By Claudia Wallis

This year's presidential bid by a onetime movie star may be only the beginning. According to Dustin Hoffman, actor and amateur political analyst, the race of the future will feature two American screen idols: blond, squeaky clean Robert Redford and dark, smoldering Warren Beatty. Just imagine the television campaign commercials with that kind of talent! So far, prospects for the race look good. Like most future contenders, Redford immediately pooh-poohed the idea of running, injecting just the proper note of ambiguity. "I don't like myself in that role," he insisted, though he has already rehearsed it in The Candidate (1972). But he did add, "I have a right to speak out on the issues. Being an actor isn't synonymous with giving up citizenship papers." Beatty too is already sounding like a politician. His response to queries about a possible candidacy: "No comment."

As Composer Virgil Thomson explains it, two things have always been able to lure him from his digs at Manhattan's Chelsea Hotel back to his Midwestern home town. First, that Kansas City air: "I like the way it smells, and I get claustrophobic if I stay in New York very long." Second, "the good Missouri food. It is not like going to Cleveland or Pittsburgh. There is nothing to eat there." For his latest homecoming, however, Thomson had a third incentive. In honor of the musician's 84th birthday this month, the University of Missouri Conservatory of Music held a week-long Thomson festival. There, the native son received an honorary degree, previewed a new PBS documentary on his life, heard the fine air filled with the sound of his music and, of course, thoroughly enjoyed some memorable testimonial dinners.

Don't cry for Faye Dunaway, Argentina. The truth is she never left a book unread in boning up for her role as Evita Peron in a TV movie set to be aired in February. "She came from absolute poverty and created for herself absolute power," reports an admiring Dunaway, 39. "She forged a mystical relationship with the poor in her country. An incredible mixture of instinct and awareness, intelligence and emotion." NBC's four-hour Evita!--First Lady, which co-stars James Farentino, 42, as Dictator Juan Peron, bears little resemblance to the current Broadway musical. Says Dunaway: "We want to show the truth laced through with what evolved spiritually." Meanwhile, no expense has been spared to show Evita's material evolution. Her wardrobe cost a third of a million dollars and includes 60 costumes--not counting the one shown here. Instructs Dunaway: "Evita changed four times a day."

-- By Claudia Wallis

On the Record

Hugh Leonard, Irish playwright, on why he likes America: "It is the only part of the world that hasn't become Americanized."

Jane Seymour, English actress, on American men: "They have wonderful minds. So much is stored inside--all those sports scores and so on."

Katharine Hepburn, 70, actress, asked how she stays trim: "I don't have to watch my figure as I never had much of one to watch. What you see before you is the result of a lifetime of chocolate."

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