By E. Graydon Carter

"You don't meet nice boys when you live on Skid Row," laments the heroine in Little Shop of Horrors, the cheery, off-Broadway hit now playing in New York City. You don't meet nice plants either. The star of the show is a wonderfully animated blob of garden life named Audrey II that takes a carnivorous delight in human blood. The description once fit Roger Corman, 56, too. But that was in the days when he ran American International Pictures, producing such classics as Not of This Earth, A Bucket of Blood and a little-known 1960 pastiche shot in just two days called The Little Shop of Horrors, on which the new play is based. Returning to his roots, Corman, now president of New World Pictures, is not one to look a gift hit in the mouth. Nor is he an apologist for his salad days. After all, says he: "I never promised you a rose garden."

Just to make sure that Superman III will have legs of steel at the box office, the film's producer has come up with a co-Caped Crusader: Richard Pryor, 41. In a part the folks at DC Comics never dreamed of, Pryor plays Gus Gorman, a computer wizard who dons tablecloth and skis for a lame demonstration of his own superpowers. Sm3 takes mild-mannered Clark Kent back to his high school reunion and a rekindled romance with Lana Lang, played by Annette O'Toole, 30, (Cat People). O'Toole may be beautiful, but her co-star is hot, and as Director Billy Wilder said, when film makers are in doubt, "they all come up with the same answer: 'Get Richard Pryor.' "

Only her hairdresser knew the zeal with which Barbra Streisand, 40, had committed herself to her new film, Yentl. The independent-woman- vs.-repressive-society yarn is based on a short story by Isaac Bashevis Singer, 78. When the actress read the tale, "It became a passion, along with the conviction that I was the person best able to communicate the story to audiences." Streisand took her mission seriously. The screenwriter? Why not get the best? How about Barbra Streisand? Director? How does Barbra Streisand sound? Producer? Well, there's always Barbra Streisand. And finally, what about someone to play the title role? Uh-huh. Due out late next year, Singer's little story has ballooned into a big-budget musical with Mandy Patinkin, 29, and Amy Irving, 28.

The original version was set in Poland, so Streisand moved her production to Czechoslovakia. There, other film makers might be concerned about language barriers and performances. But as far as Barbra's concerned, "The biggest challenge was to get by without fresh vegetables."

High above the earth late last month, the Soyuz T-7 spacecraft docked with the Salyut 7 orbital space station in a routine exercise in Soviet spacemanship. The scene then shifted from 2001 to The Honeymooners as Valentin Lebedev, 40, the Salyut flight engineer, welcomed the female cosmonaut aboard. "We've got an apron ready for you, Sveta," he proclaimed. "Of course, we have a kitchen for you too." The lady is Svetlana Y. Savitskaya, 34, who last week became the second woman ever to be sent into space. Though Savitskaya's orbital duties reflect traditional Soviet ideas as to where a woman's place is, she seems to welcome the babushka role. Izvestia, the government daily, put her on its own pedestal. "She is charming and soft," said the paper, undoubtedly raising the ire of earth-bound Westerners like Phil Donahue and Alan Alda, "a beautiful hostess, and likes to make patterns and sew her own clothes when she has time to spare." --By E. Graydon Carter

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.