A STAR RISING
THE LAMPOON HONORS SANDRA BERNHARD.  I WANT TO MARRY HER," EXUDED RODMAN FLENDER OF NEW YORK,  VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE HARVARD LAMPOON.

BY Kay Longcope  --  Boston Globe  --  October 24, 1983  --  Section: LIVING

"We all want to marry her," said president Conan O'Brien of Brookline, who stands a full reddish head higher than Flender. They were well disposed toward her, but she was indisposed.

"She's got the flu," said Irene Pinn of New York, giving the star of the evening a little pat. Sandra Bernhard grimaced. Sandra Bernhard was not up to par. Not one ribald joke ripped through unsmiling lips affixed in a permanent sneer. Modesty is not her strong suit.

When asked why she thought she had been selected to receive the Lampoon's "Remember Us Later Award" last week,she forthrightly replied: "Because I'm the most exciting thing happening in the country right now - to say nothing of this room."

Sneer.

O'Brien said Bernhard was the recipient of an award irregularly bestowed since 1948 because "she's a rising star. We all hope she'll one day give all of us jobs. We think she's going to go places."  

For her part, Bernhard downplayed the heady excitement of the Lampooners' attention. As soon as O'Brien had shown her and Brian Blugernan, her musical director, through the small, four-story castle on Mt. Auburn street and assured her that "Entertainment Tonight" would be around to film the event, Sandra plumped herself down in a chair, before the TV set, well above the frenzied din below.  She nursed herbal tea in one hand and watched herself in Martin Scorsese's "King of Comedy," in which she played the gawky, sexually aggressive psychotic who harassed and abducted Jerry Lewis.

Below, tuxedoed and effete young men and their dressed-up dates prepared for an event that offered half-chickens, asparagus, and red and green peppers.  "It's been 10 years since we last gave a Remember Us Later Award' (to singer Helen Reddy)," said Flender (Class of '84), an economics major.  "It's not something like an Academy Award that's given annually. It can only go to someone really deserving of it. I think she's terrific talent. She's funny, really funny."

After all the preceding hoopla, the awards ceremony was amazingly brief. From the oversize President's chair on which he sat, O'Brien placed a hand on a flickering, cloth-covered award. He told his stilled audience that Bernhard has been a regular on Johnny Carson's "Tonight" Show, is seen monthly on the David Letterman show and, last week, her act could be caught at Cambridge's Inn Square Men's Bar.  Then, he scooped the cloth off a garish and clearly one-of-a-kind award.

"I'm highly honored," said Bernhard, who wore fishnet black stockings, a black miniskirt, a yellow sweater, and a white jacket. "I knew that by age 25 I wouldn't be a child prodigy. This is the closest I've ever gottento going to college and seeing cute college boys."

Pause.

To her left, Lampooner vice-president Flender aimed a camera that was not the squirt kind. "Your name is so appropriate," she told the young man. "The next time I'm in Hollywood, I'll talk about all of you. Don't ever be good. I hope I'll see you some other time. In some other world."