By E. Graydon Carter

Those folks in the choir robes are Jill Clayburgh and Walter Matthau in a scene from their new film First Monday in October, due out this fall. In the movie, named after the first sitting of the high court each autumn, Matthau, 60, plays a crusty, liberal Supreme Court Justice. Clayburgh, 35, portrays a conservative Californian who becomes the first woman appointed to the high court. Though Matthau gets entangled in legal briefs, First Monday will be one of the few films in which he will not pad around in an undershirt and boxer shorts. In fact, for shots outside the Supreme Court Building in Washington, B.C., he and Clayburgh judiciously wore down jackets underneath their robes. Says she: "We might look like stuffed pigs, but it was freezing out."

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"I know what's fashionable. I can feel it in the air," sniffed Paloma Picasso. Who could argue? With parents like Painters Pablo Picasso and Franc,oise Gilot, good taste seemed to run in her genes. Born the year her father designed his now famous dove for the Communist World Peace Congress (her name is Spanish for dove), Paloma, 31, is now recognized for her own international body. This year she was named to the International Best-Dressed list. But at the opening of a display of Ch'ing dynasty costumes at New York's Metropolitan Museum, she revealed more than an acquired palate. As she made her entrance, Paloma artfully arranged her dress to accent the family lines. Her decolletage caused almost as many tuts as a noted recent exhibition, but Paloma was unruffled. Huffed she: "It was a simple black dress--it didn't show anything that shouldn't have been shown."

He had not intended to make acting his profession. As far back as 1926, he confided to a reporter from his Omaha high school newspaper: "It's just a hobby." But at the urging of Actress Dorothy Brando, who was then raising Baby Marlon, young Henry Fonda had joined the Omaha Community Playhouse and soon had the leading role in Merton of the Movies. Over the next half century, his "hobby" took him to Hollywood and well beyond, but his heart remained in Omaha. In 1955, along with Daughter Jane Fonda, who was then making her acting debut, he starred in an Omaha production of The Country Girl that raised money for the playhouse's current building. Earlier this month, Papa Fonda, 75, went home again, this time for a film tribute and reunion, and some 500 old friends packed the playhouse. "I have deep roots here," Fonda said, "and I love to come back."

Butterfly McQueen was not beautiful, but she had a quirky presence that impressed Producer David 0. Selznick. He gave her the role of Prissy, Scarlett O'Hara's neurasthenic maid, in his 1939 production of Gone With the Wind. As Atlanta burned, Butterfly gave haunting memory to the line: "Miss Scarlett, I don't know nothin' 'bout birthin' babies!" Looking as fresh and freckle-faced as ever, Butterfly and her quavery drawl have now returned to Atlanta. Still a part-time playground assistant in Harlem, she will act as hostess for the Gone With the Wind Museum for the next four months. Then, who knows? After all, tomorrow is another day.

--By E. Graydon Carter

On the Record

Tom Snyder, co-host of NBC's Tomorrow Coast-to-Coast show, on the difference between himself and fellow Talk Show Host Dick Cavett: "He'll talk with Luciano Pavarotti about opera. I'd like to know what he likes on his pizza."

Shirley Bassey, 43, singer, on performing in Monte Carlo: "The audiences there clap too slowly because they are so loaded down with jewelry, and they're always checking to see if Princess Grace or Prince Rainier are clapping first. By the time they've done that, I'm into my next song."

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