One of the busiest people in Hollywood...

One of the busiest people in Hollywood Wednesday was Tanya Stiehr, the receptionist for the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce.

She had the TV show “Hard Copy” to blame.

The program profiled the late actress Vivian Vance, who played the cantankerous Ethel Mertz on “I Love Lucy.” It pointed out that she’s the only “Lucy” star who is not on the Hollywood Walk of Fame--Fred Mertz’s last laugh?--and gave out the chamber’s telephone number.

Stiehr estimated that more than 3,000 people from across the nation phoned Wednesday to demand a star for Ethel, though Walk of Fame membership is determined by chamber officials.

One caller was a Tennessee woman who said she wanted “her namesake to have a star.”

Her name: Ethel Mertz Miller.

Burbank private investigator Jan Tucker calls himself a “hired mud-slinger.”

That is, if you’re running for office, he’ll dig into the past of your opponent--legally, of course. Criminal complaint filings. Lawsuits. Public records. (But he doesn’t do third-rate burglaries.)

“More and more candidates are using detectives,” the political private eye said.

Tucker, 34, claims he helped one candidate win a municipal election this year, but can’t divulge details. (Snooper-client privilege.)

Nor does he say whether the congressional campaign in the 22nd District in the San Gabriel Valley is going to get nasty: Tucker is the Peace and Freedom party nominee.

Tucker knows what it’s like to have mud slung. An opponent in a previous Peace and Freedom primary took note of Tucker’s first name and his self-description as a “socialist-feminist” and spread a rumor that he actually was a male impersonator.

There’ll be no dull, long-winded graduation ceremony tonight at the mid-city Business Industry School, whose enrollment includes many teen-age mothers working toward high school diplomas.

The Washington Boulevard occupational school’s students, under the direction of artist Victoria Ann Lewis, will present a play entitled, “Teen-age Ninja Mothers.”

Barbara Rosenstein of Cheviot Hills bought a canister of red, green and yellow popcorn in a Beverly Hills department store, only to discover that “it was awful--it tasted so stale.”

When she returned it and asked whether the store had received a lot of complaints about it, a clerk answered:

“To tell you the truth, I don’t know of anybody else who’s tried our pet popcorn.”

Rosenstein looked at the label and promptly quit barking at the clerk.

miscelLAny:

Reseda is Spanish for . . . reseda, a plant characterized by “thick stems and coarse foliage,” according to one dictionary. It is often found growing near mini-malls.