"THERE'S A lady who's sure all that glitters is gold/she's buying a stairway to heaven." So sang Led Zeppelin.

WELL, IT'S been a long time since there has been a big star naked or near-naked on the cover of the iconic rock magazine, Rolling Stone. Gone, gone, gone -- it seems -- are the days of John Lennon, Janet Jackson, Eminem, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, John Travolta, Jennifer Aniston in the flesh. And let's not forget the most surprising nude of them all -- David Cassidy!

So it is with some amusement and sheer pleasure that I found the new issue of Rolling Stone offering this year's pop sensation -- Lady Gaga -- on the front.

(I confess, I don't know whether one addresses this performer as "Lady" or "Gaga" or "Miss Gaga.")

But she is barely covered in plastic pink bubbles, wears a frizzy blonde wig and has her lips painted in a cupid's bow a la Clara Bow. The more things change, as they say ... I was so surprised seeing so much skin, I thought at first it was the cover of Maxim.

I don't know Lady Gaga's music, but I am assured she is "lots of fun." To be honest, until a few months ago, I thought Lady Gaga was a drag queen. I was confusing her with the fabled Lady Bunny. One line in this magazine cover story struck me: "Before she had an audience, it was just Gaga and her mirror."

That's how it often starts -- a lady, or a gent, a mirror, and lots of ambition.

HARVEY WEINSTEIN, movie producer deluxe and also AIDS activist and book maven, hosted a big bash yesterday to introduce "The Mad Ones: Crazy Joe Gallo and the Revolution at the Edge of the Underworld," written by Tom Folsom.

NOW WE know! Barbra Streisand has written a book titled "A Passion for Design," which focuses on her -- well, her passion for design. Her taste, inspirations and collections of this 'n' that. Barbra says, "I have always searched for beauty."

Well, she certainly has done that in the process of perfecting her singing, acting and directing. And the main focus of this book will be the building of Barbra's "dream house and refuge." So you can expect to see her personal photographs of rooms she has decorated, furniture and art she has collected, flowers and veggies cultivated in her lush gardens.

The book comes out next year from Viking. When the publisher's VP Clare Ferraro, saw this work, the culmination of Barbra's vision, she says, "My jaw dropped."

Hmmm, my jaw has been dropping for years, ever since I first saw Barbra on her opening night at the Bon Soir down on 8th Street in Greenwich Village, and uptown through her performance onstage in "I Can Get It For You Wholesale," and after that her triumph as Fanny Brice in "Funny Girl" -- and then, the movie years! And the rare, thrilling concert! I am so glad Barbra just goes on and on. She is a supreme talent. And I'm glad she now has her perfect "refuge."

SHE MAY be out of sight a lot these days, but sitting at home, Elizabeth Taylor has become addicted to -- twittering. She is dashing off 140-character "tweets" on everything from legalizing gay marriage to her latest fragrance.

Of the latter, she says: "My company wants to call it 'Violet Eyes.' But I think that's conceited. I want to call it 'Follow Me."'

When asked the color of her eyes, Elizabeth has always said: "They're blue, but have a few red flecks. So, does that make them purple?"

IT'S ALWAYS fun to write something about a performer who you actually know well, so I'll take a personal moment to rave about my longtime pal, actress Holland Taylor.

Here she is as she appears in More magazine's "10 Women Who Make Us Laugh" and I congratulate writer-editor Kathy Heintzelman for including our own Holland with a few women even more celebrated. (Whoopi Goldberg, Tracey Ullman, Lily Tomlin, Diane Keaton, Kathy Griffin, Wanda Sykes, Ellen DeGeneres, Jane Krakowski and Margaret Cho.)

Holland is 66 but looks maybe 30. She plays Charlie Sheen's sexy realtor mother in the CBS hit sitcom "Two and a Half Man" and has often provided the basis for the show's most ravishing laughs. This season the writers have neglected her to their own detriment, in my opinion.

Holland will be joining Buck Henry, Haskell King and Lisa Ebersole this summer in the play "Mother," to be seen in the East Village of NYC from July 8 to Aug. 1.

The director is Andrew Grosso. She is also readying a one-woman play she is writing herself, in which she'll be reviving the spirit of the late Ann Richards, onetime governor of Texas.

(E-mail Liz Smith at MES3838@aol.com, or write to her c/o Tribune Media Services, 2225 Kenmore Ave., Suite 114, Buffalo, NY 14207.)