By Guy D. Garcia

Even after his first novel, Famous All Over Town, was awarded a $5,000 prize last May by the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, Danny Santiago remained something of a mystery man; not even his editor had met or spoken to the young Hispanic author. Last week the reason for his invisibility became clear. He is really Daniel James, 73, a Kansas City-bred, Andover-and Yale-educated Anglo, who was a Hollywood screenwriter before being blacklisted by McCarthyites in 1951. James took on his ethnic nom de plume (Santiago is used in Spanish for James) shortly after he and his wife began a 25-year stint as social workers in predominantly Chicano East Los Angeles. James says that his intention was never to deceive but simply "to write about Mexicans from the inside. I wasn't trying to jump on the ethnic bandwagon." Besides, he liked being the impudent young Santiago who is "like me when I'm drunk." That said, he reports that Santiago is already busy at work on his second novel.

There is not an editor in the solar system who would doubt that Tom Wolfe, 53, has very good stuff when it comes to writing slam-bang journalism. But Wolfe's newest project, a novel titled The Bonfire of the Vanities, is another story. Or is it? Rolling Stone magazine has signed him, for a $250,000-plus paycheck, to write Vanities in 27 cliffhanging installments, in the venerable tradition of Dickens, Zola and Dostoyevsky. The real cliffhanger is how long Wolfe can keep tapping the muse without missing an issue. "Two-week deadlines are very rough," admits the author, who has holed up, luxuriously enough, in Southampton, L.I., for his summer labors. The plot of his periodic potboiler revolves around a Jewish New York City mayor faced with civil and racial strife and a famous nonfiction writer named Sherman McCoy who resides in Manhattan. Wolfe insists he is keeping "the line between fiction and nonfiction very clear." But in the early going, the real McCoy seems quite familiar. "If you noticed what the guy was wearing you'd know it wasn't me," argues Wolfe. "The thought of leaving the house without a necktie is personally and morally abhorrent to me." To be continued?

"I ruin the picture if I am in it," asserts Paulina Porizkova,

19, but such modesty did not stop her from starring in a new rock video for the Cars, premiering this week on MTV. Despite making waves on the cover of SPORTS ILLUSTRATED'S bathing suit issue last February, the 120-lb., 5-ft. 10-in. native of Czechoslovakia confides that she was nervous auditioning for the part in the video, which is directed by Actor Timothy Hutton. Porizkova has no ambitions for an acting career, however. "I hate it," she says flatly. "It was great working with everybody, but I don't like the pressure. It's too much like modeling." 5, 38, 42, 18, 17, 1. No, it can't be. Check it again. It is. Clutching the New York State lottery ticket, Venero Pagano, 63, ran into the bedroom of his modest two-story Bronx home and woke his sleeping wife, "You're never going to believe this. I think we're millionaires." She did not believe it either. But 5, 38, 42, 18, 17, 1--a combination Pagano put together by chance, using a phone number on a passing taxi--won him a $20 million jackpot, the largest lottery prize ever paid to a single individual. A retired carpenter, the newest emblem of fortune's fancy insists that his 21 yearly checks for $761,904 (after some taxes are withheld) will not change his lifestyle. "I got my house, I got my tomatoes, I got whatever I need," says Pagano, who likes to grow vegetables in his backyard. "The friends I have, they will stay.

Maybe I buy a bigger car."

--By Guy D. Garcia