By --By E. Gray don Carter

She came into the land of harsh, brooding mountains and the eternal, green-blue Irish Sea, a princess and stranger. But she charmed the countrymen thoroughly and soon they welcomed her as their princess and friend. The trip to Wales last week by Prince Charles, 32, and Diana, Princess of Wales, 20, was their first formal appearance since their marriage last July and marked Diana's official debut on the job. The threeday, 400-mile journey by train coach and Rolls-Royce, was a wearying one, but it never showed on the royal brows. Diana plunged into her new duties with a zest that belied her past head-down shyness. At every stop, there were excited cries of "Princess Diana! Princess Diana!" Said Charles gesturing to his lady: "There's the person you've come to see."

In an outfit of red and green--the colors of the Welsh flag--Diana responded warmly to the cheering crowds in Rhyl. At one point, the tiny voice of Simon Edwin, 7, caught her ear. "My dad says give us a kiss," said Simon. "Well then," Diana replied, bending forward, "you had better let me have one." Further on, the princess spotted Joanne Edwards, 8, crippled by spina bifida. "Do you want a hug?" she asked the young girl. Whispered Joanne: "Oh yes, please." Diana lifted her out of her wheelchair and kissed her softly.

As expected, there were a number of protests by Welsh nationalists who have long sought to break the country's 445-year-old union with Britain. As the royal Rolls approached the 13th century castle city of Caernarvon, a young woman leaped forward, spraying the car with white paint before she was whisked away by some of the 600 Special Branch policemen guarding the prince and princess. Outside the castle, demonstrators chanted, "Charles, go home!"

At Caernarvon, where Charles was vested as Prince of Wales in 1969 by his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, the couple rested on two slate chairs in the castle courtyard. Overhead, the skies added their own dramatic greeting, going from sun to inky storm clouds, to rain and, finally, at dusk, to a rainbow that seemed to touch down just behind the battlements. When the couple emerged, Diana thrilled the young schoolgirls in the crowd by removing her gloves and wiggling her fingers so that they could get a glimpse of her engagement and wedding rings.

Poised and winsome throughout, Di committed only one small gaffe. Presented with a set of small silver bowls, she instinctively flipped one over to check the hallmark. She avoided the same mistake later, when a group of Welsh farmers presented her with two other gifts: Sandra, a seven-month-old heifer, and a ewe. "I am sorry there is only one of her," said the pleased Charles at one point. "I haven't got enough wives to go around."

Displaying a passing and running style seldom seen on most playing fields these days, New York Governor Hugh Carey, 61, ditched his statehouse grays for an appearance in the second annual Pumpkin Bowl. The touch-football game pitted the Governor and his staff against reporters for the Albany Times-Union. As back-up quarterback, Carey warmed the bench. But substituting at halfback, he did manage a down or two of wobbly catch and carry. Cheering him on and tucking in his jersey from time to time was his second wife of seven months, Evangeline Gouletas-Carey, 45. Last year the statehousers lost, but this time they scored a 24-6 win. Said Team Captain Carey after the hard-fought victory: "Football is wonderful--the second time around."

He has graced the stage as a sailor, a fawn, a prince, a cowboy and a Greek god. But if anything is going to keep New York City Ballet Star Edward Villella, 45, on his toes, it will be his current role as Visiting Artist at West Point. During one recent appearance on campus, Villella surveyed an aerobic dance class from the sidelines, then took the cadets through the same motions, ballet-style. "They were skeptical at first," says Edward, "but after a while everybody loosened up. Even the plebes were laughing."

So compelling was she as a Catholic nun in The Bells of St. Mary's that for years after, Ingrid Bergman, 66, received letters from mothers whose daughters had chosen convent life after seeing the 1945 film. Opposite Humphrey Bogart in the 1943 classic Casablanca, she captured a million men's hearts as the sublime image of bittersweet love. Goodness knows what effect the actress's portrayal of Golda Meir will have on young Israeli women--or old Israeli politicians for that matter. Coaxed out of retirement to play the late Israeli leader in the Operation Prime Time TV movie, A Woman Called Golda, to be aired next May, Bergman managed to fold a Yiddish lilt into her husky Swedish whisper. Though the actress spent hours watching news and documentary footage of Golda, she only saw the grande dame of Israeli politics brighten once--in an old segment of TV's This Is Your Life. "They were all so serious, those films," says Bergman. "I wondered if Golda had ever joked or smiled."

As Atticus Finch in the 1963 movie To Kill a Mockingbird, Gregory Peck captured well the kindly, yet determined sensibilities of a rural Southern lawyer. The actor has moved north to Gettysburg, Pa., for his next role, in The Blue and the Gray, an eight-hour CBS TV mini-series to be aired next March. Queuing up in a distinguished line that includes Walter Huston, Henry Fonda, Raymond Massey and Hal Holbrook, Peck, 65, is taking up stovepipe and chin whiskers to portray Abraham Lincoln. "I'm in seven scenes," says Greg, "but I only get to speak in five of them. That's because in the other two, I'm dead."

"He pops up in my life every once in a while," says Hollywood Veteran Actor Jimmy Stewart, 73, of Harvey, the white-suited fellow to his right. The rabbit turned up unexpectedly at a rehearsal of the New Year's Day Tournament of Roses parade, which Jimmy will lead as grand marshal. Stewart first befriended the imaginary bunny in the 1947 Broadway production of Harvey. They were reunited in the 1950 film and again in the 1970 Broadway revival. While in Pasadena, Stewart also struck up a friendship with a fellow human, last year's Tournament of Roses queen, Leslie Wai. "She briefed me on the different kinds of waves there are," says Jimmy. "Must be four or five ways you are supposed to wave to the crowd."

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