"I thought she was terrific tonight," the old teen idol invoked with commendable sincerity and enthusiasm at the after-party held two blocks south at Bolzano's, off Shubert Alley on West 45th. (You knew it as Charley O's and, before that, as MaBelle's, but recently it acquired a new life and, like Somers, is making its Broadway debut with this opening.)

Avalon, looking believably bronzed as if he were fresh from a beach party and a tad silver-haired as if he had stayed too long, admitted that he had never been on Broadway before — "beyond playing the Capitol and the Paramount in my teen idol days" — but he said he has been making the rounds regionally of late in Grease and would welcome a shot at doing his "Teen Angel" on The Great White Way. Sportily attired in his seasonal seersucker, he looked like one of the eternal icons of summer as he posed with Somers.

She was playing with the timeless icons herself, arriving at the restaurant in a stunningly reconstructed 1955 T-Bird, not unlike the one that originally transported her into film legend in George Lucas' dragstrip paean of 1973, "American Graffiti." Thirty-two years later, she's still the blonde vision who got away from us — in a hopped-up Thunderbird.

This was the short list of Icons on Parade, over before you knew, but no matter. What the Somers night lacked in star light, it made up in intimacy. She was surrounded by loved Ones — starting with her husband, Alan Hamel, who produced the event, her son Bruce Somers, her psychiatrist, her sister and her surviving brother. Not present — he had a club date, it was said — was Barry Manilow, who rated a special thanks in the program for getting the show into gear in the first place. It was Manilow who turned her on to Mitzie and Ken Welch, a couple of "Carol Burnett Show" scribes who wrote the show from two of Somers' 13 books, "Keeping Secrets" and "After the Fall." They also directed the show.

There were few familiar faces among the first-nighters. Nobody seemed to think there was anything unusual about a show opening on Saturday night. It is unusual. The official opening is listed as Sunday July 17, although there is no performance that day, so the reviews will appear in Monday's papers. Most of the audience appeared to be business associates of Somers' — either through The Home Shopping Network or through Crown Publishing. CBS prexy Les Moonves and wife Julie Chen led the standing ovation.

One of the opening-night regulars, Variety vet Robert Hofler, was voicing the belief that this might be his last Broadway opening, give or take Lennon. His last day here will be Sept. 20; after that, he'll edit Variety on the West Coast (and, not so incidentally, drumbeat his book which will be published by Carroll & Graf in the fall, "The Man Who Invented Rock Hudson," a biography of Henry Willson, the agent who discovered and dubbed the Tabs, Chads, Clints, Guys and Rorys of the cinema. )Newsday's second-string drama critic, Gordon Cox, is set to take over Hofler's New York duties.

The only tony Tony official on the premises was lyricist Susan Birkenhead, a nominator who, true to the bylaws, sees everything on Broadway. No truth to the suggestion that she was checking Somers out for the Cher role in her musicalized "Moonstruck." (Nor did she ask to see Sonny's widow, Mary Bono, who was on the guest list but impossible to spot.)

While Birkenhead prepares for her next project— a first-act read-through of her Flamingo Kid musical July 18 — she's plotting to turn another film into a Broadway musical: "Heaven Can Wait," the Warren Beatty version which has its roots in Robert Montgomery's "Here Comes Mr. Jordan." The book, by veteran Joseph Stein and his daughter Jennylynn, will gender-switch the main character who dies ahead of schedule and gets to go extra innings.

Now and forever, as the Cats slogan goes, Suzanne Somers can say she has played Broadway. "It was everything I thought it would be," she gushed shortly after she had made her way through the room full of friends, fans and admirers. "I'm thrilled by this." Continued...