TRAVOLTA TO KEATON

More flickering neon from Rex Reed in mostly promotional profiles that date back as far as three years to films and etceteras already come and gone. Of course if it weren't for the once-impending release of, say, Marathon Man, Reed might never have talked to, say, Marthe Keller, who like many here ""doesn't do interviews""; and she then might never have gotten her merit badge--for maintaining a household with no servants at all, not even a nanny for her son. Diane Keaton gets a merit badge too: she always washes her own dishes. And Richard Gere (Mr. Goodbar) lives in a junky old N.Y.C. storefront--and Butt Reynolds reads a book a week. Reynolds has an announcement to make: his image has been a calculated ploy; now that he's established his box-office power, he has the leverage to make movies for art's sake. Almost everyone's looking for that: John Schlesinger, Jon Voight, Candice Bergen, Geraldine Page. . . . Reed is refreshed by Roger Moore's pragmatic sense of humor about playing 007 in exchange for staggering sums of money--but money doesn't necessarily mean money: John Travolta in the come-on piece complains that his paycheck ""leaves me nothing"" after he takes care of agents, staff, and taxes--""So instead of a house, I bought an airplane."" With nary a murmur, Reed just does his bit for the cause, plugging everything and pushing nobody around. And building up his cult of personalities: director Fred Zinnemann's ""soft-spoken frame"" (?) is ""the size of a kitchen stool""; Jacqueline Bisset ""has made a career out of swimming through shallow roles into tanks of public attention""; ""Italy's greatest invention since fettucine Alfredo"" is ""glorious, she is--well, Sophia."" Hype on hype, 34 times over.