A GENTLEMAN RETURNS.(The Talk of the Town)(William Eggleston, photographer)

William Eggleston, the supposedly reclusive photographer, was in town the other day from Tennessee, having a grand time seeing and being seen. On the agenda was the premiere of a documentary, "William Eggleston in the Real World," and a reception for a new show of old portraits that he had taken, in the seventies, of the Memphis demimonde--backsliders, barflies, easy women.

Earlier that afternoon, Eggleston, who is sixty-five,was at El Quijote, the sangria-and-lobster joint in the Chelsea Hotel, where he lived, on and off, for a couple of years with the model and Warhol protegee Viva. (Eggleston has been married to Rosa Dosset, a childhood friend, for forty-one years but has openly cultivated relationships with other women.) It's a little-known fact that he has spent a significant amount of time in New York, where, in 1976, MOMA gave him its first major one-man show of color photography.

"It's my favorite place, almost," he said of the Chelsea. "We go way back." He pointed toward an interior entrance to the restaurant. "See those double doors ? They only open one way now, so that if you go out of here into the lobby you have to go out to the street to get in again. Back in the days, the hotel was full of undesirable people." Like who? "Me and the Sex Pistols."

Eggleston was dressed fastidiously: navy-blue suit, white shirt, slim navy-and-red spotted tie, leather lace-ups. He is exacting and gallant--he bowed upon greeting a woman, and took her hand in both of his--but is not averse to mischief. He appreciates back talk and expects to be entertained. When he isn't, his eyes go milky and he becomes quiet, his efforts at being amusing withering in direct proportion to the extent to which he is not amused. "I couldn't say" is a typical comment.

Suddenly, in a strong voice, he summoned a waiter: "Bring me a glass of champagne, please.

"I love a midafternoon drink," he said. "When I was growing up, we called them 'nooners.' " The waiter returned with a half-bottle of Moet, and Eggleston instructed him ...