NEWS LITE : MANDELA TURNS 81 ON DOUBLY BIG DAY.

The former South African president, Nelson Mandela, celebrated his 81st birthday and his first wedding anniversary at home on Sunday, the South African Press Association reported.

About 40 members of his immediate family and pop star Michael Jackson joined him for lunch.

Mandela, who spent 27 years in prison for his opposition to the apartheid regime, retired as president in June, citing his need to spend more time with his family.

Opera team packs baseball stadium

The Three Tenors took center field at Detroit's Tiger Stadium for their only North American engagement scheduled this year.

About 35,000 people, wearing everything from silk dresses to khaki shorts, filled the 87-year-old building, which was transformed into an opera hall for the evening Saturday.

Jose Carreras, Placido Domingo and Luciano Pavarotti, who became known as The Three Tenors in 1990, first performed together at the World Cup in Rome.

Grant-Cannon heir to star on TV show

The daughter of Cary Grant and Dyan Cannon will be starring in a new television comedy, despite the warnings from her famous parents.

Jennifer Grant, star of ``Movie Stars,'' first acted in front of her father in a school production of ``Hello, Dolly.''

``I was so afraid to act before him. Not because of who he is to anybody else, but because he was my dad and he didn't really want me to act,'' Grant told TV Guide for the July 24 issue. ``But he was so proud of me, which made me ridiculously happy.''

Cannon said she was surprised her daughter wanted to be an actor but is supportive.

``When she first told me, my heart kind of dropped,'' Cannon said. ``But that's a mother's natural instinct. I said, go for it, girl; I'm here when you need me.''

Martin sells tickets fast

It took fans only 30 minutes to snap up all the tickets for Ricky Martin's concert scheduled for Oct. 24.

Even at $97 apiece, the best of the 15,000 seats at the new Philips Arena in Atlanta, which hasn't even opened yet, were the first to go when they went on sale Saturday.

``Ricky Martin,'' the first English-language CD from the 27-year-old singer has had the best-ever album debut by a Latino artist on the mainstream Billboard charts.

Argentines flock to Marilyn Monroe exhibit

Blonde, alluring and forever young is the way Argentines remember her. With glamorous style and extraordinary grace, she captivated audiences worldwide. No, not Evita Peron: Marilyn Monroe.

Hundreds of Argentines turned out this past week for a two-day Christie's showing in Buenos Aires of Marilyn's possessions, hoping for a closer look at an icon revered here as much as Argentina's own Evita Peron.

Among the items on display: a shimmery green dress, estimated at $1 million, which Monroe wore when she sang ``Happy Birthday'' to President Kennedy. Also, the sparkling 35 princess-cut diamonds ring that Joe DiMaggio placed on Marilyn's hand at their 1954 wedding. There's also a gold television Marilyn used in her Los Angeles home before her death in 1962.

Reagan had pen pal for

52 years

A dozen lines Ronald Reagan scribbled from the set of a World War II propaganda movie in response to a fan letter from a 13-year-old Philadelphia girl began a pen pal relationship that lasted half a century.

As described in The New Yorker magazine, Reagan's letters offered intimate insights into his many incarnations: B-movie actor to Truman Democrat to labor activist to conservative politician to the president who chiseled his own chunk of mortar from the Berlin Wall.

The magazine reports in the issue on newsstands today that Reagan's pen pal, Lorraine Wagner, saved 276 of Reagan's letters and cards and recently sold them to a Philadelphia-area autograph dealer, Steven Raab. The New Yorker said she wants the collection to end up in the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley.

The letters dealt candidly with both personal and professional matters.

Reagan wrote of his desire to work out his marital problems with actress Jane Wyman, his first wife. ``Janie is still a pretty sick girl in mind, but I'm still hoping that things will be different when she gets over this nervousness,'' he wrote in answer to 18-year-old Lorraine's 1948 question about divorce rumors.

In the same year, he wrote of his great hopes for the country after Harry S. Truman's upset victory in the presidential election. ``I'm sure Truman, with a Democratic Congress, will do lots to make things better in every way, and what a landslide it was for him, the votes boy!''

In the last few years of their correspondence - it ended in 1995 with the announcement that Reagan has Alzheimer's disease - Reagan often spoke of his pleasure at the fall of communism and the end of the Cold War.

The relationship began with a fan letter from a teen-ager to a movie star, answered as Reagan took a break from shooting a film.

It ended 52 years later, when 65-year-old Wagner received the same farewell message from Reagan that was sent to thousands of friends to tell them of his Alzheimer's.

News Lite is compiled from Daily News staff and wire reports

CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo: (1) Singing sensation Ricky Martin performs.

Lynsey Addario/Associated Press

(2) Baby in the buff

Nude model Daniel Brill, 11 months, seems perplexed as he poses Sunday among fully clothed adults. A last-minute court ruling blocked photographer Spencer Tunick from his intended shot - a group pose of 100 reclining nudes along Manhattan's Lower East Side.

Dianne Bondareff/Associated Press