By Claudia Wallis

Black Rose. That's how the opening act at concerts in six East Coast cities last week was billed. Some kind of new rock-'n'-roll group with a sultry chick singer who sounds ... a little like Cher. Even looks a little like her, but not much. That ragged punk haircut, hardly any sequins and not one costume change. But by the time each hard-rocking set was half over, word had rippled back from the front rows to the poor souls clutching binoculars in the cheapest seats: the lead guitarist was former Boz Scaggs Musician Les Dudek. So? So Les is well known among rock groupies as the latest man in the life of the ex-wife of Sonny Bono and Gregg Allman and ex-love of Gene Simmons of Kiss. So? So, looks aside, the chick was indeed the Rambling Rose. Yup, it was Cher.

A little romance on location is a Hollywood tradition, but some of the actors filming Savage Harvest in Brazil just cannot keep their paws to themselves. The film, described by its star Michelle Phillips, 36, as "a jungle version of Jaws" features 18 lions, two black leopards, three hyenas and two spotted leopards as its supporting cats. To keep the kitties "playful," says Co-Producer Ralph Heifer, "they are not allowed to indulge in sex. What you see on the screen appears to be a lion attacking a person, but in reality it's just a big cat getting chummy." Leonine foreplay can be rough.

One extra was clawed. And John Dawley, who doubles for a character who is mauled to death, once thought that life was about to follow the script. Then he discovered Zamba the Lion's intentions: "He started to make love to me."

The ERA slipped from the platform, but among some Republicans, support is gaining. "Tyne Mary Vance is part of the family's growing feminist movement," proclaimed the former First Lady Betty Ford on her first official visit to her week-old granddaughter. "I hope she follows in her grandfather's footsteps and becomes President, but with any luck, she won't be the first woman to do so." Mama Susan Ford Vance, 23, wants Tyne Mary "to grow up in a world where she can be anything she wants to be." She might even emulate her dad Chuck Vance, 39, a former Secret Service agent who heads an executive security service. Betty has been helping Susan at the Vances' Fairfax, Va., home, where her second grandchild sleeps in a wicker heirloom. Its first occupant, Gerald R. Ford, plans to meet the young lady at her inaugural --er, christening.

At last, a memorial fit for the King. The 9 1/2-ft.-tall, half-ton bronze of Elvis Presley, commissioned by the Memphis Development Foundation, was unveiled in the city's Elvis Presley Plaza last month in honor of the third anniversary of the rock hero's death. Pennsylvania Sculptor Eric Parks modeled his work both on photos of the Pelvis and the celebrated head of Hermes by Praxiteles. Parks also primed himself for the project by studying scores of books and video tapes of the singer and absorbing untold decibels of Hound Dog and Jailhouse Rock. Miniatures of the statue will be marketed in the future; meanwhile Parks is turning his chisel to another paean to Presley: a drooling hound dog fountain, with no known Greek antecedents.

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