Group, Olympians in Harmony

The Beach Boys plan a benefit concert to raise money for the International Winter Special Olympics and honor their late drummer, Dennis Wilson. The March 20 show in Salt Lake City’s Symphony Hall will provide money for the Special Olympics, scheduled for this spring in northern Utah, and the Dennis Wilson Memorial Special Olympics Fund to help handicapped athletes and promote medical research. “Dennis had a lot of personal problems but the very best thing about him was his compassion. We are doing this for him,” said Mike Love, the Beach Boys’ lead singer and a cousin of Wilson, who accidentally drowned. Jane Fonda and Bruce Jenner are among the celebrities expected to attend the Special Olympics, which are for mentally retarded athletes between the ages of 8 and 80 and will feature competition in Alpine and Nordic skiing, and in both figure skating and speed skating.

--Actress Elizabeth Taylor has broken her engagement to Brooklyn businessman Dennis Stein in an “amicable and very friendly” split, a spokeswoman for the actress said in New York. It was the second time in six months Taylor has ended an engagement. “It happened a week ago. It’s very amicable and very friendly,” said Chen Sam, the actress’ spokeswoman. Taylor and Stein’s wedding plans were announced shortly after Taylor ended her engagement to Victor Luna, a Mexican lawyer. The actress, 52, who is in Hollywood filming a movie, has been married seven times to six different men--twice to the late actor Richard Burton. Taylor recently spoke of her praise for the Betty Ford Center in Rancho Mirage, Calif., where she overcame her alcohol and drug addictions, but said she cultivated another vice there--smoking.

--Love struck Julie Hovey, a secretary, and Gary Lavorgna, a groundskeeper, when they met on a picket line at Yale University in New Haven, Conn., last fall. “It wasn’t exactly love at first sight,” Hovey said of their September meeting, “but it was pretty quick for me.” Lavorgna said he would tell jokes and puns while walking the picket line and noticed Hovey when she noticed him. “She used to stand on her tiptoes like this to see me coming” he said. Then one day he showed up with a broom announcing, “I came to sweep you off your feet.” “I liked his sense of humor,” Hovey said. She accepted a dinner invitation to Lavorgna’s home and arriving there found candles and a yellow rose in a bud vase. “This bud’s for you,” Lavorgna said to her. “That clinched it,” Hovey said. They plan to be married in April.