By Claudia Wallis

Animator Walter Lantz and his bride Gracie did not get much sleep on their 1941 honeymoon. Explains Walter, now 80: "It was this darned woodpecker. He made a terrible racket and ruined the roof of our cottage." Unable to silence the pest, Lantz made him immortal--by introducing the creature into one of his Andy Panda cartoons. "Universal Studios told me I ought to have my head examined," he recalls. "They said he's noisy, raucous, obnoxious; he'll never go." They were right, except on that last point. Now in his 40th year, Woody Woodpecker remains a star of screen and television. Children in more than 60 countries recognize his taunting five-note laugh--done for three decades by Gracie Lantz, now 77. "People like Woody because he has no inhibitions," said Lantz at his bird's Manhattan birthday party. "If we did the things he does, we'd be arrested."

Attention, cookie monsters, the secret is out! Famous Amos chocolate chip cookies are so tasty (and so very, very profitable) because Wally Amos talks to them. "I give them words of encouragement," he confides. For example: "Come on, you guys, bake!" That strategy has not only made Amos famous, but it has made his bakery a $250 million-a-year enterprise in fewer than six years. And now the Smithsonian Institution has added some frosting by representing Amos in its business Americana collection. In a Washington, D.C., ceremony, Amos formally gave the Smithsonian his trademark Panama hat and embroidered shirt, thus becoming the first entrepreneur to lose his shirt because he was in the chips.

No striped-pants morning suit for him. No Priscilla of Boston gown for her. No Rose Garden reception for either of them. Just a short hop to Manhattan's supreme court for a civil ceremony, he in jeans and red sweatshirt, she in scarlet cowboy boots, black sweater and slacks. Then it was back to the barre for Ronald P. Reagan, 22, a Joffrey II dancer, who has been rooming for more than a year with Doria Palmieri, 29, a California-born literary researcher. The impromptu wedding, attended by one friend and a Secret Service agent, "seemed like the right thing to do," said the groom. He informed the elder Reagans a few hours before, but, he explained, "I didn't ask my parents to attend because they're real busy now." The next Reagan wedding may be more elaborate. Maureen Reagan--the President-elect's twice-divorced daughter by Actress Jane Wyman--quietly became engaged in August to Californian Dennis Ravel. The couple is aiming for a California nuptial some time in March or April. But Maureen, 39, insists on waiting a week before making her plans public. Says she: "I don't want to upstage my brother."

What happened in the eighth round was only technically a K.O. The real knockout at last week's fight between Roberto Duran and Sugar Ray Leonard in New Orleans: Cover Girl Christie Brinkley, who was simultaneously posing for a fashion article in France's Elle magazine and photographing the action for Fight Promoter Don King. The winner: her gold lame paper jumpsuit. "It was like being wrapped in a Baggie," she said. Yet the incendiary getup had more than a few fight fans burning for a match.

By Claudia Wallis

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