"Even after working with her, I still love her," sighed Ballet Star Rudolf Nureyev. Could this be Singer-Actress Michelle Phillips, his feuding film co-star in Valentino, that Rudi was talking about? Nope. It was Miss Piggy, his TV partner in an upcoming Muppet Show. Rudi, in a sequined jacket and flesh-colored tights, and a Muppet porker in a traditional tutu made from 40 yds. of tulle, performed a pas de pig titled Swine Lake in London for viewing later this season. Rudi's porcine partner: Royal Ballet Soloist Graham Fletcher, who stands 6 ft. tall and sported measurements of 104 in. by 80 in. by 96 in. in his foam-rubber pig outfit. Said Nureyev after his weighty work was done: "It's the first time in my dancing career that I was justifiably able to ham it up."

The winning horse was named Rare Joel, but the real rarity was Jockey Steve Cauthen, 17, who steered the plater past the finish line in the second race at Aqueduct. The victory, Cauthen's 420th since Jan. 3, made him the first jockey ever to win $5 million in purses in a single year. The Kentucky-born high rider, who sat out for a month this summer with a broken hand after a spill at Belmont, will ride away with about 10% of the prize loot. "Five million is all right," conceded Steve after his triumph, "but what about the 45 bucks I just won in a card game?"

He had read Walt Whitman's meter, roped in some laughs as homespun Philosopher Will Rogers and earned an Oscar nomination as hellacious Harry Truman. Lately, Actor James Whitmore has been bellowing as a high-spirited Teddy Roosevelt. With Bully! about to open on Broadway, the actor stopped in for a quick performance before some T.R. descendants and buffs at the rebuilt Roosevelt home on New York's East 20th Street. Theodore Roosevelt IV, the President's great-grandson, praised Whitmore for showing that "T.R.'s character had many sides." And what would the old Bull Moose have felt about the current Panama Canal debate? "T.R. certainly knew that world conditions change," reflected Roosevelt, who favors the treaties that would cede "Teddy's Ditch" to Panama.

"He probably would not agree with Ronald Reagan. After all, he was a different kind of Republican."

Lally Weymouth, sometime writer and the daughter of Washington Post Publisher Katharine Graham, threw a par ty in New York last week, and it turned into a swinging affair indeed. Among the guests: Norman Mailer, 54, and Gore Vidal, 52, two longtime antagonists who had a stormy set-to six years ago on the Dick Cavett Show. Mailer, who had called Vidal "a liar and a hypocrite" back then, was apparently still irritated by his literary rival. While 100 guests looked on in amazement, he splashed Vidal with a drink and then poked him in the kisser. Afterward, Mailer grumbled that Vidal had been "systematically insulting" him for years, and that "there was no way I could ignore him." Said Hostess Weymouth: "It happened so quickly I didn't know who was hitting whom. Needless to say, I was not thrilled to be having a fistfight at my party." Noting that "it's not easy being a failure like Norman," Gore quickly demonstrated that his wounded lip still worked pretty well. Mailer "used the Pearl Harbor attack," Gore later sniped. "He sneaked up and threw a drink in my face, and then when I was blinded, he threw his tiny fist at my face. Once again words failed him."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.