By Gary L. Garcia

Actors have been known for a change of pace or a change of face, but Eddie Murphy, 23, is one of the few to try a change of race. Appearing as host on his old show, Saturday Night Live, last week, the chameleonic comedian went Caucasian in a four-minute film. For viewers who missed it, SNL Executive Producer Dick Ebersol explains, "He gets on a city bus, and there's one black man on it. The instant the black man gets off and it's just white people, they pull out music and cards and have parties." Murphy also performed in a sketch called "Milestones," depicting South African Bishop Desmond Tutu and Heisman Trophy Winner Doug Flutie. Presumably, Murphy always wanted to play the bishop, but then again . . . "They are 17 of the best dancers in the world." So says Sir Richard Attenborough, 61, appraising his cast for the film version of A Chorus Line, currently filming--where else?--on Broadway. The director does not make the claim lightly. He interviewed 3,000 applicants before choosing the final lineup. But then, Sir Dickie is accustomed to being patient. He has wanted to do another musical ever since 1969, when he mixed song and satire in his first film, Oh! What a Lovely War, but got sidetracked by the making of Gandhi. Looking back, Attenborough claims that filming the epic of the Mahatma was simplicity itself compared with telling the backstage story of Broadway gypsies. "If you're controlling a crowd of 250,000, it's logistics to a large degree," he observes. "You have the ambience of the plains of India and the slums of Delhi working for you. Here you have no change. You're in the theater."

As he trotted the final 200 yds. along an elevated bridge to Canton's ultramodern White Swan Hotel, the slight, blond runner was greeted by Guangdong province sports officials and svelte Chinese maidens in green cheongsams. But for Georgia's Stan Cottrell, 41, the greatest reward last week was simply finishing the 2,125-mile Great Friendship Run he had begun 53 days earlier from the Great Wall of China, northwest of Peking. "I call this a miracle run," said Cottrell, who held U.S. and Chinese flags as he was presented with a brown cloisonne trophy. "It's a miracle that I'm in China and a miracle that I'm here today." Exhausted but undaunted, Cottrell is already considering an equally fantastic feat: a 30-day run across the Soviet Union.

When Los Angeles Rams Running Back Eric Dickerson, 24, broke the National Football League record for yards gained by a rookie last year, he celebrated by buying his offensive linemen Rolex watches. After breaking O.J. Simpson's single-season rushing record of 2,003 yds. last week, even before the final game, Dickerson may have to buy them Porsches. The breakthrough run came as the Rams took on the Houston Oilers at Anaheim Stadium. With 3:22 left in the game, Dickerson slipped around the right end for a 9-yd. gain that gave him a season total of 2,007 yds. "Something said I was going to get 2,000 and get it easy," recalls Dickerson. "I could say it's God, but I won't." The voice could have been an echo of O.J., 37, who set the old record in 1973 while playing for the Buffalo Bills. --By Guy D. Garcia

On the Record

Kathryn Sullivan, 33, the first American woman to walk in space, on the relative risks of rocket flight and driving in Texas: "Driving on the Houston freeway is more dangerous. I'll take my chances on the launch pad any day."

John Ashbery, 57, Pulitzer-prize winning poet: "Very often people don't listen to you when you speak to them. It's only when you talk to yourself that they prick up their ears."