"I shall fight to the bone," says Jean Dubuffet. At 75, the artist is waging war against Renault, the French automobile firm. At issue: a giant sculpture park Dubuffet designed for the company's headquarters outside Paris. Nine months after construction began in January 1975, Renault decided that the Salon d'Ete would be too expensive to complete and to maintain, and called a halt. Dubuffet, who says the ensemble of sculpture is "the sum of twelve years of work," promptly sued "to defend the right of the artist over his creation"—and lost. Undaunted, he has appealed the case, supported by a group of painters, musicians and writers, including Joan Miró, Pierre Boulez, Olivier Messiaen and Eugène Ionesco. Meanwhile, Renault has started to bury the concrete base and central basin of the monument. They plan to turn the 2,150-sq.-yd. area into a lawn.
The folks who brought the fellas 8 million copies of the Farrah Fawcett-Majors poster have decided to offer something for the girls. By showing pictures of 50 or so men to females in several Ohio shopping malls, Pro Arts Inc. discovered that Pro Quarterback Joe Namath was considered by women the sexiest male of the lot (other high scorers included Robert Redford and Jimmy Carter). Namath posed for two four-hour shooting sessions. Then he suffered a minor mishap, tearing a muscle in his left side. That injury may give him a slow start this week as he launches his latest career with the Los Angeles Rams.
When superstars exit from professional sports, they usually settle into comfortable and lucrative careers as shaving-cream endorsers, insurance salesmen or sportscasters. When Center Willis Reed left the New York Knicks three years ago, he went home to Bernice, La., to relax with his family. But the lure of the basketball court—and fond memories of his cheering fans during the Knicks' glory years—proved too strong. He eventually became a scout for his old team, and in March he signed on for a three-year stint as coach. At rookie camp at Monmouth College in New Jersey last week. Reed made it a point to eat and sleep with the new players and asked them to call him Willis, not Coach. After all, he said, "I'm a rookie too."
Memorizing lines is sheer agony, but TV Personality Dick Cavett is determined to see his name in lights on Broadway. The onetime Yale drama major (class of 1958) belatedly makes his debut this week as Tom Courtenay's replacement in the hit show Otherwise Engaged. "I can't see why if I don't screw up I shouldn't be acceptable," Cavett predicts about his role as a snobbish British publisher beset by domestic crises. But he does have one worry: "I have a bad dream in which I go blank during a speech and try to pause for a commercial. Then I realize I can't." Come fall, Cavett will switch back to TV and a new, five-night-a-week talk show on public television. He hopes to feature a mixture of literary figures like Saul Bellow and show business stars like Frank Sinatra. Says he: "Greta Garbo is very anxious to be on my show. But I haven't returned her calls."