NEWS LITE\Gloved one going feudal?

The King of Pop may be thinking about reigning in a castle in central France.

Michael Jackson is interested in buying a chateau that bears a striking resemblance to Sleeping Beauty's castle, the one he loves to visit at Disney's theme parks, Europe 1 radio reported Thursday.

The 15th-century Chateau de Chabennet has 82 rooms, seven towers and a moat. It's on the market for a mere $5 million.

Rumors have persisted that Jackson is preparing to make a bid for the Chateau de Chabennet in Pont-Chretien, about 120 miles south of Paris.

Owner Philippe Marec would neither confirm nor deny that Jackson had contacted him. Jackson's Los Angeles-based publicist, Lee Solters, said Thursday that he wasn't aware of Jackson's reported interest.

For Reeve, sky's the limit

Christopher Reeve says his sex life still soars.

In an interview with CNN's Larry King, Reeve, who suffered a crippling fall in May, said his "beautiful, extraordinary" wife, Dana, makes him feel "like a high school senior."

Reeve's cheerful revelation came in response to King asking whether he can still have sex. Seated in a ventilator-equipped wheelchair, Reeve appeared on King's Wednesday night telecast.

The stage and screen star, best known for his four Superman films, also confessed that he misses acting.

"I think I was just getting the hang of it," he said.

But the 43-year-old Reeve, paralyzed from the neck down since his horseback riding accident, voiced a steely resolve to get back on his feet.

He continues rehabilitation and has regained about three-fourths of the sensation in his left leg. He said he would walk again in 10 years.

Co-stars close after all?

Robert Downey Jr. and Hugh Grant obviously didn't get on during the making of the movie "Restoration." Downey has dissed his co-star several times, calling him, among other things, "a jerk." But in a conciliatory, if whimsical, mode at this week's Berlin Film Festival, he offered the following: "It's all been blown out of proportion. Clearly, he and I have been lovers since the early '70s. . . . It's going to take a little bit of adjustment for everyone, but we're getting a flat together in Mayfair and, well, we're happy. . . . He'll be wearing the frocks and doing the cooking."

Let 'em play chess!

In response to all the ado about Garry Kasparov's computer chess match last week with Deep Blue, writer/philosopher George Leonard forwards a passage from his 1968 book, "Education and Ecstasy."

Some will think it a dark day when computers can beat humans at chess, Leonard wrote, but "playing chess is not what being human is all about. . . . It is oddly but characteristically pessimistic to think that reasoning machines will 'take over.' Mere mechanical reasoning itself may some day be looked upon as another form of drudgery. The day a computer becomes World Champion of Chess could well be (if we have prepared wisely for the future) merely another step toward ultimate human freedom."

Harem away from home

The Italian magazine Chi has published pictures of Luciano Pavarotti, 60, kissing his secretary, Nicoletta Mantovani, 26, during a vacation in Barbados.

The magazine quoted the expansive tenor: "Nicoletta is the favorite of my harem. I hope this won't cause any difficulties. On the other hand, I couldn't live the life of a monk, especially here in Barbados. Nicoletta has become by now indispensable for my life. When she is not by my side, I feel lost."

But Signor Pavarotti, what about your wife? "In a few days' time," said Pavarotti, "I will fly to Chicago and take up the rhythm of life, as always. If you really want to know what Adua thinks, why don't you go and ask her?"

Nicoletta had something to say, too: "Luciano has come into my life and enlarged the horizons in my brain. Before I knew him, I was only a little girl. Now, thanks to him, I have become a woman."

Carville's film debut

Clinton campaign mastermind James Carville plays a prosecutor who goes after Hustler publisher Larry Flynt in Milos Forman's forthcoming movie, "The People vs. Larry Flynt."

Carville spent four days in Memphis recently for the shoot. "It was a little more than a bit part," he told The Washington Post. "I had about 20 lines." Carville will donate the $10,000 or so he got for the role to charity.

Woody Harrelson plays Larry Flynt; his wife, Althea, is played by Courtney Love.

Oprah: Just the facts

Oprah Winfrey denies the assertion in a new bio that she and Stedman Graham are no longer sexual. She referred to author J. Randy Taraborrelli as "yet another person who doesn't know the facts and is trying to make money off my name." But she appears to go along with the still-to-be-published book's contention that the bloom is off their marital rose. "I have the right to not get married," the TV star said. ". . . And if I wanted to get married, I would. I'm sorry I ever was such a big-mouth frog about the engagement. This is my biggest public regret." She also denied the book's contention that she's tight with Princess Diana, noting, "I have only spoken to her twice in my life."

OFFBEAT Geese can't be clients

Deciding that winging their way to Japan from Siberia every year was trial enough for a flock of birds, a Japanese court has ruled that geese can't be plaintiffs in a lawsuit.

Conservationists have filed suit on behalf of a flock of migratory bean geese against Ibaraki prefecture (state) Gov. Masaru Hashimoto, trying to force him to earmark $214,290 in local funds to protect the geese from encroaching development.

Parts of the birds' marshy wintering area in Edosaki, on the shores of Lake Kasumigaura near Mito, about 42 miles northeast of Tokyo, has been drained for farmland and a park. The lawsuit is part of an effort to prevent construction of an expressway through the remainder.

CAPTION(S):

PHOTO

(1) Luciano Pavarotti Two-timing (2) Christopher Reeve Happy husband (3) Oprah Winfrey Book bashing