CAINE GUSHING OVER `DEBTORS' FIRST-TIME DIRECTOR QUAID.

Byline: Marilyn Beck & Stacy Jenel Smith

``She's bloody good. I don't know what sort of film we'll end up with, but she's bloody good.''

That's Michael Caine's assessment of first-time director Evi Quaid - as in the very colorful wife of Randy Quaid, who in the past fomented controversy with over-the-top behavior that included calling her sister-in-law, Meg Ryan, her evil twin.

Caine has just wrapped work on ``The Debtors'' with Evi, Randy, and others. He plays a sex addict who's cured ``in a rather startling manner.''

``I had at least 35 scripts to read, not one of them a comedy, and then I got Evi's script for `The Debtors,' and I loved it,'' says Caine. ``But you can never tell with comedy. It's like parachute jumping. You take utmost care to get it right, but in the end, you've got to jump and hope the damn thing opens. Dramas can be so-so, but comedies are either good or they bomb.''

There's nothing so-so about Caine's soon-to-open Miramax picture ``Little Voice'' - about a repressed, emotionally abused young lady (Jane Horrocks) with the shocking ability to replicate great performances from the likes of Judy Garland and Marilyn Monroe. He plays a greasy, lying, low-life scumbag of a show-biz promoter who gives Brenda Blethyn one of the most vicious verbal assaults ever delivered by a man to a woman on the silver screen.

``This guy is one of the worst guys I've ever played,'' Caine notes happily. ``I hope women will forgive me.'' The feature, which also stars Ewan McGregor, opens Dec. 5 in New York and L.A.

Pushing iron

``NewsRadio's'' Vicki Lewis and Jon Lovitz will be taking a break from their series chores Nov. 23 - to join Judy Collins, Peter Yarrow and Douglas Sills for the ninth annual Gala Benefit for the Lauri Strauss Leukemia Foundation. Vicki, who was a Broadway babe (``Damn Yankees'') before turning sitcom star, says she's thrilled about the Carnegie Hall gig.

Vicki's not only working out her vocal muscles these days. The actress says she's buffed up now, thanks to her role in the upcoming big-screen ``Pushing Tin.'' ``I play an air-traffic controller who's also a fitness competitor, so I had to pump up for that role,'' says Lewis, who co-stars in the dark comedy with John Cusack, Billy Bob Thornton, Cate Blanchette and Angelina Jolie. ``I had a trainer with me every morning and every night after work. It was hard. We'd come home from working an 18-hour day, then I had to go lift iron while everybody else was sleeping.''

Another kind of team

``Cancer Saved My Life'' is the title of a book just completed by former ``A-Team'' co-star and pop-culture favorite Mr. T. The performer, who underwent chemotherapy and radiation for a rare form of lymphoma, feels he has the disease as beat as one of the no-goods he used to whup on prime time - and that he came away from his brush with death having gained valuable insights.

Switching hats

Mario Van Peebles, heavily on TV right now with ``Mama Flora's Family'' winding up tonight, and USA Cable's ``Killers in the House'' movie debuting Wednesday, may soon be going back to work behind the cameras. The actor/director reveals he's been talking to Stephen J. Cannell about helming a Cannell project - and he'd love to work with his former ``Sonny Spoon'' boss again. ``I'd direct traffic for that guy. He gave me my first chance as a director.''

With reports by Stephanie DuBois.

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Photo: (1) CAINE

(2) MR. T