Presleymania reigned. A frenzied girl tried to jump from the balcony to the stage. More than 13,000 other Elvis worshipers--housewives in Presley T shirts, teenyboppers, and vacationers who were following their idol on a seven-state tour--paid $10 and up for a concert in the Providence Civic Center. Paunchy and jowly at 42, the King scarcely bumped or gyrated. But just like old times, he crooned hoary favorites such as Hound Dog and Teddy Bear, and when he periodically tossed a sweat-stained scarf to the peons below, he set off a clawing clamor. A gratifying finale of female screams greeted his ultimate compliment, the understatement of the evening: "You've been a good audience."

She made her mark in television, directing the first 22 episodes of Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman and an episode of the Mary Tyler Moore Show that was nominated for an Emmy. But now Joan Darling has switched to the no woman's land of feature film. Her movie is First Love, the story of a young man (played by William Katt, last seen in Carrie) who loses his girl (Susan Dey) to an older man. "I want all the people who see this picture to remember what it was like to fall in love for the first time," says Darling, 41. Star Katt will always remember what it was like to be directed by a woman. "It was terrific," he says. "I get along better with women than I do with men." -

The slight, 95-lb. frame of Steve Cauthen was hunched over Bay Streak last week, moving to challenge the leaders in the fourth race at Long Island's Belmont Park. As onlookers gasped, Bay Streak snapped a foreleg, and the rider and his horse went down. Cauthen, 17, was rushed to a nearby hospital and treated for lacerations, bruises and fractures of his right arm and two fingers. A few days later, the youth was released and sent home to Kentucky to recuperate. The doctors' orders: no riding for at least six weeks, putting a temporary halt to the jockey's unmatched five-month winning spree. The grounded Cauthen is already champing at the bit. "He's mad that he's not out racing today," says his mother, Myra Cauthen. "He just wants to get back on top."

"I don't like my daughter to hear me saying this because I keep telling her that she must take her time about these things, but it happened very quickly," reminisced Princess Grace, who said yes to Prince Rainier after only a few dates. Actually Daughter Caroline, 20, has ears --and eyes--these days only for her beau, Philippe Junot, a boulevardier and sometime insurance broker who is descended from Napoleon's aide-de-camp, General Andoce Junot. The couple met a year ago and have been together ever since. Junot, 36, has even received the imprimatur of the palace: an invitation to share the royal box at a tennis championship match in Monte Carlo. "Of course I love her, who wouldn't?" asks Junot. But both the suitor and the princess discount rumors of marriage. "There's so much to see and do, and I'm young," says Caroline. Her top priority at the moment is going on a safari to Africa. No one is saying whether Junot will go along.

Melina Mercouri and Ellen Burstyn have not really been thrown in the clink. The two actresses are making a movie in Athens' Korydallos prison, where ex-Dictator George Papadopoulos is locked up for real. In the film, tentatively titled Maya and Brenda, Burstyn plays Brenda, an American woman who has been jailed for killing her three children. Mercouri is cast as Maya, a middle-aged actress "with a past." Says Mercouri wryly: "I have been playing a woman with a past since I was five years old." Because she is rehearsing the role of Medea, who in the Greek tragedy kills her children, Maya visits Brenda in jail, and the two women become fast friends. Off camera, too, the American and the Greek actresses are getting along "absolutely fabulous," says Melina. "She came off the plane after a ten-hour flight, and we spent the entire night singing songs together. We'll be all right."

BMW has traded in its racing stripes for polka dots and squiggles--with a little help from Pop Artist Roy Lichtenstein. As the third artist to paint a racing car for Bavarian Motor Works, Lichtenstein joins the ranks of Alexander Colder and Frank Stella. His "art car" will be BMW's entry at Le Mans on June 11-12. The artist painted a molded fiber-glass mock-up at his Long Island studio, then shipped it off to Munich to be copied on the racing version of the BMW 320L His design is a somewhat distorted and abstract mirror of the landscape. "The bottom reflects a little of the road and the green roadside. In the middle you can see the sunrise and some blue sky. The top is decorated with clouds," explains Lichtenstein. Will his bodyworks in fact influence the outcome of the race? Boasts Roy with a smile: "My design will in crease the speed of the car by 5 m.p.h." It will also, he adds, "disorient the other drivers."

When an angel turns truculent, there is only one thing to do: audition some fresh halos. Farrah Fawcett-Majors' legal battle to get out of her Charlie's Angels' contract has prompted the producers to get a stand-by for her. The anointed one: Cheryl Ladd, 25, seen on Police Woman and Police Story. If Farrah remains in Charlie's harem, Cheryl will play her little sister Kris. If Farrah leaves, Cheryl becomes a full-fledged angel. "I can't wait," she said. "There's only one Farrah, and I'm not going to try to be her. I'm going to be me." Why not?

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