles they print in France or Germany, which are so hilarious that no one could take them seriously." She likes to travel, but sightseeing is "purgatory" because "you seldom see anything--either too many people or too many press." With her husband Mark Phillips, she enjoyed visiting the U.S. in 1975, "but always in someone's private house or garden. They [the Americans] were very generous --or, to use an old-fashioned word, discreet." However, what she dislikes most, says Britain's reining princess, is being watched "when I'm having the most awful row with my horse."

For openers, they look like a winning pair of Jackies, one the actress, the other the Onassis. Jacqueline Bisset, 31, having signed up to portray someone very like Jacqueline Onassis, 46, in a European-made movie, The Greek Tycoon, confessed to reporters that she did not know much about the deal other than that 1) she was "moved after reading the script," and 2) "It's not the greatest role in the world." She may have second thoughts, since the tycoon will be played by that world-famous non-Greek, Anthony Quinn.

Love letters by Richard Nixon to the wife of a Spanish diplomat? Even at a time when nothing about Nixonian Washington can instantly be denied out of hand, it seemed beyond belief. But high-powered Literary Agent Scott Meredith, whose nonliterary clients include Spiro Agnew and Judith Exner, claims he got an anonymous tip, was instructed to place a cryptic ad in the Los Angeles Times, then heard from a man who turned over 22 letters to the unnamed woman. Meredith added that two graphologists have verified the handwriting. Said he: "I'm not satisfied yet that they're authentic, but my instinct tells me they are." A San Clemente spokesman described it all as "a sordid hoax."

London's Daily Express called her Wood Nymph, but Natalie Wood, consulting her astrological chart (Cancer), said she's a moonchild. Then the Express rolled out its fashion layout, in which Actress Wood, disdaining the nymphic and childish, opted for something very Capone-ish. After that, it was back to rehearsals for a TV special, with Lord Olivier playing Big Daddy and Natalie doing a feline Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

Is it really true that Playboy's Hugh Hefner has another--er--companion? It seemed like only in 1969 that he declared: "I have found what I have been looking for ... It's the first time I have ever been in love." That girl friend was Playmate Barbi Benton, then 19, who has stuck with Hef through thick and thick. Until now, that is. Barbi is still around, though the new object of Hef s defection is Playmate of the Year Lillian Mueller, 21, who graces twelve pages in the June issue of Playboy. The Boss has so far issued no public statement on the matter, but Playboy's article says it all for him. "She is Brigitte. She is Gina. She is Sophia. She is Elke. She is Raquel ..." She is, anyway, something else.

Another picaresque novel from the quill of Henry Fielding (1707-54), who gave the world Tom Jones, is going onto film. This one, directed by Tony Richardson, is called Joseph Andrews, and it features plenty of bloody fighting, bedroom mixups, orgies, assaults and other good solid family fare. The title character is a virtuous footman who is pursued by a wicked, wicked vixen named Lady Booby. Ann-Margret plays the bawdy beautiful who, among other chores, is called upon to shape up in the obligatory bath scene, filmed, appropriately, in Britain's ancient city of Bath.

Nothing is sacred. Muhammad Ali arrived at New York's renovated Yankee Stadium for the ceremonial signing of his contract to fight Ken Norton on Sept. 28. Standing at second base, Ali proved once again that he can take on anybody with only one tongue tied behind his back. "People keep asking me," he declared, "how I feel being in 'The House that Ruth Built. What do they expect? They think my eyes ought to go wide and I say, 'Babe Ruth, he was a great man'? ... Babe Ruth? Nobody ever heard the name in Casablanca."

To the end of his long life (almost 92 years), he kept on creating, and when he died in 1973, he left a treasure almost beyond measure. But it has now been officially counted and its value calculated. The total: 1,185 paintings, 7,089 drawings, 1,228 sculptures, 3,222 ceramics, 1,723 engraved plates, 17,411 prints, 9,931 engravings, and numerous tapestries and carpets. The official estimate of the value of Pablo Picasso's own collection of Picassos: $260 million. Additional value of his estate, which included two homes and two castles: $750 million. But the billionaire also left behind a widow, three illegitimate children and two grandchildren, and the six heirs are now involved in litigation over how the estate should be divided.

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