By E. Graydon Carter

For Bob Hope's Road to Hollywood, an NBC special set for this week, the comedian has dusted off a ton of old film clips from many of his more than 55 feature films, including the seven Road pictures he did with Bing Crosby and Dorothy Lamour, 68. And so, to say "Thanks for the memories," Hope gathered a chorus of his past leading ladies. Lined up from left to right, Virginia Mayo, 62, Janis Paige, 60, Jill St. John, 42, Martha Raye, 66, Rosemary Clooney, 54, Lucille Ball, 71, Rhonda Fleming, 59, Lamour, Jane Russell, 61, Dina Merrill, 57, and Martha Hyer, 52, made for the ultimate Road picture: one in which Hope, 79, at last gets all the girls.

Were Meryl Streep, 33, to do a screen version of Romeo and Juliet, with, say, Robert De Niro, their twinned compulsion to "get into" the hearts of their roles might take them so far that an undertaker would have to be included in the closing credits. So finicky is Streep about her profession that when it came time to dub the French sound track for her Polish-born character in Sophie's Choice, she just had to try to provide that je ne sais quoi herself. "I had to audition to show that I could speak the language well enough to play the role," says Streep, who refreshed her knowledge of French with courses and by listening to tapes of a Polish-born Frenchwoman. "It actually worked out very well. I found that to a French ear, an American accent sounds remarkably like a Polish one. So to the French, I sound just like a Polish woman trying to learn to speak their language."

Few know the loneliness of the long-distance runner quite as well as Mary Decker Tabb, 24, who is often so far out in front of her female competitors that she gives what amounts to a solo performance. Last week she outdistanced six top male athletes as well as three female stars by winning the prestigious Sullivan Award, given annually to the nation's most outstanding amateur athlete. One of the brightest of 1984 U.S. Olympic hopefuls, Tabb is only the sixth woman to win the Sullivan. (Past winners have included Golfer Bobby Jones, Track Star Wilma Rudolph and Decathloners Bob Mathias, Rafer Johnson and Bill Toomey.) A mere wisp of a lass, Tabb. stands 5ft. 6 in. and weighs only 103 Ibs. But how the lady can run! Last year, at distances from a mile to 10,000 meters, she broke seven world and ten American records--nine of them in one 41-day stretch. Earlier this month she took herself out of competition for the remainder of the indoor track season to nurse a stress fracture of her left ankle, but she still looks lithe and fit. "It's nice," says she, "to have your legs appreciated for more than just looking good."

Monaco's Prince Monaco's Prince Rainier, 59, accompanied by his daughter Princess Stephanie, 18, paid a visit last week to New York City, where his son Prince Albert, 24, works at Morgan Guaranty Trust Co. It was planned as a quiet trip, his first to the city since the death last year of his wife Princess Grace, but as an ever increasing pack of press photographers dogged the family's every move, the vacation soured into a series of spirited confrontations between Grimaldis and paparazzi. Outside his Park Avenue hotel with Socialite Lynn Wyatt, the wife of Texas Oilman Oscar Wyatt and an old family friend, Rainier ran up against a virtual wall of press lenses. Momentarily losing his temper, he reportedly lunged forward and hit one of the photographers, sending the fellow's glasses skittering across the pavement. At a Broadway theater the next night, Rainier was accused of cursing and slugging another paparazzo who clicked when he should have ducked. Later that night, as his father hopped into a waiting limousine, Albert extended the middle finger of his left hand to the clustered throng of photographers in the universally understood gesture of disapproval. At such moments, no doubt, royal families must wish that the art of portraiture had never moved off the easel. --By E. Graydon Carter This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.