As celebrity endorsers, actors James Garner and...

As celebrity endorsers, actors James Garner and Jack Lemmon were on the winning side in the primary, recording TV ads opposing Propositions 118 and 119, the reapportionment proposals.

But another Hollywood celebrity, Jack Klugman, didn’t fare as well.

Klugman posed with a candidate for Riverside County coroner in newspaper ads that proclaimed: “Coroner Quincy says: ‘Tom Decker’s My Man. He’s a Cut Above the Rest.” Decker finished fourth, or as “Coroner Quincy” might have ruled, dead last.

More than a dozen stunned constituents telephoned county Supervisor Kenneth Hahn to confess they thought they were voting for him when they cast ballots for Kenneth P. Hahn for county assessor.

“One person said he was really shocked when he saw a man making a speech on TV and the name ‘Kenneth P. Hahn’ flashed under his picture,” laughed Lynn Sakamoto, a spokesman for Hahn, the supervisor.

The Other Hahn, a deputy assessor not related to the supervisor, surprised himself and those ubiquitous “political observers” by nearly outpolling incumbent John J. Lynch. The two will face each other in a runoff.

Not all of the Other Hahn’s supporters thought he and the supervisor were the same person. Lela Batiste, a secretary in the supervisor’s office, said she heard from a couple of callers with a different message.

“They congratulated him (Kenneth P. Hahn),” she said, “because they thought he was the supervisor’s son.”

The surprising result in the assessor’s primary no doubt has incumbent Lynch wondering what he has to do to get a little name recognition around here.

After all, since taking office, Lynch is believed to have set a record for county officeholders by affixing his name to 17 doors in the halls of the Hall of Administration.

The owners of Western Exchange Inc. in Hollywood say they’ve been receiving other people’s mail for months. Letters intended for companies ranging from the Screen Actors Guild to the publisher of a bondage magazine. Letters addressed to destinations ranging from Fullerton to Bakersfield.

“We’re worried that the letters we send out haven’t reached their destinations, either,” said Executive Vice President Robert Kundel.

The Postal Service says it’s trying to iron out the problems.

Western Exchange has reason to be concerned about mail deliveries. And so do its addressees.

The company’s a collection agency.

Over the years, artist David Rose has fashioned courtroom sketches of such defendants as Patty Hearst, John DeLorean and Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie.

Now he’s recording scenes from a trial of endurance--construction on Metro Rail’s Red Line project.

“I started getting seriously interested in drawing construction work about 15 years ago,” Rose said. “The workers on a construction site don’t put on any airs--what you see is what you get. As an artist, that’s very refreshing.”

Rose’s collection of pastels and watercolors are on display in “The Subway Builders,” an exhibit in the Bridge Gallery connecting City Hall with City Hall East.

Meanwhile, we await the verdict on Metro Rail.

In the last several months, Southern Californians have introduced a drive-through supermarket, debated over whether to make a carwash a cultural monument, and proposed building a monument over the Hollywood Freeway.

But Chicago columnist Mike Royko and other needling Southland-ologists needn’t fear that we’re running out of innovations.

In fact, just the other day, a memo was circulated introducing a new entree at the L.A Times cafeteria . . .

Tofu enchiladas.

We’re so excited that we’ve decided to start an Only in L.A. menu item-of-the-week survey.

P.S. to applicants: We already know about kosher burritos.

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The term “smog” is believed to have first been used by L.A. newspapers on Sept. 18, 1944, though there were reports of “smoke nuisances” in the sky in July, 1943.