By Guy D.Garcia

The hottest ticket in Manhattan last week was printed on a white glove, but for most of the 1,500 guests who showed up for Michael Jackson's Thriller party at the American Museum of Natural History, it was strictly a hands-off evening. Almost no one got within hailing distance of the carefully shielded host, who sported a discreet hairpiece in his first public appearance since he was hospitalized last month for scalp burns suffered while filming a TV commercial. After accepting awards from CBS Records and the Guinness Book of World Records, which certified his Thriller as the biggest solo album ever (25 million copies sold), Jackson, 25, made a quick exit to a small, private reception in the Elephant Room of the museum. There he mingled with such privileged well-wishers as Sean Lennon, Carly Simon and Brooke Shields. Why throw the monster bash at an institution where the furs are usually stuffed? Explained a CBS spokesman: "Michael has a love of nature--and it's big."

She arrived in Albany on a train called the Landmark Express. The reason that Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis made her much ballyhooed visit to the New York State capital last week was to lobby, along with dozens of others, for landmark-protection status for places of worship. Onassis, 54, has a particular interest in seeing that St. Bartholomew's Church in Manhattan does not permit construction of a 59-story office building on part of its landmark site. In Albany, Onassis met with legislators and Governor Mario Cuomo, 51. The high point of the trip was the plea that she made before a jam-packed legislature. "The future of New York City is bleak if the landmarks that mean so much to us and our children are stripped of their landmark status," she said. "If you cut people off from what nourishes them spiritually and historically, something within them dies."

After 13 movies in five years in which she played a succession of teenyboppers, Diane Lane, 19, has graduated. For her next role in Streets of Fire, a film that is being billed as a "rock-'n'-roll fantasy," Lane portrays an adult singer who is kidnaped by a gang of biker-thugs. "Hormones have happened," explains Lane. "I'm past the growing-up stage." In Lane's most recent movie, Rumble Fish, she was saddled with the unbecoming part of a wayward outsider, a tough adolescent in tarty makeup. Says she: "I can't tell you how happy I am to be in a movie where even my lip gloss is accepted."

Former President Gerald Ford, 70, whose life seems to be dogged by minor mishaps, has a knack for turning even the genteel game of golf into a hazardous sport. At the Bing Crosby National Pro-Am tournament in Pebble Beach, Calif., all was going well for Ford and his partner, Jack Nicklaus, 44, until they reached the 15th tee. There, Ford hooked a shot that traveled 90 yards and bopped a woman spectator squarely on the head. The unlucky lady was knocked down, and Ford's round was delayed for 30 minutes as medics administered sympathy and stitches. Ford's score ballooned after the incident. "It bothered him a great deal," explained a spokesman. "His game got significantly worse."

Her electric performance as Gladys in Pajama Game produced her first big break on Broadway 30 years ago, but Shirley MacLaine, 49, gave up her theater career when Hollywood beckoned. This April, however, she will make a rare appearance on the boards when she returns to her song-and-dance roots in a five-week stint at Manhattan's Gershwin Theater. The pocket-size review will feature four back-up dancers and an original score by Marvin Hamlisch (A Chorus Line, They're Playing Our Song). Says MacLaine: "I'll keep dancing and singing until my legs get as low as my notes." The fiery actress is currently basking in critical and popular praise for her portrayal of Aurora, the feisty Texas mother in Terms of Endearment, a role that is expected to win her an Oscar nomination. "I figure that I've put a lot into my life," MacLaine says. "Now I'm getting some of it back." --By Guy D.Garcia