NEWS LITE : CHELSEA GOOD KID, MCCURRY SAYS.

Chelsea Clinton has survived a youth in the White House fishbowl and ``has her head screwed on a little bit better than her mom and dad in many ways,'' said former presidential press secretary Mike McCurry.

In an interview published in the latest edition of George magazine, McCurry also told the magazine's editor, John F. Kennedy Jr., that White House staffers viewed Monica Lewinsky ``as someone who was infatuated with the president and who he liked to flirt with.''

McCurry stepped down as President Clinton's spokesman Oct. 1 and has since hit the lecture circuit and taken a job with The Public Strategies Group, a Washington consulting firm.

When he was at the White House, ABC correspondent Sam Donaldson, ``flapping his wings'' and ``putting on some kind of tantrum all the time,'' flustered him at first, McCurry admitted.

``But I soon realized that all Sam wanted to do was see how brittle we were in reacting to him,'' McCurry said.

McCurry said some members of the media have problems with Clinton because he is a fellow baby boomer and ``too much like the student body president you didn't like in high school.''

Bronson fan's death wish prompts relatives to sue

A star-struck fan left Charles Bronson her entire estate, worth nearly $300,000, but relatives who didn't know the retired chemist was worth that much are contesting her hand-scrawled will.

Audrey Jean Knauer, 55, of Louisville, Ky., who never met or corresponded with the tough-guy actor, scribbled her wishes on a list of emergency phone numbers before she died in 1997.

She asked that her mother, Helen, not be given ``blood, body parts, financial assets'' or anything else and that Bronson give whatever he might not want to Louisville's public library.

Bronson, 77, already has received about half the money, but Knauer's sister, Nancy Koeper, filed a lawsuit two months ago saying Knauer was mentally unfit and the money should go the family.

``This is a few really kind of like hysterical lines scribbled, scratched, on top of a phone list,'' said Koeper, who lives in the San Diego suburb of Chula Vista. ``I can't help but sit here and think this could have taken care of me.''

Relatives had thought Knauer's assets amounted to about $20,000. A lawyer for Koeper, Ed Schoenbaechler, said a handwritten will in 1977 left everything to relatives.

``It's much more authentic,'' he said. ``It was witnessed.''

Lori Jonas, a spokeswoman for Bronson, didn't immediately return a call Wednesday but told the New York Post that Bronson will give the money to charity.

Koeper said her sister was obsessed with Bronson, the macho actor who starred in several ``Death Wish'' movies.

``She saw him as this avenging person who was generous and kind, kind of a father figure,'' Koeper said.

City lawyers wrote a letter to Bronson last month asking that he make a generous contribution to the library. They haven't received a response.

``He can give some of his millions to charity, but I still consider this as family money and I really believe it needs to go to me. I think charity begins at home,'' Koeper said.

No more smokes for cinematic icon

For the first time ever, James Bond, who smoked 60 hand-rolled cigarettes a day when he was a literary character, will be smoke-free. Bond, as played by Pierce Brosnan in the forthcoming ``The World Is Not Enough,'' will drive a BMW with a ``Please do not smoke'' sign on the dashboard.

The very first image of Bond in a movie showed him taking a lighter to his cigarette when he said his name: ``Bond. James Bond.'' Although Brosnan is a smoker, the actor is said to have thought that smoking set a bad example for kids likely to see the movie. In his most recent Bond movie, his hand was seen smoking, but not his face.

``I don't think it will be mentioned that James has given up smoking,'' an insider told the Mirror. ``The ideas is to let it be known by having a sign on the dash . . . and he might go and sit in the no-smoking section of a restaurant.''

Veep and Tipper soon grandparents

He's Vice President Al Gore, but they're going to call him Grandpa. The VP and his wife, Tipper, will become grandparents this summer.

The Gores' daughter, Karenna Gore Schiff, 25, and her husband, Drew Schiff, 33, are expecting a baby in late June.

They were married at Washington National Cathedral in 1997. Karen Schiff is in her second year at Columbia law school.

``Al and I are thrilled about the prospect of becoming grandparents for the first time,'' Tipper Gore said. ``We look forward to welcoming our first grandchild.''

Judge finds plaintiff to be flat out of luck

In Belleville, Ill., a woman claiming the stripper she hired for her husband's 50th birthday party was flat-chested has lost her case in court.

``He kind of likes busty women,'' Rochelle Chouinard said of her spouse. ``I was looking for someone with like 40.'' (People editor's note: That's inches, not years.)

But alas, Judge Annette Eckert ruled that Chouinard got what she paid for with $125 when she hired the stripper through booking agent Patricia Neuf.

The stripper ``had a nice figure,'' Neuf said.

Mayor in league with circus clowns

To Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's list of odd costume choices, add clown.

Giuliani donned a red nose and ringmaster's top hat Tuesday to announce that Ringling Brothers Barnum & Bailey Circus will donate 1,000 tickets to foster children in New York City.

``That would be a great campaign poster,'' said Rudy the red-nosed mayor, posing with similarly attired clowns. ``We'll put it next to my dress and my Elvis Presley outfit.''

The mayor is known for his love of dressing up, sometimes in drag. He appeared as a blond-wigged Marilyn Monroe-type in a charity show and as a hairy-legged grandmother on NBC's ``Saturday Night Live.'' Charity also was the excuse for the Presleyesque ensemble.

News Lite is compiled by Karen Duffy from Daily News staff and wire reports

CAPTION(S):

5 photos

PHOTO (1) Bad hair day, darling

Mr. Moon sports a body shave that lets judges see his trunk. He is in New York City for a cat show at Madison Square Garden.

Ed Bailey/Associated Press

(2) New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani clowns around Tuesday.

(3) Brosnan

(4) Gore

(5) Charles Bronson

Inherits estate