PERSONALITIES

Connie Chung spent 13 years talking the eccentric Marlon Brando into an interview with her -- and finally succeeded. She said she made her first contact with the reclusive star in 1976 while working as a local news anchor at the Los Angeles CBS affiliate. Her persistence paid off: The independent actor has granted her his first television interview in 16 years, and the anchor is gambling that tomorrow night's show will bring her big numbers.

In a conversation taped in Brando's Los Angeles home for "Saturday Night With Connie Chung," the independent actor said he made one of his rare film appearances in the current "A Dry White Season" because he considers racism the single most important issue in the world today. Chung asked Brando about his excessive weight -- so evident in photographs and a problem during the filming of "Apocalypse Now." Brando said, "I feel better if I'm thinner, but I don't mind that I'm fat. And it doesn't make all that much difference in your life. You still get the same money. ... It doesn't make that much difference whether you're fat or thin in life -- " He grinned as he added, "If you're a good person." Out and About

Mitch Snyder's Housing Now March from the Washington Monument to the foot of the West Front of the Capitol tomorrow is going to have more than just speeches and show business celebrities marching. The lineup of stars who have said they will entertain while there includes Tracy Chapman, Jefferson Airplane, Los Lobos, Dionne Warwick and Richie Havens. There is also the possibility that Bob Dylan and Stevie Wonder will show up too... .

It's one of those things that happen in modern celebrity journalism with rock stars and movie stars, but not usually with talk show hosts. There will be no media coverage of night talker Larry King's wedding tomorrow to Julie Alexander at Duke Zeibert's restaurant. King has entered into an exclusive agreement with People magazine that will guarantee him two full pages of coverage in an upcoming issue -- if no other publication is permitted to cover the event. King said yesterday that he made the exclusive agreement, unaware it would exclude legitimate newspapers, because he wanted to keep supermarket tabloids like the National Enquirer and the Star from making a circus of his nuptials. So you will read no more of it here. ...

It was an emotional moment Wednesday night at the National Gallery of Art's black-tie dinner for the opening of the new Frederick Church exhibition. Franklin D. Murphy, chairman of the board of trustees of the National Gallery, said there was one member of the audience -- Rep. Sidney Yates -- who deserved special thanks on behalf of all people who use their minds. The dinner guests rose to their feet in a spontaneous, prolonged standing ovation for the Illinois Democrat -- the foremost advocate for the arts in Congress -- to whom members of the arts community have turned for support against the reactionary art stands of Sen. Jesse Helms. ...

It looks as if statements by Richard Golub, the losing lawyer in the William Hurt-Sandra Jennings lawsuit, might be a case of sour grapes. Golub claimed that New York state Supreme Court Justice Jacqueline Silbermann, who ruled that Jennings had no case in declaring herself Hurt's common-law wife, was "star-struck" and "madly in love" with the actor. Turns out Silbermann is the same judge who presided over Golub's divorce from actress Marisa Berenson last year, where the judge told Golub that he could share in Berenson's earnings only if he could prove he aided her career -- he couldn't and got nothing. ...

Political satirist Rick Horowitz says the proper gift to give an East German on this weekend's 40th anniversary of East Germany's creation is a set of Samsonite luggage. He adds that the new East German anthem should be "Auf Wiedersehen." ...

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