By KURT ANDERSEN

If one believes Christina Crawford's tales of child abuse in the bestselling Mommie Dearest, the real surprise is that little Christina was not actually done away with by her mommie severest. Now Faye Dunaway will unwrap that dirty linen again: Dunaway plays Joan Crawford in the movie version being shot in Los Angeles for a scheduled September release. The facial resemblance is clearly a casting director's dream. Says Dunaway: "It was scary the first time I saw it." She puts Crawford the Legend before Joan the Mom. Faye's judgment: "I have nothing but admiration for her. She was one of the last great movie stars." Dunaway is only repaying a curiously prophetic compliment. Listen to Crawford a decade ago: "Of all the actresses ... only Faye Dunaway has the talent and class and courage it takes to make a real star."

True, they flew into town aboard private jets, and both had the customary squads of professional chums. But the sold-out performance by Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr. at Atlanta's Civic Center last week was a starry burst of altruism: the $148,000 in concert receipts went into municipal coffers drained by the costs of investigating the murders of 20 black children. Halfway through the three-hour benefit --in which Native Georgian Burt Reynolds and Singer Roberta Flack appeared--Sinatra declared his "sadness and love" for Atlantans "frightened by day and doubly frightened by night." Furthermore, Sinatra assured his audience of 4,600, "honorable people still outnumber dishonorable deeds."

When President Reagan denounces Government workers as shirkers, he cannot be thinking of Zhao Wenjin, 75. Zhao began work as a handyman at the U.S. consulate in Xiamen, China, when Calvin Coolidge was his Supreme Employer. In 1945, eight years after consular officials had fled Japanese invaders, an American vice consul popped down from Shanghai and ordered Zhao to keep at it. So each workday since--through Communist takeover and every twist of revolutionary rancor--Zhao Wenjin has puttered about the compound, now an oceanographic institute, and every month he has collected, via the British, his $61 paycheck. Just after Zhao was rediscovered by his absentee bosses, he had a question. "When you see the Americans in Peking," Zhao said, "ask them if it's possible, since I've been working here so long, if my salary couldn't be increased." Says a State Department official: "He has been working very loyally for 55 years. The image ... is kind of poignant." Not to get sloppily sentimental about the affair, though, a bureaucrat adds: "There is a question of whether he was part of the pension plan."

Has Poland's Lech Walesa, leader of the Solidarity movement that is shaking Eastern Europe, sold out? And for $33? Not really. Walesa, 37, has simply turned movie star. In Director Andrzej Wajda's Man of Iron, a dramatization of last summer's shipyard strikes and a sequel to his acclaimed Man of Marble, Walesa plays himself. He apparently has no strikes against him. Says Wajda: "He performed without any stage fright and even joked that he might want to join the film company." His one scene yet to be filmed will show Walesa taking a meeting on the coast--this one at the gates of the historic Gdansk shipyard.

On the Record

Gore Vidal, acerbic author, on his plans to lecture widely during 1981: "Some writers take to drink, others take to audiences."

John LeBoutillier, 27, youngest U.S. Representative, addressing the charge that he alienates senior colleagues: "On the comment I made about Senator Percy, I have to explain this. I did call him a wimp."

Reggie Jackson, handsomely remunerated baseball player, responding to a rah-rah locker-room slogan: "The will to win is worthless if you don't get paid for it."

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