CHANGE LOBSTERS--AND DANCE

Surprisingly when Lilli Palmer was en route to her first film (via Germany, courtesy of Hitler, and a year of precarious cabaret work in France)she was told she had to acquire charm. What other quality would one attribute to her, then or now, as she reviews her life in and out of films and plays, usually subsidiary to the roles her more famous, wandering husband Rex Harrison landed. But Lilli is also gracious and without a word of rancor describes the major scandal of Carole Landis' suicide and their ouster from Hollywood--particularly since Rex called Louella ""an alcoholic illiterate."" The marriage stayed together on stage and off for about fifteen years until Kay Kendall, whom Rex then married in the full foreknowledge of her leukemia. Names--her close friend Noel Coward, GBS, the Duke of Windsor, Garbo, Helen Keller--enhance the carefully perpetuated tone--toujours-gai-er than it probably was. Perhaps even generous--to a fault?