A small, lithe man of 50 who walks with the gracefulness of a dancer and looks considerably younger than his years, Scavullo recently agreed to an interview at the town house on East 63rd Street that serves as both his studio and his home. Dressed in blue jeans, an open-neck white shirt, and Western boots, the chatty, unpretentious photographer sat back on the couch with his arms behind his head and a mischievous smile planted on his face. Asked about the large pills he popped into his mouth from time to time, Scavullo explained that they were vitamins and organic supplements. "I'm very health-conscious," he said in a gravelly voice with a broad New York accent. "I don't eat meat, and I very seldom have even chicken or fish. I don't drink tea, or coffee, or alcohol -- except for a little wine. ... A lot of people stop smoking when they start working for me, because I hate it -- all this pollution in the air of New York already. I think smoking is great if you live out in the West, and you sit on top of a mountain like in the Marlboro commercials." As we were talking in his spacious living room, decorated with Scavullo's own paintings, a member of his staff came from the studio below and said, in reference to a woman who was being made up for a shooting session, "She's still not ready, Francesco." Scavullo sighed. "A seating with a man takes 20 minutes," he remarked, "and with a woman it takes the whole afternoon. Makeup," he added, "is used more intensely in photography than it is in the street. I think women look best without any type of makeup in the daytime. Sunlight has a very bad effect on it. Some of the ladies going by on the street look like they're holding a mask a fraction of an inch away from their face." He has never developed the habit of stopping beautiful women on the sidewalk, but, said a grinning Scavullo, "if I see someone wildly attractive walking by, I get excited. I might turn around and whistle or something." Number one on his list of the world's most beautiful women is 14-year old Brooke Shields, who also lives on the Upper East Side. She is one of the 59 models, actresses, and other celebrities featured in his first book, _Scavullo On Beauty_ (1976), which came out in paperback last month from Vintage Press. The volume is filled with life-size shots of women's faces, many of them showing the difference before and after the Scavullo treatment. It is accompanied by frank interviews dealing with clothing, diet, exercise, makeup, and related subjects. _Scavullo On Men_, his second book, was published in 1977. And he has two more in the works -- a picture book on baseball, with text by Christopher Lehmann-Haupt of the _New York Times_, and a retrospective volume covering his photographs from 1949 to 1980. Both will be out next year.