MISLAID IN HOLLYWOOD

There comes a time when celeb specialists, like Hyams, longtime Hollywood journalist, tend to contemplate the most fascinating life of all -- their own. And Mr. Hyams, between some slick but highly competent vignettes concerning himself among the stars, lets us in on Hyams as: Superstud (it's starlets, ho! and a proposition from Ava Gardner, refused, one accepted by ""Star X""); Hyams as sometime family man (three children and a rocky first marriage); Hyams as Good Friend (the Coop advised him on leaving a German mistress); Hyams the Ultimate Husband (he is married to Elke Sommer); and the Target of Malicious Ectoplasms (he and Elke live in a haunted house). There are portraits and conjectures concerning Ava, a dying Bogie, Cary Grant, James Dean, et al. Hyams claims credit for the famous suggestion that it was JFK's helicopter buzzing Marilyn's house that suicidal night. Throughout Joe berates himself for using people, publishing bum guesses, being a bit of a rat. He's now left Hollywood -- like a sinking ship? Mis-lays and re-lays for torch-bearing fans.