John the Baptist had some difficult days. So did--on a modest scale--Michael York, who plays the prophet's role in Franco Zeffirelli's The Life of Jesus. "We shot the prison scenes in a real dungeon in a castle in Tunisia," recalls York. "I spent the day actually chained to the wall. It wasn't hard to feel the part." For his final scene at King Herod's banquet, of course, York could appear only in the form of an elaborately made-up piece of sculpture, which enabled him to observe, "I had the privilege of seeing my own head right there on the plate."

Now that everyone knows about Jimmy Carter's lustful thoughts, it is apparently hard for a female journalist to resist asking for more details. As Barbara Howar put it after interviewing the Democratic candidate, "I [told] him that if he is pressed to be more specific about his list of the many women he has lusted after in his heart, I would certainly appreciate being mentioned." Not one to be overlooked, Harvard Professor Doris Kearns Goodwin, author of Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream, popped the same question while interviewing Carter in August for the Ladies' Home Journal and three other women's magazines. Though Playboy's piece was not yet out, she says she had heard about its most memorable lines and asked Carter: "Are you feeling lust now?" The candidate, who has on occasion been accused of waffling, wiggling and wavering, wiggled and wavered for a bit and then said he "didn't seem to know."

Rock fans remember her as the winsome, barefooted young Mama belting out pop hits with the Mamas and the Papas a decade ago. In London these days, Michelle Phillips, 32, is trying a different tune, playing Natacha Rambova, the haughty wife of the legendary screen lover in Ken Russell's film Valentino. With Ballet Star Rudolf Nureyev, 38, cast as Valentino, the relationship is somewhat different from the original. The driven Rambova constantly badgered her "Rodolpho" to make bigger films, then walked out on him in a fit of pique. This time round, it's Nureyev who keeps demanding more effort. Says Phillips: "When we were on location in Spain, he kept coming around to the dinner tables every night saying it would be a good idea to rehearse some more. Nureyev loves to work." -

When Dr. Benjamin Spock published his Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care back in 1946, Mary Morgan was eight years of age, just about old enough to benefit from Speck's amiable counsel on her entire generation. Three decades later, Mary Morgan Councille is an organizer of conferences, a divorcee and, as of last week, the second Mrs. Spock. The recently divorced doctor, now 73 and a vice-presidential candidate for the microscopic People's Party, met his bride last year while participating in one of her conferences on "the use and abuse of power." That weekend, says Spock, "we fell madly in love." For the wedding in Little Rock, Ark., the county clerk's office presented the couple with its standard gift: a bag containing mouthwash, deodorant and window-cleaning spray.

"This is part of a great lost tradition, the meanwhile-back-at-the-fort film," Gene Hackman boasts of his new movie. Cheerfully titled March or Die, the picture features Hackman as a West Pointer who finds a commission in the French Foreign Legion and trouble in the Sahara between archaeologists and Arabs. Hackman grumbles: "A whole generation has grown up without ever seeing a Foreign Legion film. Today kids think the only thing on the other side of a sand dune is an oil well." His new role as a French connection, desert style, will surely set them straight. Says Hackman: "I'm a cross between George Patton and Charles de Gaulle with sand in his pommes frites."

After earning fame and a few bruises with his pratfall impressions of President Ford on NBC's Saturday Night, Comedian Chevy Chase has stumbled onto something really big. It is "a multithous-and-dollar deal that will run into seven figures over a period of time," says Chase, who will leave S.N. after the Oct. 30 show and become a writer, producer and star of NBC specials (with the possibility of making movies as well). Among the subjects he will tackle, adds the comedian, is TV itself--"anything that rings of the cliche and sham, which is what most of television is." Abandoning his old show will be something of a wrench, says Chevy, but "it's like leaving one love affair for another, and we all must move along."

In his 1972 expose, a book called O Congress, Michigan Democratic Representative Don Riegle, 38, spoke disapprovingly of Congressmen ("even elderly members") on the make. "The fact that a member might be married makes no difference at all," clucked Riegle. So the Congressman was understandably distressed last week when the Detroit News unearthed some 1969 taped conversations between the married Riegle (he divorced and remarried in 1972) and someone in his office code-named Dorothy. The tapes, the authenticity of which Riegle does not dispute, describe an "exquisite session" enjoyed by the Congressman and Dorothy. In one conversation, he complains about having to attend "a lousy subcommittee hearing" and agrees to put off anything for Dorothy, "even a presidential appointment." Riegle, who once had hopes of running for President some day, called the disclosure a "most vicious hatchet job" and added that he is "not a perfect human being." At the moment, he is campaigning for the Senate seat vacated by Philip Hart, and his seven-point lead over Opponent Marvin Esch shows signs of slipping. The Dorothy tapes will hardly help.

The Japanese mother playing happily with her child looks as if she had all the time in the world. Actually, Crown Princess Michiko of Japan stole a few moments from her hectic schedule to celebrate her 42nd birthday with Princess Nori, 7, the youngest of her three children, and Nori's pet dogs (they are chin, Japanese spaniels). In honor of the occasion, the crown princess granted a rare press conference and told reporters about her official visits this year to Yugoslavia, Jordan and Britain. As for the royal birthday, the princess joked: "You know, my classmates hate this time each year when news of my birthday appears in the papers. It gives things away."

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