ACTRESS MACDOWELL RAILS AGAINST `THIN IS IN' MENTALITY.

Byline: Marilyn Beck & Stacy Jenel Smith

Andie MacDowell aims to continue her acting career but is devoting more time to charity than ever before.

Andie, who moved from Montana to the mountains of North Carolina with her husband and their three children this summer, is serving as spokeswoman of the Ashville, N.C., Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at the Ruth and Billy Graham Children's Health Center - for which she raised $30,000 this month with a reception and a screening of her film ``Shadrach.''

She's also making a mission - as she did in Missoula, Mont. - to try and convince girls not to model themselves after the rail-thin models whose pictures they see in magazines and the anorexic-looking actresses they see on TV.

Notes the former model, ``I realize standards are different in different areas, but I know that when I attend a modeling show, when I first see the models, I'm shocked. They're so skinny I literally feel ill. However, after awhile, what was terrible starts to look OK. And this is the main problem. Girls want to emulate what they see, and they think the coolest thing in the world is looking like models who are being paid a lot not to eat. It's not the model's fault. If someone's paying you $10,000 a day and tells you not to eat, you lose weight.'' Regardless of the repercussions.

Meanwhile ...

Andie has two movies in the can: MGM's ``Just the Ticket'' with Andy Garcia, and ``The Muse'' with Albert Brooks. And then there's ``Town & Country.'' ``We're calling it `The Never Ending Movie,' '' she says.

Shooting started in June on the film in which Andie is teamed with Warren Beatty and Goldie Hawn, and with rewrites slowing them down, production has gone on and on. And on. ``I have a couple of days' work to do on the movie this month,'' says Andie. ``And a couple of days in January. And then it will be done. It just has to be!''

Smits and salsa

Jimmy Smits is heading home to New York with his lady Wanda De Jesus to spend the holidays with his children, who are now ages 15 and 23. The actor, who seems to be everyone's favorite - in and out of Hollywood - tells us that as soon as the New Year comes, he'll settle down to decide what he wants to do now that ``NYPD Blue'' is behind him.

He knows he wants to devote at least a couple of years to the stage and the big screen before he returns to TV in a new series that's part of the overall deal he signed with ABC last summer.

We caught up with Jimmy at L.A.'s hot Conga Room club, in which he's partnered with Jennifer Lopez, Paul Rodriguez and Brad Gluckstein. Jimmy and Wanda stop by regularly when they're in town - and cut quite a swath on the dance floor packed with other salsa devotees. It's quite a scene - bringing back the glamour of the sophisticated clubs of the '40s and '50s.

Hollywood holiday

It was also celebrity time at the holiday party Alexandra and Sidney Sheldon annually give in honor of their two granddaughters. Among those in attendance: Phyllis Diller, Sid Caesar, Karl Malden, Ned Beatty and director Arthur Hiller, who has several projects he hopes to bring before the cameras in '99, but notes, ``It's hard for a director in his 60s or 70s to connect with a studio. It even happened to Frank Capra! And these days, you pretty much are limited to making independent films.''

Hiller's last independent film ended before it ever began. ``The check crashed,'' says the man who's served as president of the Academy Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences and has brought us such classics as ``The Americanization of Emily,'' ``The Out of Towners'' and ``Love Story'' - the latter earning him an Oscar nomination.

Sidney and Alexandra Sheldon will be heading to their Palm Springs home after the holidays, where he will spend several months working on his autobiography. What a story that should be. Before becoming one of the world's most popular novelists, Sheldon was a top name in the TV industry as a screenwriter, director, producer and creator of such series as ``I Dream of Jeannie,'' ``The Patty Duke Show'' and ``Hart to Hart.''

From Globe to getaway

Lance Henriksen is heading to Las Vegas for the holidays with his wife, Jane Pollack, after getting the news of his third consecutive Golden Globe nomination as best actor in a drama series for ``Millennium.'' ``It's been really an exciting kind of rush, but we're going to Vegas to get `Millennium' out of my mind. It's the first break I've had in 4-1/2 months. This break is a celebration.''

With reports by Stephanie DuBois.

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2 Photos

PHOTO (1) Andie MacDowell

Giving back

(2) Jimmy Smits

Yes, he can dance