NEWS LITE : MOODY BLUES CALL CHEERS UP LEARY.

Terminally ill Timothy Leary (prostate cancer) said he was ``in tears'' after a call from the Moody Blues telling him that they've re-recorded their song ``Legend of the Mind'' and changed the refrain ``Timothy Leary's dead'' to ``Timothy Leary lives.'' Asked why they used ``dead'' in the first place, Leary replied: ``They were drunk and stoned one night. That's all. It was rock 'n' roll.''

Garcia's ashes Dead issue

Some of Jerry Garcia's relatives are furious at news that his ashes were secretly cast upon India's Ganges River.

Neither the Grateful Dead member's brother, Cliff, nor any of Garcia's four daughters were told of the plans carried out Thursday by Garcia's widow, Deborah, and Dead band member Bob Weir.

Garcia's daughter, Annabelle, 25, called the deed ``gut-churning,'' noting that ``this was all done 100 percent without our knowledge.'' She added that she and her sisters planned to scatter the ashes over the Pacific Ocean according to Garcia's expressed wishes.

Garcia's ex-wife, Carolyn, said: ``There was no reason on Earth to take Jerry's ashes to India, a country he'd never been to, and dump them into the most polluted river on the face of the Earth.''

Celebrity goes skin deep

``As a dermatologist and a film buff,'' writes Vail Reese, ``I've found a series of skin conditions featured in movies.''

It's an irresistible introduction to the doctor's new Web site, Dermatology in the Cinema, http://itsa.ucsf.edu/vcr/Dermcin.html, visited by more than 600 people in its first month on the Net.Among the ``actors with skin findings'' are:

Marilyn Monroe, who had a facial mole (as do Sherilynn Fenn and Robert De Niro).

Angela Bassett, who in the movie ``Strange Days'' displayed traction alopecia, frontal hair loss probably caused by the tight braiding of corn rows.

Richard Gere, whose ``Breathless'' love scenes show him to be a victim of Becker's nevus, a ``benign birthmark lesion (that) develops on the upper back of some men at puberty.''

Another portion of the site deals with skin conditions used as character indicators. ``Albino characters in films tend to lack morals as well as lacking pigment,'' notes Reese, pointing to albino villains in ``Foul Play,'' ``The Firm'' and ``Dick Tracy.''

Agent delivering Unabomber book

First out of the gate with a Unabomber book is Pocket Books. ``Unabomber: On the Trail of America's Most Wanted Serial Killer'' by retired FBI agent John Douglas and writer Mark Olshaker will be out in two weeks.

By George, less is Moore

Demi Moore, the actress who always thinks ``cheesecake'' when asked to say ``cheese,'' has posed naked from the waist up for the cover of John Kennedy Jr.'s George magazine.

Moore has appeared twice on the cover of Vanity Fair without her shirt on.

This time, in keeping with the magazine's George Washington theme, she is posed as Martha Washington, with her breasts painted in a stars and stripes pattern, reports Mr. Showbiz. Previous George covers have featured an array of celebrities - Cindy Crawford, Charles Barkley, Robert De Niro and Howard Stern - dressed as the Father of our Country.

Lest anyone assume that Moore's pose is in the interests of art or history, commerce should be mentioned, too. The cover creates publicity for Moore's new film ``Striptease,'' which opens June 7.

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

CAPTION(S):

2 Photos

Photo: (1) From Russia with love

President Boris Yeltsin , left, leans over to give Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin a birthday kiss Tuesday in the Kremlin. Chernomyrdin turned 58.

Associated Press

(2) Richard Gere: Birthmark spotted