CELEBRITIES: DE MORNAY KEPT SECRET FROM `PASCAGOULA' PRODUCERS.

Byline: Marilyn Beck & Stacy Jenel Smith

Rebecca De Mornay, who completed the USA Network's ``Pascagoula'' in May, never told producers of the offbeat comedy that she and Patrick O'Neal are expecting a baby in early November.

She originally turned down the TV movie. Janine Turner was cast, only to bow out when she learned she was pregnant. De Mornay stepped in, but says that when she discovered she was expecting, ``I just couldn't lay it on the producers - they had panicked when they lost Janine.''

De Mornay reports that she and O'Neal (son of Leigh Taylor-Young and Ryan O'Neal), who have been together for two years, have ``no immediate plans for marriage.''

The actress has the big-screen ``The Winner'' starting a platform release today in Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco.

It's been 14 years since she made her acting debut beside Tom Cruise in the hit ``Risky Business'' - and went on to become Cruise's off-screen leading lady for over two years. She says she is one of the lucky few in her business ``who has been able to make a consistent living at acting. So many I started with inexplicably disappeared.'' And yet she admits she scored only one more bona fide ``breakout smash'' - the 1992 ``The Hand That Rocks the Cradle.'' She says she's just glad ``I never wrapped my whole identity in making hit movies - or I could have been unhappy much of the time.''

Tough questions

Frankie Avalon candidly admits that he grapples with the question of why he's so blessed - while his great friend and former leading lady Annette Funicello ``is having such a tough, tough time'' trying to cope with multiple sclerosis. ``I talked to her just yesterday. She tries her best, but she can barely speak,'' he says. Avalon is among the corps of those who love Annette and keep trying to find new medical help or healing avenues for her. He notes that he recently bumped into Lola Falana, another show-biz personality stricken with MS, in Atlantic City. N.J. In remission, she's ``doing fine,'' Frankie says. ``Annette said she'd talked to Lola, and Lola says it wasn't medicine or vitamins that made her better - `It's the Lord.' ... Annette is such a sweetheart. She's often asked the question, why, why, why did it happen to her, and she says, `It happened for a reason. I just don't know what the reason is yet.' ''

Meanwhile, Avalon is showcased in the newly released two-volume CD ``The Chancellor Story,'' which contains hits by Bob Marcucci's stable of '50s-'60s Chancellor Records stars. Frankie recalls that when he started out, people said, ``He'll be lucky if he lasts a year.''' Some 40 years later, he remains busy, dividing his time between his business enterprises and playing dates in Las Vegas, Atlantic City and elsewhere.

It's legit 

As the courtroom drama in which Carroll O'Connor is being sued for slander by his late son's drug supplier unfolds in L.A., preparations are being made in Dallas for the launch of an O'Connor play. O'Connor has written ``A Certain Labor Day,'' in which he'll star with George C. Scott at the Texas city's Art District Theater. The play has also been optioned for a New York run. It's set in Far Rockaway, N.Y., and has O'Connor playing a former labor leader nearing the end of his life, looking back on the highs and lows of his past, with the ghost of his father - Scott - present for the review.

Different strokes

Alice Cooper, who launches his ``Fistful of Alice'' album tour next week, reports he's gone for a creepy carny theme for the shows that'll keep him on the road through August. We know snakes are involved, and ``there'll be a couple of new illusions. We always do something to poor Alice at the end of the show,'' says Alice. ``We've already done hanging and guillotine. We had to come up with something new.'' Cooper also has a ``Fistful of Alice'' special coming up on VH-1 Aug. 12 - lensed the same night his live album was recorded at Sammy Hagar's Cabo Wabo Cantina in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.

With it all, Alice has had to cut back on his beloved golf for a while. Cooper boasts a 4 handicap and has won about a dozen amateur tourneys this year. ``I wouldn't play professionally, but I think it would be interesting in five years or so for Alice Cooper to join the Seniors Tour,'' he says. Well, he certainly could pass for the bogey man.

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3 Photos

PHOTO (1) Rebecca De Mornay

Concealed her pregnancy

(2) Frankie Avalon

Showcased in CD

(3) Carroll O'Connor

Launching new play