By E. Graydon Carter

From the first time that the two were brought together by Ebony magazine four years ago, a sense of kinship, then friendship, began to flourish. Yolanda King, 27, the daughter of Martin Luther King Jr., and Attallah Shabazz, 24, the daughter of Malcolm X (Shabazz is her mother's name), found that they had more in common than famous fathers in the civil rights movement: both have an abiding passion for the theater. With roles for black actresses scarce, they pooled talents and backgrounds to write and star in Stepping into Tomorrow, a play they have been performing on the road for school and civic groups for the past three years. Although Tomorrow draws mostly on the problems of today's teenagers, their next collaborative effort may prove more political. To be called Part of One Mind, the new play, says King, "will be about the similarities that existed between our fathers."

Two years ago, American audiences had their first encounter with sensual, enigmatic French Actress Fanny Ardant, 32, in Francois Truffaut's The Woman Next Door. But European directors suddenly all seem to be Ardant fans. Though little more than a pretty face in French theater and television three years ago, she has recently starred in a new movie for Alain Resnais, has done a second one with Truffaut, and has two more in the works. Last week she finished filming Benvenuta in Belgium, and next week in Italy she starts Sun and Night. Not bad for a relative newcomer. But Ardant wants to return to the stage. "Because I love the word," says she. "I love the music of the word. In the theater, I want to sing, I want to fly." Fine, but after Peter Pan, what?

Oh for the days when Wolfman Meets Frankenstein passed for a cheap thrill. Now the pressures of High Kink can cause such a strain, for example The Hunger, due out in April. In a decidedly against-type bit of casting, Catherine Deneuve, 39, plays a 3,000-year-old bisexual vampire involved in a threesome with Susan Sarandon, 36, and David Bowie, 36. With hot designs on toothsome Susan, Deneuve commits the classic faux pas of asking about a blood transfusion. "Not the greatest move on a first date," observes Sarandon. Indeed, but such is the foam that washes ashore in this bit of vampyorrhea that aggressively bills itself as "new wave." Quick, somebody fetch the stake.

With the Hollywood recycling mill humming at full capacity, actresses combing through the bios of studio film stars for a juicy part are as thick as autumn leaves--and some even thicker. And so with her Wonder Woman tights permanently stored away in some back-lot prop warehouse, Television Actress Lynda Carter dons a red wig and sucks in her tummy for Rita Hayworth, the Love Goddess, an upcoming two-hour CBS television movie. Carter learned how to dance and watched some of Rita's old films to strive for what she calls "the essence" of her character--goodness knows, she's 100DEG short on the smoldering look. Her performance will be an unknown until the movie airs, but the big question will remain unanswered for years: Is there even now some toddler out there who will grow up and decide to give her own lackluster career a boost by doing The Lynda Carter Story?

And what becomes a legend more than a TV movie? A splashy musical stage biography. It happened to the former first lady of Argentina, among others. And this month in London's West End, it happened to Marilyn Monroe. Marilyn! pastes together a pastiche of the late actress from a collage of 27 numbers that set the producers back some $1.5 million, the most ever spent on a London musical. Entrusted with holding the whole thing together, and with conveying M.M.'s breathy voluptuousness, is Stephanie Lawrence, 28, who headlined the London production of 'Evita by night and rehearsed her Marilyn! lines during the day. In between, the British actress frantically gobbled French fries to put on 14 Ibs. and give her 110-lb. frame a little Monroevian oomph. The result: the critics loved her, though they could not swallow the play. Said one: "Yet one more leaden exercise in necrophiliac hagiography." --By E. Graydon Carter This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.