NEWS LITE : GERMANY'S CAR PHONES RESTRICTED.

Don't drink and drive. But don't speak and drive? That, too, after a German law banning the use of cell phones while driving takes effect next year.

Germany's transport minister told a newspaper the government plans to fine drivers $32 for talking on a cell phone without using a hands-free device like a speakerphone.

No exact date was given for the law banning ``handys,'' as cell phones are called in German, to take effect.

``Both hands on the wheel, eyes on the street - that's the only way to increase safety,'' Transport Minister Reinhard Klimmt said in an interview to be published Sunday in Bild am Sonntag.

A 1997 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that talking on a phone while driving quadrupled the risk of an accident and was almost as dangerous as being drunk behind the wheel.

In the United States, the Cleveland suburb of Brooklyn, Ohio began fining drivers last month under a cell phone driving ordinance believed to be the first in the country.

Jolie's anonymity just like Pfeiffer's ?6

The director and producer of the serial-killer thriller ``The Bone Collector,'' due out Friday, readily admits Universal Studios executives didn't want Angelina Jolie.

The 24-year-old daughter of actor Jon Voight, known for her Barbie-doll figure, tattoos and knives, had quit acting and was attending film school.

``They wanted an `established' actress,'' director Phillip Noyce tells Entertainment Weekly in its Nov. 5 edition.

It took some heated arguments - with Noyce and producer Martin Bregman both fighting for Jolie - and a serious slash to the film's budget to get Universal to agree, Bregman adds.

Bregman says he faced similar problems getting then-unknown Michelle Pfeiffer into ``Scarface.''

``Nobody knew who she was,'' he says. ``Angie's enormously gifted, and I usually get what I want.''

Jolie, who appeared in the TNT miniseries ``George Wallace'' and the HBO film ``Gia,'' plays a stuntwoman in ``The Bone Collector'' who tracks a serial killer for a quadriplegic cop played by Denzel Washington.

Reeve's latest role is scientists' gadfly 

Actor Christopher Reeve may be paralyzed and in a wheelchair, but that doesn't stop him from getting under the skin of medical researchers.

``I'm really quite a thorn in the side of scientists,'' Reeve says in an interview scheduled to air Monday on ``Dateline NBC.''

``They're doing well,'' Reeve, 47, says of the researchers. ``They really are. But now we are down to the ugly part, unfortunately, which is patents, money. Who gets the credit? Who gets the Nobel Prize? . . . That's contaminating the process.

``A lot of them haven't seen somebody sitting in a wheelchair on a daily basis. They're in a lab and they see rats, and they see slides and test tubes, and they've got to be reminded that there are people waiting.''

Reeve, paralyzed in a 1995 accident during a horse-jumping competition, says he's confident that scientists are getting closer to finding a cure to his condition.

Life after surgery can be a royal pain

Prince Bernhard, the elderly father of Dutch Queen Beatrix, says he feels ``lousy, really lousy'' after surviving six operations over the past 1-1/2 years.

The 88-year-old prince, visiting this port city to unveil a statue of Beatrix's grandmother Queen Wilhelmina, did not elaborate, but his statement Friday was front-page news in the royalty-obsessed Netherlands.

Bernhard had surgery last month on his windpipe after having had a tube inserted earlier this year to assist his breathing. Last year, his eyes were operated on twice to repair a detached retina, he had treatment for an enlarged prostate, and scar tissue was removed from his bladder.

Despite his health troubles, the prince, a former president of the World Wide Fund for Nature, has continued his work on various charitable causes.

And the wardrobe was under budget

A sampling of celebrities' most memorable Halloween costumes, as compiled by Entertainment Weekly:

Mark McGrath of Sugar Ray: ``The Head & Shoulders guy with the shaving cream on his head and the robe. It is cheap as hell and everyone knows who you are.''

Portia de Rossi (``Ally McBeal''): ``The last four years I've dressed as a princess. First I think vampire, because bloodsucking appeals to me. But then all of a sudden there's a tiara on my head.''

Anthony Hopkins: ``Since Hannibal Lecter (his character in `The Silence of the Lambs'), I don't need costumes. Everyone is already scared of me.''

James Woods (``Any Given Sunday''): ``I went as killer Gary Gilmore with a target on my chest.''

Sharon Lawrence (``Ladies Man''): ``I was a geisha girl one year in college. And let me tell you, a geisha at a frat party is a popular girl.''

Rob Lowe (``The West Wing''): ``I went as a baby in diapers not too long ago. But that is probably a weird image and I shouldn't go there.''

Rose McGowan (``Jawbreaker;'' fiancee of Marilyn Manson): ``A fat jogger.''

Nora Dunn (``Three Kings''): ``I was a scarecrow, and my mom stuck a broom through my shirtsleeves and I looked like I was crucified all night.''

Donnie Wahlberg (``The Sixth Sense;'' former New Kids on the Block heartthrob): ``My brother Mark and I dressed up in my sister's ballet outfits.''

Heavy D: ``Dracula has always been my favorite.''

Mena Suvari (``American Beauty''): ``A Crayola crayon. I was pink and my brother was red.''

Kevin Pollack (``Work With Me''): ``Christopher Walken. Don't ask.''

George Clooney (``Three Kings''): I once went dressed in a milk carton with my face sticking out of the side, and it said, `Have you seen this child lately?' People seemed to like it.''

Andy Dick (``NewsRadio''): ``I was a man falling out of a building. It happens also to be the cheapest. All you need is a coat hanger - to make your tie go up - and hair spray.''

Illeana Douglas (``Happy, Texas''): ``I'd have to go with the year that I was Liza Minnelli and I showed up at a party and no one else was in costume.''

News Lite is compiled from Daily News staff and wire reports

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Photo: (1) MORE THAN A MORSEL 

Visitors to France's fifth Chocolate Show in Paris on Saturday view the all-chocolate replica of a Prost Formula 1 race car. The sculpture took 1,276 pounds of chocolate and 350 work hours. As chocolate lovers gathered for the nation's annual industry show, purists struggled to digest the European Union's compromise on what properly can be called chocolate.

Associated Press

(2) JOLIE