Having signed a bill nixing exemptions from jury duty on the basis of certain types of employmentt Jerry Brown, 43, could hardly cop a plea when called to spend some time in the box himself. So last week, with about 30 reporters and photographers, half a dozen plainclothesmen and several aides in tow, the California Governor became plain ole Citizen Brown and trooped into a Sacramento courtroom. Elected foreman, he announced a unanimous "not guilty" verdict on the misdemeanor charge being heard. Were his box mates hesitant to disagree with him? "No," said Sacramento Housewife Anna Holmes, 58, "I've disagreed with him before."

If Los Angeles Dodger Pitching Ace Fernando Valenzuela, 20, looked confused, it may simply have been that like some Washington Senators, he was wondering whether Ambassador to Mexico John Gavin, 49, a former actor, had a good grip on the situation. The Mexican-born Valenzuela certainly knows every stitch on a baseball, as his 9-4 record attests. At the White House, where he helped welcome visiting Mexican President Jose Lopez Portillo, the beer-fueled screwballer seemed to wish he were high and outside. Said Valenzuela: "All this attention doesn't bother me. I have four days of rest between games, so I don't have much to do."

Draped in a most unladylike damp cloth, the gray clay figure looked more like Aphrodite rising from the sea than the future Queen of England. But the royal figure of Lady Diana Spencer, 19, will be appropriately demure by the time it joins the waxed likenesses of Prince Charles, 32, her husband-to-be, at London's famed Madame Tussaud's. A plaster mold was made of Sculptor Muriel Pearson's feat of clay, from which a wax figure is being shaped; later it will be colored and dressed. The Di will be cast shortly before the royal wedding on July 29.

The face? Aaah. The figure? Oooh. She's even winning raves for the fragrance. Sophia Loren, 46, who teamed up with the Coty cosmetics company last fall and launched a new line of perfumes, saw her scent named Sophia take top honors at last week's Fragrance Foundation Recognition Awards. La Loren, whose own ample lines were clearly the feature attraction, offered the ladies some advice. "You should put the perfume on the hot spots," said she. "I can tell you a few of those. But others--it's impossible."

Coming into the heavy weight-loss championship, the two opponents, both bestselling diet authors, were lean and mean. When the bell rang for their appearance on NBC's late-night Tomorrow show, Dr. Robert Atkins (Dr. Atkins' Diet Book) and Nathan Pritikin (The Pritikin Program for Diet and Exercise) spattered like fast-frying bacon. In the crossfire of insults and accusations, refereed by Tomorrow Co-Host Tom Snyder, 45, Pritikin, who advocates a low-cholesterol, high-exercise program, asserted that Atkins' high-fat, high-protein diet increased the chances of heart disease and certain cancers. After the taping, Atkins, 50, weighed in with the threat of a $5 million lawsuit against his opponent. Quips Pritikin, 65, of the high-fat vs. cholesterol controversy: "It's a real meat or potatoes issue." --By-L-. Graydon Carter

On the Record

Georgia Frontiere, Los Angeles Rams owner, explaining why she fired Stepson Steve Rosenbloom as the team's vice president: "I didn't know where the money was going. Once I got a bill for $10,000. Steve had bought cowboy boots for all the players."

Min-Chueh Chang, 72, co-developer of the birth control pill, on one of its side effects: "I personally feel the Pill has rather spoiled young people. It's made them more permissive."

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