By Guy D. Garcia

"I have always liked history," says Actress Faye Dunaway, 43, but when she began researching her role as Spain's Queen Isabella for Christopher Columbus, a TV mini-series to be aired next season, she found that "very little had been written about her." Dunaway did finally turn up a few things, including the fact that Columbus' historic voyage was delayed because "Isabella was fighting the Moors. She was a warrior queen. She actually got out there and fought in full armor." So, naturally, Dunaway followed suit. "It was awfully awkward," she says, though the actress had it easier than Isabella. "My armor was not so heavy, because it was aluminum."

Talk about role identification. Eight years ago, Kyle MacLachlan read in a newspaper that the rights to Dune, Frank Herbert's epic science-fiction fantasy, had been sold to a movie-production company.

He thought, "Shoot! I'm too young. It's out of my reach."

But the making of the picture kept being put off, and the stockbroker's son from Yakima, Wash., held on to his dream of playing Paul Atreides, the charismatic messiah of the Dune pentalogy.

"I've been with him for about ten years now," MacLachlan says of Paul, and when he was barely one year out of acting school, he got a chance to audition for the part of his boyhood hero. His punk haircut with "a little spike" was a problem, he recalls, but he promised Film Maker Dino De Laurentiis he would let his hair grow. And so what the actor calls his "Kyle-Paul meld" began in earnest. He read Dune five or six times before getting the part and has read it five or six times since. With the $40 million space saga now in the can, MacLachlan, 25, is wondering what effect all the publicity of the Christmas opening will have on him. "I had to believe that my getting the role of Paul has a purpose," he muses. "I don't know what it is yet--except being true to myself. That's one thing I learned from Paul."

She intends to prove that she is the world's fastest woman distance runner. Until last week, though, the biggest challenge to Zola Budd's determined trek toward an Olympic gold medal seemed more political than athletic. In March, the native South African abruptly left her homeland, which is banned from the Olympics, and picked up a quickie British citizenship, thanks to her English-born grandfather. Eyebrows were raised, feathers were ruffled, backs were got up. Would her hop, skip and sidestep work? The British Olympic Association, after consulting with International Olympic Committee officials, ruled last week that she is eligible. All that now remains between Budd, 18, and Los Angeles is the British Olympic trials this week, where the first three finishers in the 3,000 meters will be on the British team. Budd is the odds-on favorite to win. Last week, running barefoot, she did the 1,500 meters in 4:4.39, setting a world junior record.

Their last adventure together began 25 years ago. Now they had reunited to take on a challenging new mission. No, this was not another Star Trek revival, though it might be called Right Stuff II--The Search for Solvency. When the six surviving Mercury astronauts--Scott Carpenter, 59, Gordon Cooper, 57, John Glenn, 62, Wally Schirra, 61, Deke Slayton, 60, and Alan Shepard, 60--found themselves in Houston for a party honoring Aviators Charles Lindbergh and Jimmy Doolittle last month, a few of them got to wondering how they could help their old capsule comrade Glenn pay off his $3 million presidential campaign debt. Result: the six decided to pose along with Virgil "Gus" Grissom's widow Betty for an 8"x10" photograph that would be sold for $10. It is their first joint photo since the old days, and they have set up the John Glenn Friendship Foundation in Orlando, Fla., to han dle the sales. The effort may not make a huge dent, but Glenn, who was portrayed in the recent movie as somewhat above the high jinks of his fellows, was touched that the group would "still rally together to help when I need it." Besides, they all look pretty good for a bunch of retired rocket jockeys.

--By Guy D. Garcia