January 16, 1981

CHRIS CONNOR, whose career since she left Stan Kenton's band to sing with her own trio 28 years ago has been a roller coaster ride of highs and lows, is now rising on what may be the best high she has had. She has been singing on Sunday nights since September at Sweet Basil and, she says, ''I know I'm singing better than I ever did.'' The reason she can say this with such assurance is that she has turned her life around since the night less than two years ago when she walked off the stand in the middle of an engagement at Marty's, checked into a hospital and faced the fact that she was an alcoholic. ''It was a gradual thing over a period of 25 years,'' she said the other day. ''When I was with Stan Kenton's band, and for five years before that, with Claude Thornhill's band, I was the only girl on the bus and I was very lonely. But I didn't drink much. I started to drink a little bit more when I went out on my own. But I guess I really became an alcoholic in the 60's when I couldn't get work. I'd just sit home and drink.''

Ian MacGregor, the Scottish-born American who was brought back to Britain last year to try to save the British Steel Corporation, is polling his work force on what he says is a lastchance survival plan for the company. In the voting tomorrow, British Steel's 130,000 employees are being asked to approve a six-month wage freeze and the elimination of at least 20,000 jobs. And if they vote no, Mr. MacGregor said last week, it will mean that ''we are really starting the process of liquidation of the company.'' The Government-owned corporation registered a loss of $1.3 billion in the last fiscal year. Mr. MacGregor has said that the current year will be worse.

A dozen major American banks that have been negotiating secretly in New York with lawyers representing Iran and its central bank have made their ''last and best offer'' for settling financial disputes that appear increasingly interlocked with the fate of the hostages, sources close to the bank negotiations said today. But while details of the overall financial question are seen as the last remaining obstacle to a resolution of the hostage dispute, there were conflicting views as to whether the cooperation of the banks was an essential ingredient to a final agreement. In Teheran, the official Iranian press agency quoted the chief Iranian negotiator, Behzad Nabavi, as saying that the American banks have not made an ''acceptable move'' to pave the way for a transfer of the funds. He set a deadline of tomorrow for the transfer of an unspecified amount to an unspecified ''third country,'' presumably Algeria.

Iran gave the United States a formal response today to the Carter Administration's efforts to resolve the hostage crisis before leaving office. It was understood that the Iranians had proposed, in their message, a new procedure for facilitating the return to them of their assets frozen in American banks overseas, a matter that has been the subject of intense discussions between American and Iranian bank officials. Sources close to the negotiations said the Iranian response reportedly involved some ''problems'' but was regarded as ''workable.'' Differences Over Money Officials said the Iranians had asserted that they were entitled to recover about $2 billion more immediately from the overseas branches than the United States had estimated. The United States had earlier offered $3 billion immediately, with another $1.8 billion possible later.

Industrial production increased 1 percent in December, the Federal Reserve reported. It was the fifth consecutive month of production gains, after six months of declines. Economists said the rate was likely to slacken in coming months, but none foresaw a big new recession. A preliminary estimate showed 1980 industrial production to be off 3.5 percent from the 1979 total. (Page D1.) A record $2.8 billion was invested in money-market funds during the week ended Wednesday. Comparatively high yields, averaging about 17 percent, and heavy stock selling were cited. (D1.)