HOLLYWOOD RUNNING SHORT ON ACTORS, SETS AND CREWS.

Byline: Marilyn Beck & Stacy Jenel Smith

It's Boomtown time in Hollywood. Soundstage space is at a premium, top crew people are booked up way into the future and there's such a demand for actors that the top talent agencies have just about run dry of available names.

It's not only top box-office draws like Mel Gibson, but such character actors as Rod Steiger who have assignments stacked up. Steiger has just started his fourth movie in a row for Warner Bros.

``In my 18 years in the business, I've never seen a situation like this,'' says filmmaker Lili Zanuck. She and husband Richard Zanuck have several projects in development, but she says, ``There's so much product being made, and such demand for talent - I'm talking everyone from actors of every echelon to top crew and production designers and choreographers and ... You're lucky if you can put together a deal for next year. Everyone's making deals for next fall.''

Michael Keaton, currently shooting Barbet Schroeder's ``Desperate Measures,'' tells us the production start of the thriller was delayed three times because of the difficulties in finding stage space. He adds that in recent times, getting a picture made not only requires the usual juggling to accommodate the schedules of actors and directors, but ``Now you have to schedule around when you'll have space available.''

The head of a top production team tells us, ``Of course the situation is driving actors' prices up. You might hear studios say, `We won't pay those prices' - but they will pay those prices. They have no choice.''

And another studio executive notes, ``The town is making so much product that pictures sink without a trace because of too much competition.''

So why take a chance on projects that can sink in such crowded seas? ``There's an attitude that one might strike gold,'' says Lili Zanuck. ``Throw out a lot and see what sticks. And that makes sense. Today there are so many ancillary avenues for films, and studios are anxious to put film libraries together, and the foreign theatrical market has become so big. It's just made it a different business.''

Which is making it just lovely for some actors, who in other years would be lucky to be eking out a living.

The big green scene: 'Twas a long, hard shoot - script trouble, months behind schedule, a budget reportedly overblown to $80 million - but at last Brad Pitt is about to wrap work on ``The Devil's Own'' in County Dublin, Ireland. Pitt plays an IRA man on the run to New York in the feature, and of the film's stars, only he was required on Irish location. (Harrison Ford's already completed his role.) We get word that Pitt took a little time off to visit the Dingle Peninsula and the scenic hamlet of Tralee, County Kerry, where he stopped in a pub and had, as our source puts it, ``some of the local black stuff - Guinness of course.''

We're also told Mr. Brad is eating lots of rich food, including a full Irish breakfast every day, but that's OK because his form is looking great. Get the idea he's being verrrry closely observed? He is, especially at work, where crowds of local lassies have been collecting setside, ready to swoon. Brad's gal Gwyneth Paltrowremained in the States, but they expect to be reunited here as soon as he finishes the movie.

The small-screen scene: Cheryl Ladd is getting ready to do a turn as a very, very bad lady in a CBS telepic called ``Deadly Seduction.'' Based on actual events, the drama has Cheryl playing a woman who flimflammed her way into the society of a town - then killed her husband.

Find it hard to imagine ``Fresh Prince of Bel Air'' actress Tatiana Ali and ex-``SeaQuest DSV'' teen heartthrob Jonathan Brandis in a tale of suicide, revenge and murder? Well, get ready. They begin work Aug. 26 on a telepic titled ``Fall Into Darkness'' with those elements.

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Photo: Michael Keaton

``Desperate Measures''