People

By Guy D. Garcia

Her pals call her Fergie. But really, Princess Fergie will never do. Still, Sarah Ferguson, 26, is the latest lass to catch the fancy of Prince Andrew, 25, and this has Britons wondering whether Randy Andy is finally over Blue Koo Stark and is now serious about fairer Sarah. Friends whisper that he still carries a torch for the soft-porn film actress. Last week, however, the royal tittle-tattle was all about Ferguson's visit, at Queen Elizabeth's invitation, to Sandringham for a week-long New Year's house party. She was first spotted with Andrew last June at Ascot, and they have been known to make the London nightclub scene together. The Queen and Prince Philip are reportedly delighted that their second son is dating a proper Sloane Ranger and member of the British upper classes. But will all that royal family pressure back the single-minded Andrew off?

"They don't like you," Anglican Bishop Desmond Tutu told demonstrators outside the South African embassy in Washington. "They say you are Communist inspired. That means you are effective." The Nobel Peace prizewinner was starting a three-week, coast-to-coast tour of the U.S. to raise money, and it was only natural that he should join the demo, which has been going on intermittently for more than a year and on this day featured the singing of the folk group Peter, Paul and Mary. The rally left Tutu in obvious good spirits. "We will be free. There's no doubt about that. We don't say if," he added. "We say when, when, when."

The film might have been retitled Too Hot to Handle. In 1984, three days before British Director Adrian Lyne (Flash-dance) was scheduled to start 9 1/2 Weeks, its original backer, Tri-Star Pictures, decided to pass. Eventually, MGM/UA took a chance, despite rumors that some kinky scenes of the obsessive love affair between Kim Basinger and Mickey Rourke would mean an X rating. But last week word came that 9 1/2 Weeks will hit theaters in February. Will the final edited R version live up to the flick's overheated reputation? Well, it seems that Lyne's cooler instincts prevailed. "I wasn't anxious to make an art film to be seen by 15 people in Greenwich Village," he says. "I wanted to get the couple in Ohio who will argue about the picture on the way home." For sophisticated world travelers, though, there is talk that the European version will be a tad more explicit.

He was a terror on the basketball court, but these days Wilt Chamberlain is something of a pussycat. The onetime N.B.A. champion has joined 13 other celebrities--including former President Jimmy Carter, Elizabeth Taylor and Ray Bradbury--who allowed their tabbies to pose for the 1986 Purina Cat Chow Celebrity Cat Calendar in exchange for a donation to the charity of their choice. "They are my kids," says Chamberlain of Zip and Zap, his two domestic short-hair kittens. "They give one a feeling of calmness." Then he meows, "Maybe Patrick Ewing should get a cat."

Those poor Washington wives, as the style pages are always reporting, lead powerless lives of frustrating invisibility. Ah, but they are watching, watching, watching and, it appears, getting ready to write books. The latest tome will in fact be called Washington Wives, a "real-view, behind-the-scenes" novel that is now being written by Maureen Dean, 40. The wife of Watergate Defendant John Dean is a stockbroker living in Beverly Hills (and John is an investment banker). She already has one book to her credit, 1975's "Mo": A Woman's View of Watergate, but insists that the new one is "totally fiction." A Woman Lost, due in July from former Senate Wives Abigail McCarthy and Jane Muskie, is a "suspense novel" involving the wife of a Vice President who is hospitalized against her will; hmm, would Martha Mitchell mind? This month will also mark the publication of Conglomerate, by former Congressional Spouse Rita Jenrette; it's a racy story about takeover attempts in both bedroom and boardroom.

His lifetime figures are impressively large: 2,211 hits, 1,555 RBIs, 521 home runs (including 18 grand slams), 6 ft. 4 in. of height--and now.810 on the Hall of Fame ballot. That number represents 346 out of a possible 425 votes and makes Willie McCovey only the 16th player to enter the hall in his rookie year of eligibility. But "Stretch" always started fast. The San Francisco Giant first baseman was a Rookie of the Year in 1959. Second in this year's voting, four votes below the 319 needed, was Billy Williams, hard-hitting outfielder for the Chicago Cubs. But Yankee Slugger Roger Maris, whose 61 homers in 1961 broke Babe Ruth's immortal record, died last month while ballots were being cast and came in fifth with 177.

"She has it all," proclaimed the glowing critique, "the range, expert intonation, a sensitive feeling for the lyrics and enough dynamic variety to preclude the danger of overkill." A concert by Barbra Streisand? How about Pia Zadora? Yes, Pia Zadora, who confesses that she went out and bought five copies of the rave by Los Angeles Times Critic Leonard Feather, "hoping they wouldn't print a retraction." They didn't, and in the ensuing three months Zadora's U.S. concert tour has radically improved her image: cinema's laughingstock has suddenly blossomed into a serious singer of such pop classics as It Had to Be You, Maybe This Time and For Once in My Life. An album, Pia and Phil (short for Philharmonic), has also been well received. "I'm thrilled," says Zadora. "A whole new world is opening up." Apparently so. In two weeks she will make her debut on the hallowed stage of New York's Carnegie Hall. Who would have ever guessed?

Call them The AC-DC Team. On second thought, call them a cab. Call them off. Call them irresponsible. But call them on the phone, and they don't call back. Not that there is ever really any need to explain the logic of plots on The A-Team. On one of next month's episodes, British Rocker Boy George shows up, more or less playing himself--just as Mr. T does every week. It seems Mr. T has long been a fan of the flamboyant singer. "He admires Boy's style of telling it like it is and that he does his own thing," explains T's agent, Peter Young. "The two are alike in that." Not to mention a shared taste in unconventional coifs.

He is the archetypal know-it-all neighbor, country style. Ernest P. Worrell oafishly offers his two cents on any subject before screwing up his face and yelling his trademark "Hey Vern!" But that screwed-up face is the most effective ad phiz in the biz, now that Clara Peller has stopped demanding "Where's the beef?" Five years after his first commercial, Ernest has become a national phenomenon, appearing in nearly 3,000 television ads, almost all of them for local sponsors in 100 TV markets. Last week, on behalf of a soft drink and a bed company, he began assaulting viewers in New York City, who don't yet know what has hit them. The man behind the big mouth, Kentucky-born Actor Jim Varney, 36, attributes Ernest's popularity to his unabashed intrusiveness: "He thinks he's really being helpful, giving wonderful advice when you don't really want it." (Example: "If you're waitin' on me, you're backin' up!") Has success gone to Varney's head? "We'll do lunch," he quips. "My machine will call your machine." --By Guy D. Garcia