NEWS LITE : NEWSMAN WILLING TO ADD TO FAMILY.

At age 60, newsman Peter Jennings, who is celebrating his one-year wedding anniversary this month with ``20/20'' producer Kayce Freed, is open to having more children.

``If Kayce wants to do it, why shouldn't I?'' Jennings says in the Dec. 26-Jan. 1 issue of TV Guide. ``Kayce is 40. It would be inappropriate, to say the least, to marry a younger woman and not have thought about it.''

Jennings has two children from a previous marriage.

Happiness reigns in Roberts' love life

Julia Roberts goes giddy at the mere mention of boyfriend Benjamin Bratt.

``It's nice to be happy. I'm just so happy,'' Roberts said in Sunday's New York Daily News, which describes her as giggling like a schoolgirl with a crush. ``Happy and lucky. I'm in a great place.''

Things haven't always been so great for the actress who hit the big time in ``Pretty Woman.'' Her roller-coaster love life has been tabloid fodder dating back to her highly publicized engagement and 11th-hour breakup with Kiefer Sutherland and later her whirlwind courtship and marriage to singer-actor Lyle Lovett, followed their divorce.

Bratt co-stars on the TV drama ``Law & Order.'' Roberts' many film credits include ``Flatliners,'' ``Steel Magnolias,'' ``Conspiracy Theory,'' ``The Pelican Brief'' and ``My Best Friend's Wedding.'' Her latest film, ``Stepmom,'' opens Christmas Day.

Actress discovers truth about beauty

Alfre Woodard has always felt like an ugly duckling - by Hollywood standards.

``I don't feel like a beautiful American woman, but I try to strike a blow for all the wide-nosed, bug-eyed, brown-skinned, grinning gum-chewing gals in West Virginia and Macon, Ga., and all across Ghana and South Africa,'' Woodard said in Sunday's New York Daily News.

Woodard, who co-stars in ``Down in the Delta,'' grew up in Oklahoma and went on to build a reputation as a powerful actress. In 1983, she was nominated for a best supporting actress Academy Award for ``Cross Creek.'' She won Emmys for work in ``Hill Street Blues'' and ``L.A. Law.''

It wasn't until a trip to Zimbabwe more than 10 years ago that Woodard realized she wasn't ugly. African men and women told her she was ``a little skinny, but so beautiful.''

``I felt like starting a fund to have every one of my nieces visit Africa immediately,'' she said. ``You just realize everybody's beautiful if they just got to the right place.''

Memphis council prints own portraits in calendar

Some Memphis, Tenn., voters will get daily reminders of what their City Council members look like - month after month after month.

The city has spent $11,500 to print 2,500 calendars adorned with the officials' faces.

Since there are 13 council members plus the mayor, it's a 14-month calendar, starting with December 1998. Important dates noted on the calendars include the council members' birthdays.

Each council member is getting about 150 calendars to send to constituents.

Star-studded club dances

last dance

It was a place so classy that Keith Richards wore a necktie.

A place so full of stars that one evening Bob Dylan and Frank Sinatra came separately for drinks, and the maitre d' sat down next to Bob Hope at Rosemary Clooney's wedding.

But on Saturday night, the Rainbow Room danced its last dance.

For the first time since a big remodeling in the 1980s, there won't be a stroke-of-midnight conga line snaking through the club on New Year's Eve.

Last week, even Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter dropped by for a couple of martinis and one last dance.

After 64 years, the gilded, glass-walled supper club in New York that boasted breathtaking views from the 65th floor of the old RCA Building, high above the NBC studios in Rockefeller Center, closed because of a dispute over a new lease.

``It's very sad, very nostalgic,'' said Dale DeGroff, the club's longtime head bartender.

``It's been a great run here,'' he said wistfully, a few days before the closing. ``Anybody you can name has been up here.''

Since 1985, Tishman Speyer Properties, the co-owner of Rockefeller Center, has leased the landmark place to Joseph Baum and David Emil. They spent $20 million to update its look and emphasize its 1930s glamour, and made the restaurant the second-highest grossing eatery in the nation.

But when the Tishman group sought to raise the rent from $3 million to $4 million a year, and update the room's image, the partnership bowed out. The sticking point was that the new agreement would not allow for a rent reduction in case the economy soured.

The new leaseholder is the Cipriani family, which plans to open a smaller space similar to Harry's Bar in Venice, which the family also owns, and turn the rest of the multiroom complex into private banquet rooms.

More than its decor, the fancy cocktails, world-class food and entertainment, the spectacular view was what kept them coming in.

``It's magical up here,'' said Bismark Irving, the club's head maitre d'. ``It's very theatrical. Every night is a gathering of New York's finest people.''

And the stories:

Of the night President Clinton danced with actress Rita Moreno and said it fulfilled a lifelong dream. Remarked Moreno to the nearby first lady: ``Sorry, Hillary.''

Of the night Rolling Stones guitarist Richard put on a tie to see Marianne Faithful perform. The tie lasted until the middle of her show, when he tossed it on stage and broke into a frenzied dance.

News Lite is compiled from Daily News staff and wire reports

CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo: (1) Jennings

(2) Guests dance at the Rainbow Room, two nights before the fabled club closed its doors.

Suzanne Plunkett/ Associated Press