FOR GILBERT, REAL LIFE GETTING BETTER THAN REEL-LIFE STORY.

Byline: Marilyn Beck & Stacy Jenel Smith

Melissa Gilbert, who has been battling ex-husband Bo Brinkman and the National Enquirer over quotes in the tabloid that she was a ``deadbeat mother,'' starts work on a project next month with a story startlingly similar to the one she has been living.

In the ABC TV movie ``Harvest of Lies,'' she'll play the victim of a smear campaign who's accused of being an unfit mother, and winds up losing her three children before she can restore her good name.

Fortunately for Melissa - and Dakota, her 7-year-old son by Brinkman - times are getting better. She says that she and Bo ``have reached a certain sense of peace with one another. For the first time in years, when Dakota had his birthday party last week, both his parents were there.''

She'll be taking Dakota - and her 7-month-old son by husband Bruce Boxleitner - with her to Calgary next month for ``Lies'' shooting. Under terms of their joint custody agreement, the youngster will fly home to be with his father midway through shooting.

Tough duty: Harsh location conditions have been taking their toll on the cast and crew of Tom Arnold's ``McHale's Navy'' film. French Stewart, who's spending his ``3rd Rock From the Sun'' hiatus playing ``a semi-depressed sailor named Happy'' in the Universal big-screen remake, said, ``We're shooting in Mexico, in an area that was devastated by an earthquake. The water's polluted, and practically everyone in the cast and crew has gotten sick. I've been lucky. I've watched what I've eaten and have stayed well so far.'' Stewart said he'll finish the film the beginning of July, and then will get ready for the second season of his hit ``Rock'' sitcom. He has no idea what the writers will dream up for his character - the laconic, oddball alien Harry - come fall, but noted, ``They have been talking for a while about involving him in a romance with an older woman, a `Harold and Maude' sort of thing - but Harry's so dumb, I can't imagine any woman being interested in him.''

Busy, busy, busy, busy: Diahann Carroll, who recently was talking about retiring, is hardly acting like it now. She'll soon be going into the recording studio in Toronto, where she's on stage in ``Sunset Boulevard,'' to start her first album in more than 15 years. In October, when she finishes her current ``Sunset Boulevard'' run, she'll head this way to star in a TV movie, and in January will move on to Vancouver to resume her stage role of Norma Desmond. There's even talk that when she completes that run with ``Sunset Boulevard,'' she'll bring the musical into L.A. - and finally star in it on Broadway.

His legacy lives on: Jonathan Silverman, Scott Bakula, Angie Everhart, Holly Robinson and her husband, pro football star Rodney Peete, ``New York Undercover's'' Michael DeLorenzo, Blair Underwood, ``JAG's'' David James Elliott and Gabrielle Carteris are among the stars expected to turn out for the ninth annual Rene Enriquez Celebrity Tennis and Golf Tournament. The event takes place May 29-June 2 in the Dominican Republic's Casa de Campo tropical resort. Sponsored by General Motors, it will raise funds to benefit orphanages in several countries via the Rene Enriquez International Children's Foundation. It has been five years since the beloved ``Hill Street Blues'' actor died of pancreatic cancer, but his drive to assist kids in need lives on.

MEMO: The Celebrities Column appears Monday through Friday.