DICAPRIO SHOULD TAKE A MEETING WITH MISS MANNERS.

Byline: Marilyn Beck & Stacy Jenel Smith

Representatives for the New York restaurant where Leonardo DiCaprio was partying after hours with Mark Wahlberg deny that Leo and his buddies ordered some patrons out and invited certain young women to stay.

True or false, it certainly sounds like the Leo many have come to know on this coast.

We can tell you of times when he was partying at the Sunset Strip's hip Mondrian hotel and would use the peephole of his hotel room door to inspect young women waiting to join the fun. If they passed his standards, they were invited in. If they didn't? Says one who was on hand, ``Leo and his friends would make fun of those they decided weren't pretty enough to stay. He would call them `horrid little girls.' ''

We can also tell you that on at least one occasion, security at the Mondrian had to stop DiCaprio and gang from tossing trash off their balcony onto the heads of patrons at the Sky Bar below.

It seems Leo is following in the footsteps of spoiled heartthrobs before him, out to prove that the golden rule doesn't apply to him.

Hopefully, he'll change. And fast.

Tom and Nicole

Nicole Kidman's plans to bring David Hare's ``The Blue Room'' to Broadway won't cause a crimp in her togetherness with Tom Cruise. Nicole, who's drawing raves for ``Blue Room'' in London, will be doing 111 performances of the play in New York, with previews to start Nov. 27. Which means she'll be free to wing off to Australia with the young'uns just as Tom starts ``Mission: Impossible 2'' there. It's now slated to roll in mid-February or early March.

Milking it?

In her new ``Journey to Beloved'' book, Oprah Winfrey compares giving a deposition in the lawsuit against her by beef industry leaders to the horror her ``Beloved'' film character experiences when she's raped and brutally robbed of her breast milk. Come on, Oprah! Drawing a parallel between that torturous incident - one of the most disturbing sequences in the film - and a lawsuit (which you won) over your talk-show remarks about mad cow disease?! We're full of admiration for your promotion of good books, your supersized talent in general - but ... this kind of comment screams that you could use a reality check. Could it be that you've become such a powerful force to the publishing world that editors are afraid to give you an honest critique?

In the line of fire

David Paymer is shuttling between ``Chill Factor'' filming in South Carolina and Toronto production of A&E's ``Dash and Lilli'' biopic. But that pace is not the reason the veteran character actor (``City Slickers,'' ``Mr. Saturday Night,'' ``Get Shorty,'' Disney's Christmas release ``Mighty Joe Young'') says his career has been, well, murderous lately. Paymer's found himself getting killed off in movie after movie. In Mel Gibson's February-debuting ``Payback,'' ``Mel uses me as a shield against a nest of AK-47s.''

In the upcoming independent flick ``Outside Ozona,'' ``I'm a serial killer who gets impaled on a large lead pipe by Robert Forster. I squirm like a bug on a nail,'' says Paymer, who already spent three nights filming his death scene (he gets shot by a large-caliber rifle) in the currently lensing ``Chill Factor'' thriller with Cuba Gooding Jr. and Skeet Ulrich.

``They use a substance called `Reel Blood,' which is like red maple syrup. ... You can't breathe because you're dead. This is South Carolina, and it's been warm, and, well, I was drawing flies.''

Coppola's `Hyde'

Francis Ford Coppola and his cronies are preparing ``Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,'' a two-hour telepic/pilot for syndication. Surprise - this is not your grandpa's ``Jekyll and Hyde.'' In this version, according to one familiar with the script, Dr. Jekyll is a confident young surgeon of today. He takes off with his bride for a Hong Kong honeymoon, where tragedy strikes when they're caught in the wrong place at the wrong time in a vicious gang war. Dr. J. loses his wife and appears mortally burned himself, but survives - in fact, he's miraculously cured - thanks to a mysterious Chinese doctor's herbs and powders.

Later, Dr. Jekyll uses those same powders to turn himself into Mr. Hyde - a superpowered, crime-fighting machine, a k a the White Tiger. Coppola's not kidding around - ``Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde'' will be shot in Hong Kong and Australia, beginning in January.

With reports by Stephanie DuBois.

CAPTION(S):

3 Photos

Photo: (1) Leonardo DiCaprio

The peephole test

(2) David Paymer

Death star

(3) Francis Ford Coppola

``Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde''