NEWS LITE : NAMES IN THE NEWS BALDWIN LASHING OUT AT KIM'S MANY ACCUSERS.

Kim Basinger, although getting raves for ``L.A. Confidential,'' has an image problem. She has been branded as difficult (for throwing tantrums on the set of ``The Marrying Man''), dangerous (for pulling out of ``Boxing Helena'' and being sued into bankruptcy) and ditsy (for buying the town of Braselton, Ga., then backing out), says Entertainment Weekly. She blames a bad spin job: ``In retrospect, I did a disservice to myself,'' she tells the magazine. ``I should have spoken up, shot down the misconceptions and lies.'' Now she has a personal pit bull, hubby Alec Baldwin, to do that job:

Irate because Bernard Weinraub of The New York Times said in a story Basinger used to be considered ``temperamental,'' Baldwin sent the writer a scalding letter. He called Weinraub an ``untalented writer and a studio lapdog'' and a ``petty and small-minded man,'' and suggested he ``quit your (bleeping) day job,'' says The New York Observer.

In Entertainment Weekly, he said about ``The Marrying Man'' debacle: ``If you worked at Disney when Jeffrey Katzenberg was there, that was no place you wanted to work. Unfortunately, we made a movie there, and we both said, `Go (bleep) yourself' to them every day. And that had consequences.'' On the ``Boxing Helena'' lawsuit: ``Here's this really ugly, ugly wicked witch as the prosecutor; here's the big fat homely guy who's the plaintiff; and all of a sudden, it's like revenge of the nerds. They all had it in for the girl who was the cheerleader in high school.''

Moore beyond fringe of danger

Dudley Moore is recovering from surgery to repair a blocked artery and a hole in his heart. The 62-year-old actor-musician had the operation Thursday at St. Mary's Hospital in Rochester, Minn. ``He is doing quite well, and he is expected to make a full and complete recovery,'' his publicist Michelle Bega said Friday. The surgery involved a bypass of a blocked coronary artery and repair of a tiny hole between the upper chambers of Moore's heart.

Stars moving in: apocalypse soon

Sylvester Stallone reportedly has bought ``hundreds of acres'' in Argentina's pristine Patagonia region, perpetuating a celebrity land-buying spree that has sparked doomsday warnings by the local governor. Stallone already owns one ranch in southwestern Argentina.

The actor paid $8 million for 34,600 acres near the lake city of San Carlos de Bariloche, Neuquen province, the newspaper Clarin reported. Among Stallone's neighbors in Patagonia, famed for its stunning peaks, lakes and forests, are Ted Turner and Jane Fonda, and the Benetton family, which owns 494,000 acres where they raise sheep.

But the purchase, confirmed by Hector Bourdargham, mayor of Cholila, a small town in the southern province of Chubut, is unlikely to please Chubut Gov. Carlos Maestro, who has warned of ``dark days ahead'' if stars continue to buy up acreage in the far south, the Clarin reported. Patagonia's tranquillity has been punctured by a dispute between the Benettons and the local municipality, which has increased their annual taxes by $8,000.

Stalker reaching into stratosphere

Now the Mrs. Letterman wanna-be is accused of being a Mrs. Musgrave wannabe.

Margaret Mary Ray, arrested seven times for trespassing at David Letterman's New Canaan, Conn., home was found outside retired astronaut Story Musgrave's home in Kissimmee, Fla., early Thursday, deputies said.

She was charged with stalking, a misdemeanor punishable by a jail term up to one year.

Musgrave, 62, told investigators that Ray has harassed him for the past four years by calling, writing and sending him packages.

``I love him and want to spend the rest of my life with him,'' Ray said from the county jail.

Ray, 45, was first arrested in 1988 while driving Letterman's Porsche near the Lincoln Tunnel in New York City. She identified herself as Letterman's wife when she was unable to pay the $3 toll.

In 1993, she served four months in prison for one of the trespassing charges involving Letterman's home.

Editor, wife make paper anniversary

While nobody was looking, John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette marked their first wedding anniversary last weekend at Big Sur without the fuss of mediaites. They even attended a charity do, where she wore five-inch stilettos. ``If I stopped to think how I can walk in these,'' noted Bessette, ``I probably couldn't.''

CAPTION(S):

4 Photos

Photo: (1) Library lookout

President Clinton, first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, North Little Rock, Ark., Mayor Patrick Henry Hayes, center, and presidential adviser Bruce Lindsey, left, look at possible sites for President Clinton's presidential library along the Arkansas River.

Associated Press

(2) Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger attend the 1994 ``Boxing Helena'' trial.

(3) STALLONE

(4) RAY