BILLBOARD MUSIC AWARDS OVERFLOWS WITH TALENT.

Byline: Marilyn Beck & Stacy Jenel Smith

With performances slated by Madonna, Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, Bette Midler, Shania Twain, Hole, Lauryn Hill, Natalie Imbruglia, Backstreet Boys, Semisonic and Usher, Billboard Music Awards exec-producer Bob Bain literally found himself with too much of a good thing.

So, he reveals, he's gotten permission from the Fox network for tonight's show to run overtime.

``In the past, we've had eight or nine performances, but this year, we have 11. We've been getting massive interest in these awards, and the show just expanded and expanded to accommodate these huge artists,'' says Bain. Plus, the list of nonperforming talent who'll appear on the telecast reads like a Who's Who of the music industry.

And that, of course, yields complications. ``I'm in the ego-management business,'' says Bain. Determining who to put where and when on the bill ... well, the producer sums up, ``My thumb is getting sore from pointing the trigger at my head.'' But seriously, ``Certainly there are rivalries and jealousies between performers. I've had managers come in and see the audience seat cards we use for camera blocking and say, `Turn that card around. If my artist sees that that person is sitting there, she'll freak out.' Or he'll freak out.''

Bain lets us know that this year's theme is ``a rock 'n' roll circus for the '90s'' with ``sideshow elements ... a rotating carousel on stage full of whackos'' - and Jerry Springer. He clues us in that a knockout swing number by Bette Midler and the Royal Crown Revue in the Hard Rock Casino is bound to be a showstopper.

Back on the active list

Richard Chamberlain, who told this column in May that he's very content leading a laid-back life in Hawaii as a painter - will be acting again soon. And not in a nice way. He's set to star in an independent feature called ``The Pavilion,'' which begins production in North Carolina in January. Patsy Kensit plays his daughter in the 1866 period piece, which has Chamberlain portraying a degenerate who has absconded with the war coffers of a group of Mexican revolutionaries - and gambled it away. Now they're out to kill him, and he's willing to trade his beautiful offspring for help in evading them. Craig Sheffer and Dan Riordan also star in the dark adventure.

The celebrity circuit

Pierce Brosnan is completing the Los Angeles shooting of MGM's ``Thomas Crown Affair'' and will soon be heading to the Caribbean, where production of the epic will wrap. Pierce will use post-``Crown'' leisure for a family getaway on some remote isle. And then it will be time to suit up for his latest James Bond epic. ``The World Is Not Enough'' is slated to start around February.

Way out of the city

``Caroline in the City'' actor Andy Lauer will be filming his final episode of the series just before Christmas. He says he's already feeling a bit melancholy about departing the show - though he asked to be written out of his role as Charlie, partner at the greeting card company. ``It wasn't so much that I wanted to leave `Caroline' - they're great - as it was that I wanted to do other things,'' Lauer says.

And boy, is he ever doing other things. Just completing his role in the big-screen ``Gun Shy'' black comedy with Sandra Bullock and Liam Neeson, Andy's got a date to go shark diving at Terminal Island for Fox Sports this month. ``There aren't a lot of celebrities doing shark diving; I may have that cornered,'' he notes. ``I've got the rep as a diver now,'' adds the actor - who'll be seen on the Discovery Channel tonight diving at the North Pole on the documentary ``Baffin Island.'' Spending weeks in the frigid Arctic last summer with documentarian John McKenney, Lauer's experiences ranged from up-close contact with a 50-foot whale - to seeing an expedition mate have ``a breakdown, yelling and screaming'' after too many days of 24-hour sunlight in the icy tundra.

Wag the plot

The ``Sliders'' series is soon to shoot an episode called ``A Current Affair'' in which the Sliders enter a parallel world where a phoney presidential scandal is being hyped by White House forces. Why? To divert public attention from the real news - a war with Switzerland.

With reports by Stephanie DuBois.

CAPTION(S):

3 Photos

Photo: (1) Bette Midler

Billboard Music Awards

(2) Richard Chamberlain

Darker role for him

(3) Pierce Brosnan

``Thomas Crown Affair''