''indian''

Her closest friends call her ''Indian.'' So it follows that beautiful Barbara Leigh would own an Appaloosa horse named Cherokee---and a Maltese puppy named Quanah, the latter her tribute to Quanah Parker, an Indina hero who knew Cochise and Teddy Roosevelt and was the last chief of the Comanche tribe. Barbara's own Indian origins go back to her grandmother, a full-blooded Cherokee. Born in Georgia. Barbara grew up in a broken home, married and divorced when just out of her teens, moved to Hollywood and began attracting attention---which she always has found easy to do. Seeing Barbara on a Swiss ski slope with director Roger Vadim, taking bike lessons from Steve McQueen, holidaying in Mexico with MGM prexy and longtime friend James Aubrey or tooling around Beverly Hills in the Mercedes said to be a gift from Elvis might well create grand illusions. But professionally, its been uphill all the way. Her screen career started a few years ago with The Student Nurses, from which she graduated to playing rock Hudson's wife in Pretty Maids All in a Row, thence to a phone-booth tryst with Steve McQueen in Sam Peckinpah's Junior Bonner. At home in Westwood, Barbara insists she's ''a semirecluse'' who does needlepoint, writes poetry and prepares for her next role, a deaf-mute murderess in Terminal Island. Instant stardom is only in the fan magazines.