AMID FILM DISTRIBUTION WOES, `LOLITA' AUDIO BOOK EMERGES.

Byline: Marilyn Beck & Stacy Jenel Smith

It's been two years since production of the Adrian Lyne remake of ``Lolita'' starring Jeremy Irons and Melanie Griffith - and the $62 million feature is still languishing in a holding pattern awaiting distribution. But that's not stopping Random House from trumpeting that it now has an eight-cassette, 11-hour book-on-tape, performed by Irons, of the Vladimir Nabokov tale about a middle-age man with the hots for a 12-year-old nymphet. ``In anticipation of the most talked-about film of the year,'' boasts the ad line.

It doesn't say which year.

The feature is said to include lots of gasp-inducers - full-frontal nudity on the part of co-star Frank Langella; a scene in which the new ``Lolita,'' 15-year-old Dominique Swain, clad only in a pajama top and reading the comics, straddles Humbert Humbert (Irons). Still, many in Hollywood are now less curious about how shocking this ``Lolita'' might be, and instead are wondering whether it could be as awful as its distribution woes suggest.

From the inside looking out

Neil Simon, who's been working to trim 10 minutes out of his Broadway-bound ``Proposals'' at the Music Center's Ahmanson Theatre, wants us to know the changes in the romantic comedy weren't necessary because it wasn't drawing laughs. Just the opposite.

``The laughter kept coming - from the very beginning, from the first rehearsal, to a degree I didn't expect and the actors weren't prepared for,'' he says. The excessive laughter stretched out the play to a running time of two hours and 50 minutes with intermission. Simon says, ``I wanted to get it down to two hours and 38 minutes, tops.''

He will accompany ``Proposals'' to Phoenix; New Haven, Conn.; Washington, D.C.; and on to Manhattan in October. And then?

``I've promised (producer) Robert Halmi I'd write a half-hour story about the millennium,'' he says. ``He's got 10 of the most prominent playwrights - including Arthur Miller, Edward Albee, Wendy Wasserstein, David Mamet - doing 30-minute or hourlong TV stories about the year 2000. I hope to have mine into him by the first of next year.''

Schneider's moving in

Former ``Dukes of Hazzard'' star John Schneider is making the move with his wife and three children from San Antonio to Thousand Oaks, to be close to production of ``Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman,'' on which he'll be a regular this fall. Schneider, who also co-hosts CBS' new ``Ordinary Extraordinary,'' says he's been brought onto ``Dr. Quinn'' ``to be the guy element. It's the hope that I will get the husbands out of the garage and into the living room to watch what is now largely considered a women's show.''

Schneider made his debut on the series last season as the best friend of Dr. Quinn's husband, Sully (Joe Lando), who fell in love with the good doctor. Now he returns to lead the search for Sully, whose fate was left uncertain in last season's cliffhanger segment of the show. Schneider points out that, ``It's very important to maintain the suspense about Sully until the show comes back on the air Sept. 27,'' but he does say that ``Joe Lando has wanted to pursue other things, to have his load lightened.'' Schneider adds that he will be with the show ``as long as there is a Dr. Quinn'' and that, oh, yes, ``The producers know how strongly I believe in the sanctity of marriage and that I would not play a character who violated any marital vow.'' But don't jump to any conclusions.

The videoland view

This could go down as the season of the louse of a spouse in sitcom land. In Kirstie Alley's ``Veronica's Closet,'' Chris McDonald will appear in the first few episodes as the philandering mate that Kirstie eventually throws out. And now they're casting for the fella who'll play Tea Leoni's ex on ``The Naked Truth'' - a recurring character, just like many real-life exes. In this instance, the former mate, who was not faithful to Leoni's Nora character, arrives back begging for another chance.

Play it again

Jay Livingston and Ray Evans, who are celebrating 60 years as a songwriting team, will pop up on the A&E biography of Nat King Cole that will be shown early next year. They taped the shows last week. Livingston and Evans, both 82, earned three Oscars (for ``Buttons and Bows,'' ``Mona Lisa'' and ``Que Sera Sera'') and, in addition to writing many standards, penned the theme songs for the series ``Bonanza'' and ``Mr. Ed.''

CAPTION(S):

2 Photos

Photo: (1) Jeremy Irons

Star of film, book-on-tape

(2) Neil Simon

Too much laughter