By James Kelly

The couple behaved like typical tourists, gliding down the Nile, clicking away at the Sphinx, even striking a matching pose in front of a pharaonic frieze at Luxor. Except, of course, that typical tourists do not have the Nile searched for explosives beforehand; neither do they lunch with Jehan Sadat, widow of Anwar, nor get together with President Hosni Mubarak. Visiting Egypt on a swing through the Middle East, Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter were reminded often of the 1978 Camp David accords. Strolling through a Cairo bazaar, he was greeted with shouts of "Welcome, Mr. Peace Man!" Mused Carter: "I could do very well in an election in Egypt." But not necessarily everywhere else: as the Carters toured Jerusalem later in the week, more than 100 Arabs shouted slogans and threw rocks to protest the Camp David agreement.

A onetime actress with a flair for the dramatic, Erin Fleming, 42, was Groucho Marx's companion for the last six years of his life. Whatever their life was like together, the battle being waged in Santa Monica, Calif., between Fleming and the bank that was named as Marx's executor has had all the decorum of the courtroom scene in Duck Soup. In the seven-week case, which goes to the jury this week, the Bank of America accused her of gulling the comedian out of $428,000 before he died in 1977 at the age of 86. After outbursts in court, Fleming was examined by a psychiatrist, who found her "very incoherent, very angry and very mentally ill." But Fleming asserted that Groucho had been crackers and that she had kept him sane and happy. Celebrities who had known Marx, including George Burns and Carroll O'Connor, supported her version. Family members attacked her. As for Groucho himself, he testified, too, in a way. Jurors watched a videotape of the comic accepting a special 1974 Oscar and thanking Fleming, "who makes my life worth living and understands all my jokes."

Knock, knock. Who's there? Nancy Reagan, if one happened to be on the set of the NBC series Different Strokes in Los Angeles last week. The former actress, last seen in 1956's Hellcats of the Navy with Ronald Reagan, agreed to do the show as part of her crusade against teen-age drug abuse. On the program, which airs this Saturday, Arnold, played by Gary Coleman, writes a story about a drug ring in his school, and his report winds up in a New York City newspaper. Nancy, playing Nancy, reads it and drops by to discuss the piece. She flubbed a line in rehearsal, but fared better with the cameras rolling. Would she, asked Executive Producer Howard Leeds, like to star in her own sitcom? The First Lady laughed. "We'll talk," she replied. That's Hollywood for tabling the motion.

Fred Astaire he is not, but Jimmy Connors nonetheless cuts a debonair figure in top hat and tails. The occasion for swapping whites for white tie: World Tennis magazine was formally celebrating his 1982 ranking as No. 1. Last year Connors, 30, won both Wimbledon and the U.S. Open, but he elected not to play in the Davis Cup last week. His countrymen could have used him; the U.S. team was knocked out in the first round by the Argentines in Buenos Aires. Connors might not have been much help; last week he was defeated by an unknown from South Africa in the Belgian Indoor Championships. Could it be time to try a sideline like Fred's? Hmm, let's see, how about a film called Top Spin ?

It was Monday, and they were sitting at Harry's Bar and American Grill in a city called Los Angeles. It was judgment night for the Sixth Annual International Imitation Hemingway Competition. If you have been to Ernest Hemingway judgment night, then you know how it is. Six judges reading the entries. Spare lean entries. Parodies. The winner was a woman named Lynda Leidiger, 30, with a story about a Valley Girl in a shopping mall. "In the Galleria, it was fine. Sometimes clean and warm and bright. Sometimes clean and warm and cold . .. She had been there as long as the concrete, longer than Sears ... 'We will be fierce and fly down the freeway through the rain like two wild birds,' I said. 'But, like, I am afraid of the rain, darling,' she said. 'Sometimes I see myself all grody in it. And sometimes I see you grody in it. It's so gross. To the max.' She was crying, it was no good. 'Ciao,' I said. But it was like saying goodbye to a statue, or a preppie. After a while I left her standing in front of Le Juice Bar, and walked down to the 7-11 in the rain." Lynda says she really is a Fitzgerald fan.

--By James Kelly This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.