A CHRONICLE OF THE PASSING SCENE

The Next in a Long Line of Lassies

Nothing burns out an actor faster than series television, which is why this particular actor will be dogging it for the rest of his life.

The latest Lassie is retiring at age 9 after two years of doing the syndicated “The New Lassie Show,” which ran from 1989 to 1990.

He is the seventh in a long line of Lassies descended from the first dog who played the lead role in the 1942 movie, “Lassie Come Home.” Since then, there has always been a Lassie, all males.

Since “The New Lassie Show” ended, Lassie has been making personal appearances with his trainer and manager Bob Weatherwax, but Weatherwax says it’s time for this Lassie--who responds to about 100 different commands--to retire.

A new movie is being written for Lassie, to be produced by Broadway Video and probably released by Paramount. Weatherwax says he just couldn’t make the dog do another long project.

Enter Lassie’s son, Lassie the Eighth.

“The new dog is only 1 1/2 years old, but he’s learning a lot of moves quickly and well. The pup is a lot more outgoing than his father,” Weatherwax says. “Lassie No. 7 tends to be introverted, quiet. This new guy is real frisky.”

Weatherwax has about 30 “acting” dogs at his Canyon Country home and kennel, including the border collie who played Nick Nolte’s pal in “Down and Out in Beverly Hills.” He says he doesn’t play favorites with the animals, but he will admit Lassie has a special place in people’s hearts--and his household.

Although the rest of the animals have kennel apartments, Lassie 7 has always had his own bedroom in the Weatherwax house.

Triple-Digit Train Tickets

The fare to ride the Metrolink train from the Valley to Union Station will be $100?

Actually, that’s just the fare an inaugural ride, which promises to be a movable feast.

The Great Train Parties Day is meant to kick off the new commuter service, which actually begins Oct. 26, with Valley stops at Chatsworth, Van Nuys and Burbank-Glendale. The regular round trip from Chatsworth to L.A. will be $10.

If all goes according to the plans of the Chatsworth Chamber of Commerce, the kickoff celebration--on an as-yet unannounced date--will have food and festivities at every stop--the feasts will be open to the public and free. And, once the train arrives at Union Station, Chef Urs Emmenegger of the Warner Center Marriott will have prepared yet another feast. Dancing will follow, to the music of the Horace Heidt Jr. Band, at least that was the plan at press time.

The whole event hinges on the communities getting their acts together, according to Chatsworth chamber spokesman John Warner. Chatsworth was the only one that showed up for the first planning meeting, Warner said.

If the event comes off, Chatsworth stands to gain in another way. Six hundred train tickets will be sold, and the Chatsworth chamber will earmark 25% of net profits from the tickets for a fund to establish a historical museum at the local train station.

Miss Tennessee? Not for Long

When 36-year-old Encino hairdresser Scott Taylor went to the Miss World America contest in El Paso, the last thing he expected to confront was the M word.

He went to Texas as the official contest hairstylist, but a certain brown-haired, green-eyed beauty not only caught his eye but got his scalp.

“I went, I saw, and she conquered,” he says, laughing.

The she in question is Miss Tennessee, Tiffany Adams, a 21-year-old University of Tennessee public relations major. She lost the contest but won a Taylor-sponsored trip to the San Fernando Valley in August.

“I’m the official hairdresser to the Academy Awards, so I’ve seen a lot of beautiful ladies and dated a few. But from the time I saw Tiffany, something just happened. I love her naturalness and her outgoing personality,” says Taylor, a graduate of James Monroe High School.

By the time the contest ended, he knew he didn’t want their relationship to do likewise, although they hadn’t exchanged as much as a kiss.

“The chaperons were really strict,” he says, and it would have been less than fair to the other contestants.

“After the contest ended, I figured it was all up to me,” Taylor says.

About 300 phone calls and a month later, he visited Tiffany and her family in Martin, Tenn. He then invited her out to Los Angeles for a visit. “I wanted to see if the relationship was on steady ground,” he said.

“It all happened pretty fast, and a lot of it was phone conversation. I wanted her to come out so we could see if what we were feeling was real,” Taylor says.

After a tour of Los Angeles and a romantic weekend at the Ritz-Carlton Laguna Niguel, he proposed on the balcony of their suite.

“It was pretty Hollywood, with the sun setting into the Pacific,” Taylor says, laughing.

They were also setting their wedding date. He says it’s Dec. 12 in Los Angeles.

“It’s not December, it’s March; and we’re getting married in Tennessee,” the bride-to-be says by phone from Tennessee.

The couple will live in Agoura.

They agree on that.

The Search for the Great Pumpkin

Contrary to published reports, chiropractor Marilynn Jones says, there are pumpkin growers in Calabasas, which as you all know, is related to the Spanish word for pumpkin.

She actually knows one, she says. And there might just be a pumpkin big enough somewhere to challenge the one that won the recent Half Moon Bay Pumpkin Contest. It weighed more than 600 pounds.

Jones is fixated on these generic jack-o’-lanterns because she’s chairman of the Calabasas Days’ Pumpkin Growing Contest.

The pumpkins will be weighed in Oct. 23 at the Leonis Adobe. (Admission is free to participants or lookers-on.)

“Actually, you don’t have to live in Calabasas to take part in the contest. We are expecting people to come from all over the world, well, all over Southern California, anyway,” she says.

The pumpkin contest is only one of the many cultural events slated for the annual Calabasas Days celebration, which continues Oct. 24 and 25 at Paramount Ranch. There will be a pumpkin-seed-spitting contest, an appearance by the television “athletes” of “American Gladiators” and a community tug-of-peace contest.

Would we make this stuff up?

Overheard

“What, exactly, is a sham, and could I actually want one in my home?”

--Nervous man trying to negotiate the froufrou and feathers of the pillow department at the Studio City Strouds.