By Guy D. Garcia

Few can boast a more stunning sense of style. But New Wave Disco Queen Grace Jones, 32, has been knocking men out in a more direct fashion on location in France for the new James Bond film, A View to a Kill. The script casts Jones as May Day, who tries to outfox Her Majesty's secret agent. One scene called for Jones to hoist a 6-ft., 180-lb. KGB agent over her head to put him in his place. Jones says she could have lifted Actor Bogdan Kominowski on her own, but the studio insisted that supporting wires be attached to him as a safety measure. Declared Jones: "My mother always warned me about picking up men." Obviously, Mom didn't know Grace could manage it without letting them fall for her.

After the birth was announced, British bookmakers counted the odds at 6 to 4 in favor of a George, with Henry considered a 50-to-1 long shot. But Henry it was. Henry Charles Albert David, to be regal about it; Prince Harry, as he has already been dubbed by Britons one and all. The third in line to the throne wasted no time in the hospital. A glowing Prince Charles and Diana took him home just a day after his arrival. Not to worry about an o'erhasty departure though. Just as it does for every other British newborn, the National Health Service will send a "health visitor" round to little Harry's new home this week to be sure Kensington Palace is a suitable environment for rearing a child.

Theirs is a world of tax shelters and trust funds, limousines and mansions, but one thing that the 400 richest people in America cannot afford to do is rest on their assets. In 1984, according to Forbes magazine, one needs to be worth at least $150 million--a sesquicenti-millionaire--to make the list of the country's wealthiest individuals. Among those dropped from this year's roster was Bob Hope, 81, who was credited in 1983 with a fortune of $200 million. Hope dared the magazine to prove he was worth more than $50 million. Forbes took up the challenge this year and after an extensive investigation into Hope's real estate holdings in California came up with a revised figure of a measly $115 million. Still, nothing to laugh at.

Considering the debacle over nude photographs that led to the resignation of last year's winner, the judges' choice of Miss Utah as the new Miss America seemed made in promotional heaven. Sharlene Wells, 20, began her reign last week by promising a return to "traditional values." The 120-lb., 5-ft. 8-in. blond daughter of a Mormon missionary does not smoke, drink, take drugs, believe in abortion, condone premarital sex or back the Equal Rights Amendment ("The ERA would make us a neuter society; I prefer to be a woman"). A communications major at Brigham Young University who wants to become a news anchorwoman, Wells bristles at the suggestion that her conservative views helped her win the crown. "It seems that the media are bent on forcing everything I say into their Miss America mold," she complains. "The judges never questioned me about my views on morals, religion and social mores." And it seems unlikely that relieved pageant officials will ever have to.

She describes the yoga influence in her new exercise book as "when East meets Welch." But Raquel Welch, 42, had a close encounter of a different sort when she posed with the four gold medalists from the U.S. 4 X 200-meter freestyle relay team for the October issue of Vanity Fair. She was "thrilled to meet these wonderful athletes," and describes Bruce Hayes, 21, Mike Heath, 20, David Larson, 25, and Jeff Float, 24, as "shy and awfully nice." Yes, but not that shy. The photo session was going swimmingly when a water hose was turned on in the studio, and --surprise!--"the boys had dropped their swim trunks." Welch, like any other good sport, just grinned while they bared it. "They were very discreet, but it was still pretty funny for me when I realized what was happening," says Welch. "I was afraid to look down." Oh, what cheeky devils.

Almost six years after she left the public whirl of politics for the more private pursuits of a professorship at the University of Texas, former Congresswoman Barbara Jordan, 48, is anything but forgotten. In the past year Jordan has been honored repeatedly: Houston's main post office was named for her, she was inducted into the Texas Women's Hall of Fame, and the International Platform Association named her the U.S.'s greatest living orator. But the honor the eloquent Democrat liked most came last week, when Texas Governor Mark White and his wife were hosts to a $1,000-a-plate picnic dinner to benefit the newly created Barbara Jordan Student Fund. The evening's proceeds are expected to be $500,000, all earmarked for student scholarships and summer internships, which Teacher Jordan applauds. She was applauded too when Author James Michener presented her with the 1984 Eleanor Roosevelt Humanities Award. Jokes Jordan of her honors roll: "I wonder if people know something that I don't know. I don't plan to check out any time soon."

Six others had tried and failed, two of them losing their lives in the endeavor. But the danger involved made the remarkable voyage all the more appealing to Joe Kittinger, 56. Last week, after more than three days of drifting through the clouds, Kittinger became the first to make a solo balloon flight across the Atlantic, setting a new long-distance record of more than 3,500 miles in the process. A three-tour Viet Nam War pilot who was a P.O.W. for eleven months, the former Air Force colonel and longtime adventurer once jumped out of a balloon at 102,000 ft. to free fall 16 miles, the highest parachute jump and the longest free fall ever. For his transatlantic antic, Kittinger took off from Caribou, Me., in a ten-story-tall helium-filled balloon named Rosie O'Grady's. He made landfall three nights later at Capbreton, France, but decided against a descent in the dark. The following afternoon, with ballast low and a storm approaching, he and Rosie were finally ready to settle down near Savona, Italy. "I knew it was going to be an interesting landing," recalls Kittinger, who was thrown from the basket as Rosie hit some trees. Jubilant despite a broken foot, he had just one regret. "I wanted to land in Moscow," he announced. "Not for political reasons, but because it would have been the longest possible trip." Already, of course, he's dreaming about the Pacific.

His brief film career began and ended with a role as one of the witnesses in Warren Beatty's Reds, but George Seldes' other career--that of writer--has shown remarkable longevity. Seldes, who turned 94 this month and considers retirement "the dirtiest ten-letter word alive," is putting final touches on the galleys of his next book, The Great Thoughts, due out in April. Begun in 1960 after he finished his bestseller The Great Quotations, Thoughts is a compilation of highlights from the words and wisdom of the world's greatest thinkers. Tops in this cerebral hall of fame is Sigmund Freud, who gets 20 out of 750 pages, followed closely by Carl Jung and Alfred Adler. Any disgruntled illuminati who feel they were left out may yet turn up in Seldes' next book, tentatively titled Adventures with People: The Noted, the Notorious and the Three S.O.B.s.

--By Guy D. Garcia