People: Jan. 31, 1983

Gentlemen's Quarterly asked him to pose doing a buck-and-wing. But it's his new megabuck-and-change contract that really has St. Louis Cardinals Shortstop Ozzie Smith, 28, kicking up his heels. Last week "the Wizard of Oz," as he is known around Busch Stadium, doubled his old salary in a pact with the 1982 World Series-winning Cards that will make him the highest-paid shortstop in major league history: a reported $1 million a year. Oz's golden-brick road will run for at least the next three seasons.

The collaborative genius of George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart produced many great American plays and one theatrical masterpiece, the 1938 Pulitzer-prizewinning comedy You Can't Take It with You. Across the river from Broadway in Millburn, N.J., it has just been revived, with Jason Robards, 60, in the lead. When Kaufman's daughter Anne Kaufman, 57, and Moss Hart's widow Kitty Carlisle Hart, 65, dropped backstage, it added a familial touch to the family-oriented play that suited Robards fine. The much married reformed drinker is practicing what he performs. "You know what I did the other night?" says Robards. "I threw the football with my eight-year-old son until 9. Let me tell you, running after the football in the dark at 60 keeps you young."

Former Pittsburgh Pirate Willie Stargell, 41, last week went through the angst of being a rookie again. He had been recruited by the Eastman Philharmonia to read selected passages from the speeches of Martin Luther King to a new score written with Stargell in mind by Composer Joseph Schwantner, 39. "When you play Carnegie Hall, the knees tend to knock," said Stargell. But last week he gave a great performance in a career marked by great performances. For the old ballplayer, his debut was one from the heart. "Once, I remember we went to a drive-in movie, and the blacks had to sit in the back on benches with a little tin roof overhead in case it rained. Memories like that make you want to do something for Dr. King."

The crowds were beginning to gather at the Executive Inn Rivermont, near Owensboro, Ky. Dolly Parton, 37, had come to town. About an hour before showtime, a woman phoned Owensboro police to warn of possible danger from a man who "wants to harm her, a person who can't stand her." Parton's security consultant, Gavin DeBecker, 29, recommended that she cancel the concert and three others scheduled for last week. DeBecker believes he has a line on the man, a mental patient who has been arrested "a number of times." As for Parton, who carries a snub-nosed pistol and has in the past indicated no reluctance to use it, she holed up first in Nashville, then in Los Angeles, behind tight security.

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SUSIE SHEPHERD, principal at Rosewood Middle School in Goldsboro, NC, explaining why the school's annual fundraiser decided to sell good grades for money
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SUSIE SHEPHERD, principal at Rosewood Middle School in Goldsboro, NC, explaining why the school's annual fundraiser decided to sell good grades for money

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