High cheek bones, an unplaceable accent and a general air of je ne sais quoi added up to just the "weird, transparent quality" Director Lewis Gilbert was looking for. That's why Barbara Bach, 27, a sometime actress in grade-B Italian movies like Spider with the Black Stomach, won her first starring role in the tenth James Bond film. Bach considers Bond "a male chauvinist pig who uses girls to shield him against bullets." But she rather likes her liberated-woman role in The Spy Who Loved Me: Anya, a major in the Soviet secret service. Actor Roger Moore, 48, sounds correct but cool about his new costar. "When they said B.B., I thought it would be Bardot," he admitted. "But I'm not disappointed."

"The reason we're gonna win is because we love music," boomed Candidate Bella Abzug, displaying her usual optimism if not faultless logic. Seeking to jazz up her campaign for the Democratic Senate nomination, Bella stopped in at Eddie Condon's in Manhattan for a jam session with the house band, Red Balaban & Cats. While Bella boogied, Balaban introduced a new campaign song, sung to the tune of I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate. Sample lyrics: "I wish I could legislate like my sister Bella/ She can write better laws than any right-wing fella." Chances are, she also plays a meaner mandolin, at least judging by her rendition of My Melancholy Baby.

Movie audiences remember her best as that bighearted hooker who worked with gusto but Never on Sunday. In Athens these days, Actress Melino Mercouri has been trying her luck in a classic role--as Euripides' Medea, who slays her sons rather than surrender them to her philandering husband. "When she kills, she does so not for vengeance, but so that her sons will not be slaves," asserts Melina, 50. "There is nothing more to say, today or tomorrow, about a woman who believes in human and women's rights."

After his expulsion from the Soviet Union in 1974 and a stopover in Switzerland, Alexander Solzhenitsyn has packed his bags once again. Believing himself to be in danger from Soviet agents in Zurich, the Nobel prizewinner has apparently decided to settle near Cavendish, Vt. Though the author has kept mum about the move, a friend of his has recently purchased a home with 50.7 acres of land for $150,000 and acquired a town permit authorizing $250,000 in renovations. Solzhenitsyn, who listed Cavendish as his next residence with the U.S. Immigration Service, seems to have made a thorough adjustment to the ways of Western capitalism. Besides a chain-link fence topped with barbed wire, his new digs will include a guest house and tennis court.

"My lawyer told me I'm the only man in America who can't sell them," said Publisher Ralph Ginzburg, 46, after giving 3,216 copies of old Eros magazines to the American Civil Liberties Union. Because he tried to advertise it through the mails back in 1962, the hard-cover sex magazine--tame by today's standards--brought Ginzburg an eight-month jail term for pandering and obscenity. The publisher, who now puts out a biweekly consumer guide called Moneys-worth, reckons his unsold copies of Eros to be worth at least $100 each to collectors--good reason for donating them to his old A.C.L.U. defenders. Well, maybe there was one other reason. Conceded Ginzburg: "I've spent $40,000 keeping the magazines in storage for the past 14 years."

"It's an eclectic version of an East Coast stick and shingle house," says Designer Robert Gilbert, describing the mansion he has helped create for Folk-Rock Troubadour Bob Dylan. Planned in part by Bob's wife Sara, the Malibu, Calif., estate features a $40,000 swimming pool and a $16,000 copper onion dome. "Inside," says Gilbert, "it's pure New Mexico." Dylan, whose first TV special airs this week, has reportedly supervised much of the construction by long-haired artisans, some of whom are living in tents near by. They might be around for quite a while, say observers, who note that the singer has ordered changes almost every other week.

The Pakistanis want it, the Indians would love to have it, and for now the British are keeping it under guard in the Tower of London. At issue is the Kohinoor diamond, a 106-carat bauble that was taken from an Indian prince and presented to Queen Victoria when the East India Company annexed the Punjab in 1849. Pakistan now controls the Punjab territory and Prime Minister Zulfikar AM Bhutto last week requested the gem's return for "sentimental reasons." Sentiment, presumably, has not blinded Bhutto to the sparkler's worth, which was estimated at $3.6 million over a century ago. The diamond now nestles in the queen consort's crown, and British Prune Minister James Callaghan agreed to consult Queen Elizabeth about the Pakistani plea. Grumped Terence Malone, curator of the crown jewels: "If we start giving the spoils of war back, we will be even poorer than we are now."

Perched atop a 35-story Manhattan apartment building, Actress Linda Blair had the entranced look of a girl possessed. Which was appropriate, since Blair was filming a dream sequence for Exorcist II, her second priests-and-demons drama, starring Richard Burton as one of the former. "This one will be suspenseful, not scary," promises Linda, 17. But what about that scene on the rooftop? "It was kind of scary," confesses the actress. "But then again, I definitely wasn't planning on going anywhere."

He may have been the hero of El Alamein, but to some of his hired help Field Marshal Viscount Montgomery was just Miserly Monty. When he died last March at 88, Montgomery left behind a $270,000 estate to be divided among Son David, 48, and the five members of the Cox family, who had served as the field marshal's household staff. The reading of the will recently revealed that his son was to get almost all of Monty's money, while the five Coxes, "in view of their devotion to duty," could expect $180 each. "The -L- 100 is a paltry sum for almost a lifetime's work," grumbled Michael Cox, 31, Montgomery's chauffeur for 16 years. "It will pay for a few rounds of beer."

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