By Claudia Wallis

"I feel without underwear.

I feel naked. My legs tremble," says Sophia Loren of her latest role. It is not a question of torrid nude scenes. Rather, as she observes, "it's a strange sensation to play myself." Sophia is less flustered by her other part in Sophia, a TV movie based on A.E. Hotchner's 1979 biography. Indeed, she needs little more than a blond wig and her own vivid memories to portray her stunning mother, Romilda Villani, now 64. "My mother is everything," says the adoring daughter. "She is beautiful, instinctive and with the craziness of the artist in her, something I've had to control in myself." Sophia plays Mama to Letizia d'Adderio, 9, and two other young actresses who portray Loren from age four to 25. At that point the 45-year-old actress assumes the role herself. Says she: "Success has not changed me. I have become more mature with time, but I am that same girl I was 20 years ago."

What a vision awaited visitors to the Royal Palace in Caserta, Italy. Traipsing through the gardens with Actress Isabella Rossellini, daughter of Ingrid Bergman and Director Roberto Rossellini, was a familiar white-robed figure with the distinctive bearing of Pope John Paul II. Young girls genuflected as the Pontiff passed. A sightseeing nun fainted dead away. After all, His Holiness was at that moment supposed to be traveling in Africa 3,000 miles away. A papal miracle? No, a cinematic satire, Il Papocchio (rough translation: Papal Mess). The Italian film features Actor Manfred Freiberger, a look-alike for the Polish Pope. The plot turns on the Pontiffs attempt to establish a Vatican TV station as a means of attracting young people to the church. Rossellini is hired as a public relations aide for the venture, in exchange for eternal salvation. But the plan runs afoul of the Sacred College of Cardinals, the (fictitious) Vatican Secret Police and finally the Lord himself, who wreaks apocalyptic destruction on the TV studio. As staff members are dispatched to their final rewards, the band plays When the Saints Go Marching In.

' 'Tis Mabel, 'tis Mabel," shouted the cast of The Pirates of Penzance as a bonneted young lass stepped demurely from stage right. But the savvy fans at Manhattan's Delacorte Theater would know those brown eyes anywhere. They belonged to Linda Ronstadt, making her operatic debut on the day she turned 34. The rock star seemed a mite shaky in the coloratura runs, but the audience melted when she warbled Gilbert and Sullivan love songs to her devoted pirate swain. So did the swain, played by fellow Rocker Rex Smith, 24. Said he: "When she walks out the first time, I don't have to act. It's like a fantasy. You know--those eyes."

When it came to the celebration of his 60th birthday, Isaac Stern did not fiddle around. The violinist arrived at a Tel Aviv party in his honor in an open 1930-vintage Ford, surrounded by a band of Dixieland jazzmen. Zubin Mehta, director of both the Israel and New York Philharmonic orchestras, gave his phonoholic friend a loudspeaker telephone perfect for use while fiddling. Out of a giant cake popped a curvy violinist in a sequined dress, playing part of a Bach chaconne. "The warm feeling which I see here will stay with me forever," the birthday boy beamed. "Friends and love are the most important things in life." Stern clearly has plenty. The night before his party he had played to a crowd of 130,000-- the largest audience of his 45-year career. -- Claudia Wallis

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