People: May 14, 1984

“Washington, D.C., has the best characters in the world,” bubbles Goldie Hawn, 38, who was filming Protocol in the capital, where she also grew up. Goldie plays a cocktail waitress who through a hilarious (it says here) series of events becomes a State Department protocol officer. Not amused, however, was the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. Some extras who answered a casting call for “Arab-looking” types started a protest after seeing the script, which satirizes the kaffiyeh-clad emissaries of a mythical Middle Eastern kingdom. Worry about adverse publicity led Executive Producer Hawn and the film’s other bosses to agree to consider eliminating some of the more offensive material. Isn’t that what protocol is all about?

This cowboy was born Issur Danielovitch in upstate New York. His parents were from Russia. And, he says, “I never rode a horse unless they paid me.” But in America, anything is possible. So to honor his work in such films as Gunfight at the O.K. Corral and his own favorite, Lonely Are the Brave, the Cowboy Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City inducted Kirk Douglas, 67, as its newest celluloid cowpoke, joining the legendary likes of John Wayne. The Duke might have been amused. After Douglas portrayed the eccentric painter Vincent Van Gogh. Wayne asked him, “Why did you play that weak, sniveling character?” Replied Douglas: “I’m an actor.” Warned the Duke: “Yeah, well, don’t let me catch you playing a role like that again.”

Their repertory includes such come-again classics as Big Bottom, Intravenus de Milo and The Sun Never Sweats. Until recently, the only way a fan could hear them was by buying a ticket to This Is Spinal Tap, a mock rockumentary that chronicles the exploits of a fictitious heavy-metal band. The group called Spinal Tap was only a joke, created for the film by Director Rob (All in the Family) Reiner, 39, and its three main members, played by Writer-Comedians Harry Shearer, 40, Christopher Guest, 36, and Michael McKean, 36. The movie has been such a stomping success, however, that the boys have decided to take their act on the real rock road. They appeared on Saturday Night Live last week. Is the band surprised to find life imitating art? “Not really,” explains Shearer. “After all, our antics aren’t stranger than anyone else’s.”

“Here’s to the substance beneath the surface. To the true color of the spirit rather than the color of the package.” A noble sentiment, certainly. But when the speaker is Joan Collins, 50, one cannot help wondering: Is her television alter ego, Alexis Carrington, merely engaging once again in deceitful discourse for the sake of her own naughty ends? Not this time. The scene is from Blondes vs Brunettes, an ABC-TV special to be aired next week, which features TV’s brunet queen meanie, Collins, and Morgan Fairchild, 34, a blond TV vixen. In one skit they also played sweet post-60 grandmothers who toast each other over tea. Amid the treacle, it is reassuring to remember that the two femmes fatales still have plenty of that good old delicious malicious left in them.

—By Guy D. Garcia