NEWS LITE : COUNTRY'S DAVIS GETS HIS OWN STAR.

Singer Mac Davis may really find it hard to be humble now that he has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Davis, the Texas native who has written and recorded such million-sellers as ``I Believe in Music'' and ``Baby, Don't Get Hooked on Me'' and had hits with ``Hard to be Humble'' and ``Texas in My Rearview Mirror,'' was honored Thursday with the 2,117th star on Hollywood Boulevard.

Country singer Clint Black and his wife, actress Lisa Hartman Black, and actor James Garner gathered to watch the unveiling ceremony, presided over by Johnny Grant, Hollywood's honorary mayor.

Davis, recently nominated for induction into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, has been the Country Music Academy's Entertainer of the Year and named Favorite Male Entertainer by the People's Choice Awards.

He also hosted ``The Mac Davis Show,'' a variety series that ran in the summer of 1974, early 1975 and the spring of 1976.

City hoping to land Ford

Helicopters are not allowed to land here, but the town of Alexandria, Va., will make an exception for Harrison Ford.

The City Council, hoping the actor will film his latest movie here, voted 6-1 on Tuesday to ease a ban on nonemergency helicopter landings.

``We wanted to be viewed by people in the film industry as particularly helpful,'' said Mayor Kerry Donley.

The producers of ``Random Hearts,'' a thriller directed by Sydney Pollack, have not made a commitment to film the movie in Alexandria. They first wanted permission to land a helicopter on a street.

Albert, fiancee take bite of wedding cake

Marv Albert's fiancee said ``Yessssss!''

Heather Faulkiner, 40, wed Albert at a penthouse suite of a New York City hotel Wednesday.

Among the 50 guests were the president of Madison Square Garden and NBA Commissioner David Stern.

Faulkiner stood by the 57-year-old broadcaster throughout the sex scandal that cost him his job with NBC.

Albert was accused of biting a woman and forcing her to have sex in a Virginia hotel room. He pleaded guilty to assault, was fired from NBC and resigned from the MSG Network, which broadcasts New York Knicks games.

However, MSG recently rehired Albert to do radio play-by-play of Knick games and anchor a nightly TV sports show.

Scary Spice unveils plan to visit altar

Scary Spice will be showered with rice.

Melanie Brown, the 23-year-old pregnant Spice Girl, will wed dancer Jimmy Gulzar on Sunday and throw a lavish reception on the grounds of her sprawling estate west of London, British newspapers reported Thursday.

Brown announced recently that she was pregnant with Gulzar's child.

The two reportedly will marry in tiny St. John the Baptist Church in the village of Little Marlow.

The newspapers said that among the 100 or so guests - all of whom have been asked to wear white - will be Spice Girls Melanie Chisholm, Emma Bunton and Victoria Adams. There was no word on whether Geri Halliwell, who parted company with the group in June, will turn up.

Whoopi round peg in `Squares' show?

Whoopi Goldberg will be telling a few lies on a 1990s version of an old game show.

Goldberg will appear on the new ``Hollywood Squares'' show, which will premiere on Sept. 14.

``I'm tired of making movies on demand. I got very manic and started doing like three, four or five of them a year, you know, for like 10 years,'' she said in a CBS ``This Morning'' interview to be broadcast next week.

Keiko begins new life in native waters

Keiko, the killer whale star of the movie ``Free Willy,'' played out his real-life homecoming in true Hollywood style Thursday, cheered on by hundreds of children who lined the streets of the tiny, windswept town of Heimaey, Iceland.

As he slipped into a pen in his native Icelandic waters, Keiko thrashed his tail and began to explore his new home, even striking up communication with a nearby dolphin.

His ecstatic handlers called it a sign the star of the 1993 movie ``Free Willy'' was ready to assume a new role as a creature of the wild.

``We couldn't have dreamed this would happen so soon,'' said Bob Ratliffe, executive director of the Free Willy Keiko Foundation.

The cheers and applause of adoring fans echoed throughout this starkly beautiful Icelandic outpost Thursday as Keiko's holding tank was driven through town from the airport to the sea.

He arrived in Iceland after an eight-hour flight from Newport, Ore., in a holding tank aboard a U.S. Air Force C-17 cargo plane. Then his custom-built container was loaded onto a truck for the trip through Heimaey.

From there, it was onto a barge and a brief sail under blue skies, past spectacular 800-foot-high volcanic cliffs to a sea pen the size of a football field, where Keiko will try to adapt to his old environment.

Keiko left these waters at age 2. He is about 21 now and will live in his pen until his handlers determine that he is able to live on his own, perhaps two years down the road.

It was an emotional moment for members of the Free Willy Keiko Foundation, whose dream was to set him free - duplicating the theme of the movie that made him a star.

In the box-office hit, an orca threatened by a villainous amusement park owner leaps over a breakwater to freedom in the ocean with the help of a young boy.

Keiko's real life has been dramatic as well. After the movie, he languished in a Mexican aquarium until American school children collected pennies to help save him.

Warner Bros. and cell-phone billionaire Craig McCaw kicked in millions more to send the whale to an Oregon tank, where he recuperated from lung infections and warty lesions.

News Lite is compiled from Daily News staff and wire reports

CAPTION(S):

2 Photos

PHOTO (1) Keiko the killer whale is lowered into a sea pen at Heimaey, Iceland.

Don Ryan/Associated Press

(2) Sportscaster Marv Albert and Heather Faulkiner arrive Wednesday at the Royalton Hotel in New York, where the two were wed.

Jennifer Weisbord/New York Post