PEOPLE\Face it Age before beauty.

Isabella Rossellini, whose lovely face sold Lancome cosmetics for 14 years, talks in the latest Interview magazine about her "very painful" disappointment at losing the contract at the age of 43.

"What hurt me was that after 14 years, with the marketing research so positive and the company selling so much, I thought that the cosmetics industry finally had the opportunity to break this taboo about women in their 40s not being beautiful - that narrow idea of beauty. . . . You can't open a Vogue or a Harper's Bazaar and see a photograph of a 40-year-old woman unless she has an Academy Award nomination."

Neal Berry has a laptop computer, a cellular phone, a screaming-fast modem and a slew of friends on the Internet.

About the only thing he doesn't have is a place to live.

"People don't understand why I chose to live on the streets, but I don't understand why they're willing to pay $500 a month just for a place to live," he said. "All a house is is a glorified cardboard box."

The 22-year-old from San Rafael, Calif., thought he had it pretty good until last week, when someone abandoned an old car near his campsite under two freeways, bringing the Highway Patrol out to have a look.

What they found was Berry's tent, a mattress, some clothes and the juice that powered his computer gear - several heavy-duty batteries taken from a state Transportation Department work site nearby.

Berry was jailed on charges of theft and possession of stolen property, punishable by 90 days behind bars. It was the first run-in with the law for Berry.

Thirteen batteries were found at Berry's camp, at least three of them - 24-volt, 50-pound cells costing $90 each - belonging to Caltrans.

"They're real big and they have a lot of power. We're not talking DieHard. We're talking large, earth-moving equipment batteries," said Novato police Sgt. Jim Laveroni.

He got his first taste of the on-line world when a friend took him in for a while, and he started spending his money on computer gear.

He got a post office box and a voice mail account so he could get mail and phone calls. Next came a pager, so he'd know when someone had called his voice mail number. Then a cellular phone account so he could make calls.

Last summer, he got a laptop so he could log on from his tent. He used an adapter to connect his equipment to the batteries.

Grappling with the real issues

There haven't been any gunfights or canings recently among members of Congress, but manners have gotten bad enough that several lawmakers began circulating a resolution urging everyone to just be a little nicer.

Friendliness is rare now in the acerbic House. Some lawmakers say the poisonous atmosphere gets in the way of the people's business and contributes to voters' cynicism about politics.

"In the end, it tarnishes the image of Congress with the American people," said Rep. Bill Emerson, R-Mo. "We have to be able to work with one another person to person."

About 60 Democrats and Republicans have signed a "civility pledge" aimed at returning decorum to the House. The lawmakers belong to informal groups trying to build bridges between the two parties.

The resolution will be circulated to all 435 House members.

The fact that all of this is beamed live across the country on C-Span is embarrassing to many lawmakers, who say constituents always ask them why Congress seems full of ranters and ravers - just like daytime talk shows.

LaLanne flexes muscle on fads

Exercise guru Jack LaLanne is popping veins over the Thighmaster and its cousin, Buttmaster, both shilled by Suzanne Somers. LaLanne says the thigh gizmo is a worthless piece of you know what. "Suzanne Somers should've been thrown into jail for selling Thighmaster," he sneers. "The Thighmaster just develops a little muscle on the inner thigh. What good is that? We've got 630 muscles and each one needs work. I think people have been misled by the Thighmaster. There's no magical easy way to stay in shape." And LaLanne is only getting started. He hates celebs who pitch fast food or no-good exercise equipment. And he loathes athletes who do commercials for sugary cereals. As for those milk mustache ads? Pul-eeze! "Milk is not fit for human beings," LaLanne, 81, fumes. "It's for suckling calves. A glass of skim milk is OK once in a while, but don't make a habit of it."

OFFBEAT Guinness snubs extremist

Stefan Sigmond wants to get in the Guinness Book of Records in the worst way - and choosing the worst ways to get there.

In his latest attempt, the 29-year-old from Cluj, Romania, brought 800 cigarettes into a square in the capital on Tuesday, put them in a bundlelike contraption, lit them and smoked them through a tube, said the newspaper Libertatea.

He plans to contact the Guinness Book about his feat, but the book no longer recognizes people who risk killing themselves to earn immortality.

"We do discourage that sort of thing," said Guinness spokeswoman Carol Jones, speaking from London on Wednesday.

That means the book also won't consider another of Sigmond's claims to fame - eating 29 hard-boiled eggs in four minutes. The book stopped listing gluttony records in 1990.

Sigmond also plans to tell the Guinness Book about the time he jumped into a lake from a 135-foot-high cliff. Jones said the book would consider that feat if he took Guinness-approved precautions.

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Photo Isabella Rossellini Model scorned (2) Neal Berry Battery powered (3) Rep. Blanche Lambert Lincoln, D-Ark., leads a Capitol Hill news conference Wednesday calling for bipartisan niceness in the House. Associated Press