text: Theater legend Dame Judith Anderson, 93, whose 53-year career embraced such classic roles as Medea, Lady Macbeth and even Hamlet (in men's clothing), died Jan. 3 of natural causes at her home in Santa Barbara, Calif. The Australian-born Anderson also made 29 movies, earning an Academy Award nomination for her portrayal of the evil housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers, in Rebecca (1940). Her last role was as Minx Lockridge, the matriarch, on the NBC soap opera Santa Barbara, from 1984 to 1987.
  The Boss's daughter: Bruce Springsteen, 42, and wife Patti Scialfa, 37, became the parents of a daughter, unnamed at press time, on Dec. 30, in L.A. The couple's first child, son Evan James, is 17 months old.
  Brain's swain: Gabrielle Carteris, 30, who plays Andrea, Beverly Hills, 90210's resident intellectual, plans to marry her stockbroker, Charlie Isaacs, in the spring. Carteris, who became engaged on Christmas Eve while vacationing with Isaacs in Hawaii, told the Honolulu Advertiser she was marrying outside of show business because "I would like somebody to bring me back to the real world, not add to the make-believe."…
  I'm sorry, honeydew, but we cantaloupe (Oh, but we musk!): Lady Helen Windsor, 27, popularly referred to by Fleet Street as Melons because of her substantial chest, officially petitioned Queen Elizabeth, per the Royal Marriages Act of 1771, for permission to wed her longtime beau, Tim Taylor, 28. Lady Helen, who is 21st in line to the throne, said the Queen granted her request in a "delightful" letter. A summer wedding is planned.
  Deney Terrio, the former host of the syndicated Dance Fever TV show (1979-85), has filed an $11.3 million lawsuit in L.A. against Merv Griffin. Terrio charges that Griffin, whose company produced Dance Fever, repeatedly sexually attacked and harassed him during the Fever years. Griffin's lawyer called the lawsuit "a piece of garbage." A palimony suit against Griffin, filed by a former bodyguard last April, was dismissed by a judge last November on grounds that the plaintiff failed to provide evidence.
  Writer-editor-gadfly-jock George Plimpton, 64, married hyphenless writer Sarah W. Dudley, 38, on New Year's Eve at her parents' home in Redding, Conn. It was her first marriage, his second….
  After a whirlwind romance, novelist Jay Mclnerney, 37, married jeweler Helen Bransford, on Dec. 27 at New York's city hall. It was the third marriage for the author of Bright Lights, Big City, the first for Bransford….
  Musical chairs: British actress Patsy (Twenty-One) Kensit, 23, and rocker Jim Kerr, 32, lead singer for Simple Minds, wed in London on Jan. 3. Kensit recently divorced Dan Donovan, ex-keyboardist for Big Audio Dynamite; Kerr's six-year marriage to Chrissie Hynde, lead singer for the Pretenders, with whom he has one daughter, ended in 1990.