Almost every soap fan knows that Erica...

Almost every soap fan knows that Erica Kane is a fashion model and cosmetics-company owner who shot and killed her boyfriend by mistake and then married one of the world’s richest men. When she thought he was dead, she married someone else--only to learn that her dead rich husband was really alive. As almost everyone doesn’t know, Susan Lucci--who plays Erica Kane on “All My Children”--gets hundreds of letters every week, asking not about love or money, but about clothes and cosmetics. So, as a public service to our readers--and to Lucci, who can’t possibly answer all that mail--Listen would like to answer some of the queries:

No, she doesn’t get to keep all those clothes by top European designers like Valentino, Yves Saint Laurent and Emanuel Ungaro. After she wears them on the show, Lucci says, they’re securely locked up in “an enormous double closet in the wardrobe department, ready for use in a future episode.”

Lucci says her TV furs are lent by a New York furrier who sends them over by armed guard and has them returned the same way every day.

Off-screen, Lucci says, she tries to buy European designer clothes for her private life too. “But I have two small children, and it’s hard to play soccer on the front lawn in a hand-painted silk dress.”

Lucci tells Listen that dozens of women from all over the country phone the show every week, wanting to know where they can buy Erica Kane’s cosmetic products, what shade of nail polish she wore in a certain episode and so on. They even ask if they can fly to New York to have their hair done the way she wore hers in a certain scene. For women like these, Lucci says, there are no easy answers.

Queen of the beach parties Annette Funicello says she never revealed her navel on screen. It was Walt Disney’s opinion that she had an image to uphold, so she never wore a bikini. Well, Annette continues to maintain her wholesome image in the movie “Lots of Luck,” airing this month on the Disney Channel. The suit she wears for a pool-side scene is a one-piece bandeau from Jantzen. She did, however, remove the neck strap.

Retailer Lina Lee,of Rodeo Drive and Trump Tower fame, and her husband Alan Lidow have become first-time parents. Their son, Jason Leon, was born Feb. 6, weighing 7 pounds, 5 ounces. Mom, who got through her last week of pregnancy wearing a turquoise leather jump suit sans belt, reports that Jason is just into little sleepers now, but assures us that his future wardrobe will be something to behold. Indeed. Mother and son, by the way, will be off to the European collections next month.

Some wondered who the attractive, mature platinum blonde was at songwriter Carol Connor’s annual Valentine’s Day party last weekend. The woman, in gold lame and lots of diamonds, had a certain glow. Up close and personal, it turned out to be Phyllis Diller, and she was showing off her new face. Diller said she had her third face lift only three weeks earlier. “I believe in face lifts,” she said candidly. “Especially in Hollywood.”

Does New York designer Perry Ellis still wear a pony tail? Does he think he’s “the hero of the avant-garde,” as the New York press has dubbed him? Or “the most moral of all designers,” as he was called by Vogue? You can ask him all this and more on April 8, right here at Bullock’s Beverly Center. That’s where the much-awarded designer will appear to launch his new women’s fragrance in Los Angeles. Listen hasn’t sniffed the Ellis perfume yet, but judging from the literature sent out by Parfums Stern, which makes the fragrance, it will smell “American.” This may be another of Ellis’ award-winning innovations: the country’s first patriotic perfume.

Whither Halston goest: Mary McFadden, the New York designer whose ideas are often inspired by Greek mythology and Etruscan urns, has followed Halston into the J. C. Penney fashion fold. McFadden tells Listen that she’ll launch a “contemporary missy sportswear collection” in fall, 1985, to be sold exclusively through J. C. Penney stores. It has been cooked up with “the very young, contemporary woman in mind”--the woman who demands “100% cotton or 100% wool weekend-wear with clean, casual lines,” McFadden explains. The designer, whose evening dresses sell for $1,000 to $3,000 in pricey stores, says her J. C. Penney prices will be moderate: skirts and blouses, $45; jackets, $86; sweaters, $38; slacks, $55. Will her upper-crust customers and upper-crust stores resent the fact that McFadden’s once-exclusive label is being marketed to the masses, as Bergdorf Goodman resented the Halston association and discontinued his label there? “I’ve called all our best clients, and they feel that there is no conflict at all,” McFadden reports. “The couture customer is very different from the woman who will buy these clothes.”

The stamp of designer Andre Laug, who died of a heart attack last December at age 53, will be evident on his collections for years to come. Daniela D’Ercole, a representative of his company, reports that although the Rome-based designer didn’t know he had a heart problem, he had thought far ahead to future collections before his death. D’Ercole, who was at Elizabeth Arden last week with the spring collection, says Laug not only bought the fabrics and made about 80 sketches for his fall ready-to-wear collection, which opens next month in Milan, but he also left behind thousands of sketches and notes for his next six lines. The Laug organization will, therefore, use the late designer’s sketches until they run out and has no plans to hire another designer for several years, D’Ercole reports.

Bargains are a girl’s best friend: The firm that gave price-slashing a good name is at it again. Tiffany & Co., which held the second sale in its 147-year history last month at the flagship store on Fifth Avenue and 57th Street in New York, will mark down prices at the Beverly Hills store March 25-30. It will be the first sale held in the Beverly Hills store, which opened its doors in 1964. (The New York store’s January sale was the first since 1955.) Discounts will be made on discontinued and overstocked items in the china, crystal and jewelry departments. At the New York store, gold, emeralds and diamonds went on sale for as little as half their original price.

First,truck drivers got their own jeans--Long Haul jeans made by Jonbil Inc., which introduced them two years ago and now claims to sell $10 million worth each year. Now, truck drivers have their own smell, courtesy of the same company. According to Marshall Bank, Jonbil’s executive vice president, Long Haul cologne will be arriving at Sears, J. C. Penney and Montgomery Ward stores, along with major drugstore chains, this spring. The cologne, priced at $16 for four ounces, was successfully marketed at truck stops last year. But don’t expect it to smell like home fries or diesel fuel. Bank says that the cologne has been described as having a “masculine, full and crisp smell” with notes of citrus, herbs and spices plus “deep wood and moss to give it lasting characteristics.”

Actress Camilla Sparv, an executive board member of Operation California, was on the first Boeing 747 ever to land in Ethiopia. That’s the airlift plane that made headlines by managing to land safely even though it was too big for the runway. On her return to Los Angeles, Sparv phoned Listen with this plea: “Operation California needs clothes from manufacturers who can give in bulk lots. There are tents full of starving, unclothed children and adults as far as the eye can see. We need every kind of clothes except party clothes,” Sparv says. “Ninety-five percent of the population wears only tattered rags or else nothing ,” she explains. “The elements are harsh. It’s cold at night, warm or hot in the daytime. The people are all very skinny and frail, so we don’t want very large sizes. But we’ll take almost anything for men, women, children--shirts, skirts, pants, blouses, jackets, sweaters, jogging suits, shoes, jeans, dresses. All money and merchandise goes to Ethiopia,” she says. “We take nothing out for organizational costs.” Operation California will pick up manufacturers’ donations, or they can be shipped to: 7615 1/2 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles 90046. For further information, telephone (213) 658-8876.

You’re invited to a shower for a June bride, and you don’t know what to bring? Frederick’s of Hollywood has an idea. The store is coming out with a new version of its recent invention, musical underwear. The little lace briefs ($8) will have a tiny, removable music box that plays “Here Comes the Bride.”