By Claudia Wallis

And you thought Moscow's Misha was unbearable. Take a gander at Bald Eagle Sam, official mascot of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. Bob Hope did, when the creature was unveiled at Los Angeles city hall on the day after his Soviet predecessor went into hibernation. Sam, hatched at nearby Walt Disney studios, struck some observers as a rather poultry imitation of the U.S. national bird. Hope did not duck the issue. "He has a good makeup man," the comedian said, gamely, and confessed his own regret at not participating in the Olympics. Clucked Hope: "Too bad gin rummy and beanbag don't qualify."

For former Screen Bombshell Anita Ekberg, la vita is no longer very dolce. Bulkier than in those fair-weather days in 1960 when she frolicked in Trevi Fountain for Federico Fellini's camera, the former Miss Sweden has been keeping house in the Alban Hills south of Rome. Barely keeping it, that is. The actress, who has not been seen much by U.S. audiences since Fangs of the Living Dead (1973), has been robbed twice in the past few years. To make matters worse, a local court last month ordered the cottage vacated. But until the eviction takes effect some time after mid-September, she remains in her villa --without a phone, declining to speak to outsiders and doggedly doing her own laundry.

"I'm a late bloomer," confesses Raquel Welch on the eve of her 40th birthday. "My mind and my experience have caught up to my body. I feel proud of the way I look, the way I feel. Who could have a better life?" Who indeed! To celebrate the sweetness of midlife, the sex kitten of the '60s posed for a series of birthday portraits by celebrated Fashion Photographer Victor Skrebneski. The pictures went on display last week at the Richard Gray Gallery in Chicago, her birthplace. "They are beautiful, just extraordinary," said Raquel. "That's why I chose to drop the woman's prerogative not to tell her age and share my pride with other women." And men.

Playwright Tennessee Williams is madder than a cat on a hot tin roof about the reviews that crumpled his Clothes for a Summer Hotel as soon as it opened on Broadway last March. "I'll never open a play in New York again," he vows. Williams is therefore discussing an alliance with the Goodman Theater in Chicago, hoping the city that raved about the premiere of his first play, The Glass Menagerie, will once again be his kind of town. "This move was forced on me," insists the Pulitzer prizewinner. "I can't get good press from the New York Times, and [critics] Harold Clurman, Brendan Gill and Jack Kroll hate me." Williams says he has one new full-length play and four shorter ones ready for Windy City production. He adds: "I put too much of my heart in them to have them demolished by some querulous old aisle sitters."

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