By Guy D. Garcia

In Splash, Actress Daryl Hannah, 23, made waves by playing a girl who was part human, part fish. For her next role, Hannah has moved up a few rungs on the evolutionary ladder. In The Clan of the Cave Bear, now filming in northwestern Canada, Hannah portrays a young Cro-Magnon girl adopted by a tribe of less developed Neanderthals. Based on Jean Auel's bestselling novel, the movie, due next summer, will strive for authenticity, a fact that Hannah finds chilling. "They drop us in the middle of a glacier, and we're dressed in skins." Hannah was also cool about the wearing of animal pelts ("I'm sort of against it"). Besides, to prepare for their prehistoric personas, Hannah and the rest of the cast had to learn to throw spears, use slings to hurl stones, build a fire without matches, communicate in a special sign language and, most demanding of all, claims the leggy lady, "act in the cold and pretend we're warm. Even with those furs, it's freezing in the Yukon."

Tom Selleck and John Travolta, move over. New hunks have just muscled in. Last May, the US. Olympic water polo team--including Terry Schroeder, 25, male model for the controversial nude sculpture at the entrance to the Los Angeles Coliseum--posed poolside at Pepperdine University to raise money for the team. The 15-man picture turned out to be the hottest pinup poster of the Summer Games. Priced at $5 each, the first batch of 10,000 quickly sold out, the second is nearly gone, and there are plans for a third printing. "We've had to set up an 800 line to handle the requests," burbles the team's attorney and representative, Noel Gould. Among the team's ardent supporters are White House Public Liaison Judi Buckalew, who has asked the athletes to autograph her copy, and California Governor George Deukmejian, who has a framed poster hanging in his Sacramento office. Explains Gould: "The commercial marketplace has finally caught on to what every sorority girl knows: that the best-looking men in the country are water polo guys."

He had ruled his tiny state for 46 years. But when Prince Franz Josef II, 78, stepped down this week the citizens of Liechtenstein (pop. 26,500) were assured that the regal line would be unbroken. In a quiet ceremony marked by a church service and the signing of documents, Franz Josef handed over the regency to his popular--and fervently modern--eldest son, Prince Hans Adam, 39. The Swiss-educated Hans, who for years has managed the family fortune, including an extensive art collection and real estate holdings, believes royalty still has a vital role. "The President of the United States is received and heard everywhere even if he has only been in office for a week, or even before that as a presidential candidate," says Hans. "This is not the case with a small country such as we are. Over a long period, a reigning Prince can build up the contacts that are all important." Translation: for monarchs, it is no longer what you do; it is whom you know. --By Guy D. Garcia

On the Record

Jim Palmer, 38, former Baltimore Orioles pitcher and current ABC commentator and Jockey underwear model, on the recent Miss America controversy: "That's why I always posed in my underwear instead of in the nude. I was afraid they'd take away my Cy Young awards."

Barber B. Conable, 61, U.S. Republican Representative from upstate New York, on the difference between the pontificators and pragmatists in the Congress: "The ideologues all stand over in the corner and posture, and let us compromisers get things done for them."