DOWNEY HAVING HARD TIME SERVING HIS `HARD TIME'.

Byline: Marilyn Beck & Stacy Jenel Smith

Even before his fight with another inmate at Twin Towers jail in downtown Los Angeles last week, Robert Downey Jr. obviously was having a hard time serving his ``hard time'' at the facility where he started a six-month sentence in December for violating probation on drug charges. Sources close to him informed this column days before the fracas that Downey was refusing to see many people with whom he was connected closely, including his attorney and his publicist.

On Monday, a disciplinary hearing was held, at which culpability in the fight was determined. As a result, both participants were moved to a discipline area with single cells.

According to a source at the L.A. County Sheriff's Department, ``After Downey completes serving his disciplinary time, he will return to where he was - as part of the general population of the jail.''

Incidentally, the actor has been bombarded with requests for interviews - some accompanied by offers of big money - from members of the media anxious for a firsthand account of his experiences in prison. Thus far, he's turned them all down.

Heavenly touch

It was a weekend event for 170 guests at Santa Barbara's majestic San Ysidro Ranch when ``Touched by an Angel'' creator Martha Williamson tied the knot with producer Jon Andersen on Valentine's Day - with sunshiny weather between El Nino storms. Three-time ``Angel'' guest star Randy Travis sang ``Amazing Grace'' at the ceremony, which he describes as ``the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.'' It took place in a tent ``but you couldn't really call it a tent. It was a church, set up for the ceremony on Saturday, and then they also had Sunday morning services there,'' Randy says. ``Several people sang at the services. ... Martha's mother and I even got up together and sang.'' Guests, who stayed in the ranch's guest bungalows, included such industry friends of the couple's as Stacy Keach and Stuart Margolin. ``Touched by an Angel's'' John Dye was there, too - but stars Roma Downey and Della Reese were not on hand. ``They had conflicting commitments they couldn't get out of,'' says Randy.

Too bad.

Meanwhile ...

With his ``Out of My Bones'' single newly on radio this week, Travis says a March 23 release date's been set for his new DreamWorks album ``You and You Alone.'' He managed to record the disc and complete his role in the Patrick Swayze ``Black Dog'' Universal action picture at the same time. Randy reveals, ``They're trying to get `Black Dog' ready in time for release the first of May.'' You may recall that the production was fraught with delays and troubles, including an accident that left a special-effects man with burns over 60 percent of his body.

Here 'n' there

Author John Wilson was browsing in the mystery section of Book Soup on the Sunset Strip the other evening when an Englishman standing nearby asked the clerk for recommendations. Wilson piped up, ``I hate to be self-promoting, but I think you might like my new mystery, `Revision of Justice.' '' Responded the Brit with a laugh, ``Don't apologize. I've done a bit of self-promoting myself.'' And with that, Mick Jagger added a copy of the hard-edged whodunit to the armload of books he had selected, paid for the lot and walked off with them into the night.

Woody Harrelson and Wesley Snipes stormed into Miami's South Beach Official All Star Cafe and juggled volleyballs to get ready, they said, for the Volleypalooza challenge that was taking place on Ocean Drive that day. They actually got no closer to the courts than the bleachers; the competition took place between Elite and Ford models.

And for his next schtick 

Bruce Willis, who plays an FBI agent protecting an autistic lad in the soon-due action thriller ``Mercury Rising,'' likely will be roughing it in ``Die Hard IV.'' The epic, tentatively titled ``Tears of the Sun,'' is expected to be a ``Deliverance''-style tale set in the Amazon jungle.

Michael Caine has just wrapped ``The Rise and Fall of Little Voice,'' the picture Miramax co-chairman Harvey Weinstein predicts ``will make this Caine's big comeback year.'' According to Weinstein, the flick has Caine playing `` `Alfie' 30 years later ... a nightclub promoter, who wears all these gold chains around his neck, who finds a girl and tries to promote her.''

With reports by Stephanie DuBois.

CAPTION(S):

3 Photos

Photo: (1) Robert Downey Jr.

Moved to discipline area

(2) Randy Travis

``Amazing'' ceremony

(3) Michael Caine

Comeback predicted for '98