By Claudia Wallis

What's the most profitable corporation in Sweden?

Wrong, if you said Volvo or Bjorn Borg. It is ABBA, the world's top-selling recording group. But six-year-old ABBA, an acronym for Members Agnetha Faltskog, 31, Bjorn Ulvaeus, 35, Benny Anderson, 34, and Anni-Frid Lyngstad, 35, earns only part of its income from rock 'n' roll. Much of it comes from sidelines--like importing oil, leasing computers, investing in real estate and running one of the largest art galleries in Europe. These and other enterprises, owned by ABBA and its manager Stig Anderson, 50, netted roughly $20 million on sales of $125 million last year. By April the group's real estate subsidiary will be listed on the Stockholm stock exchange. And by 1982 other pieces of the rock will go public. "But not ABBA," insists Ulvaeus. "We would never have shareholders tell us what to record."

"It will take me more than five months to get over Peter's death," declared Lynne Frederick, 26, last Christmas in Gstaad, where she was recovering in the company of David Frost, 41, an old flame. Exactly one month later, Peter Sellers' widow marched down the aisle with her consoler, the eminently eligible British television star and producer, in a quiet ceremony in Theberton, England. Sellers' children professed outrage. "This only proves her love for my father was paper thin," snapped Michael, 26, who, along with Sarah, 23, and Victoria, 16, is contesting Sellers' will, which leaves nearly all of his $9.6 million estate to Frederick, his fourth wife. The unblushing bride bears them no ill will: "I only hope that one day Peter's children can find themselves as happy as I am today."

Old Acquaintance (1943) was a movie about friendship, but that did not stop Co-Stars Bette Davis and Miriam Hopkins from feuding on the set. The cast of Rich and Famous, Director George Cukor's remake of the film, is truer to its spirit. Jacqueline Bisset, 36, who has the Davis role of a brainy novelist, and Candice Bergen, 34, who plays a housewife turned bestseller queen, are in fact acting like old acquaintances. "We never worked together before, but Candice is terrific," Bisset gushes. "We've become great friends." Of course, Davis and Hopkins probably did not have Jackie's down-to-earth perspective on being a big-name movie star. Says the stunning brunette: "I sleep on my stomach and always wake up with bags under my eyes."

Knowing that S.I. Hayakawa has a reputation for snoozing through committee hearings, would-be Senators are lining up for his job. Maureen Reagan, Governor Jerry Brown, and Congressman Barry Goldwater Jr. have all been mentioned as candidates. Last week Gore Vidal, 55, author (Burr, The Best Man) and perennial talk-show guest, tossed his hat into the ring because, he says, "I'm terrified at the caliber of people in politics." By way of example, Vidal cites President Reagan's Inaugural Address: "It had all the resonance of a Brim coffee commercial." Besides a certain verbal flair, Vidal brings experience to his candidacy: he ran an energetic though unsuccessful New York congressional race in 1960. True, he has not voted since 1964 and has lived in Italy for much of the past ten years, but Vidal thinks Californians will overlook this when they see him on the hustings.

His benevolence toward the incumbent is certainly impressive. Says he: "It is my policy to let sleeping Senators lie.' --By Claudia Wallis

On the Record

William F. Buckley Jr., conservative editorialist, denying rumors that he will succeed his liberal-leaning friend Kingman Brewster Jr., former Yale president, as U.S. Ambassador to Britain: "If it be my role to clean up after Kingman Brewster, I shall first have to serve as president of Yale."

Robin Berrington, outgoing U.S. embassy press attache in Ireland, in a letter that outraged the Irish when it accidentally found its way into the Irish Times: "Ireland has food and climate well matched for each other--dull. [As a post it is] small potatoes."

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