By E.Graydon Carter

Though his home off Sunset Boulevard is far from his storied American West, Louis L'Amour continues to celebrate the ideals of a fantasy frontierland where law triumphs over disorder and cowpokes don't go in much for either gunplay or foreplay. If they are anything like their creator, how would they have the time? The author of 81 frontier novels (some 125 million copies in print) with a whip-cracking output of nearly three new books a year, L'Amour may have to take at least one day off in the coming year so that he can head back east to Washington to be honored along with Bandleader Fred Waring, 82, and the late champ Joe Louis. Government-issued gold medals of the three were approved by Congress last week. There have been 90 honorees since George Washington received the first medal in 1776. Another son of the heartland, President Reagan, will probably present the medal. Although no stranger to horse operas, Reagan appeared in none of the 35 movies made from L'Amour novels. "I only wish he had done one of my works," says L'Amour. "Maybe I can talk him into doing one some day."

In her first Shakespearean role after 46 years of acting, Anne Baxter, 59 (The Razor's Edge, All About Eve), managed in one falling swoop to live up to two of the stage's hoariest bywords: "Break a leg" and "The show must go on." At the opening of Stratford, Conn.'s American Shakespeare Theater production of Hamlet, Baxter, playing Queen Gertrude to Christopher Walken's Hamlet, was maneuvering herself and her 20-lb. dress down a darkened backstage staircase when she tumbled, breaking her foot and spraining her ankle. Baxter then made it through the second half of the play without a moment of hesitation. "When the curtain came down, my foot looked like it had been dipped in blueberry pie," says the actress, who has yet to miss a performance. "Now they call me Gertrude the Gimp."

Nevermore let it be said that Christie Brinkley is only a looker. In National Lampoon's Vacation, the reigning supermodel walks, talks and gives at least a passing impersonation of an ingenue. Brinkley, 27, makes her film debut in a little slip of a cinema, due out next spring, that follows the misadventures of an American family on a cross-country trip from Chicago to a giant theme park in California called Walley World. Brinkley plays a blond in a red Ferrari who continually pops up along the route. The part is undoubtedly one that Meryl Streep would pass up, but "when it comes to acting," says Christie, "I'm still in first gear." So she considers the role a good start, especially for a struggling, up-and-coming actress with an outside income of around $2 million a year.

A throwback to the elegance of the Russia whence he came, Erte has been for eight decades both a witness to and an influence on the style and tone of the 20th century. The designer for the Folies-Bergere, the Ziegfeld Follies, George White's Scandals and the illustrator of every Harper's Bazaar cover from 1915 to 1936, Erte continues today to work in his Paris home, creating his fine-lined, Beardsley-esque drawings; only last June, Der Rosenkavalier, featuring his sets and costumes, was performed at England's Glyndebourne Opera Festival. And at the time of his 90th birthday in November, the artist will be honored with major retrospectives in five U.S. cities. Even at his age, Erte can write such future dates in his appointment book with confidence, a fact that he credits to daily lifting of the small weights he carries In a special briefcase wherever he goes. "My father taught me to use them when I was seven," he says. "Weightlifting prolongs body movement, and I've always been interested in keeping my body svelte." And his eye keen.

-- By E.Graydon Carter

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