NEWS LITE : WINFREY TAKING INSIGHTS TO SCHOOL.

Actress. Talk show host. Bookseller extraordinaire. Empire builder. Now meet Professor Winfrey.

Oprah Winfrey and longtime beau, Stedman Graham, will teach a course titled ``Dynamics of Leadership'' this fall at Northwestern University's J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management in Chicago.

``It has always been a dream of mine to teach,'' the 45-year-old Winfrey, who attended Tennessee State University but didn't earn her bachelor's degree until 1987, said in a statement Wednesday. ``We share the same beliefs in the importance of dynamic leadership in this country.''

Graham and Winfrey are drawing up a reading list and tests for the course and will take on about 100 second-year business students for three hours once a week.

Winfrey plans to preach the power of control over one's destiny, said Rich Honack, assistant dean at the business school.

``She certainly has been in control of her own destiny,'' he said. ``The feedback we're already getting from MBA students has been phenomenal because she is truly admired, especially by the women and minority students who see her as someone who has made it.''

Graham has taught a business course on sports marketing at the school for two years.

Last year, Winfrey earned about $125 million, making her the country's fourth-highest-paid entertainer, according to Forbes magazine. Which raises the question: What do you pay her? ``She gets the standard rate for an adjunct professor,'' said Honack, refusing to be more specific. ``Any of us who teach, we get the same.''

Filmmaker's eyes wide open on set

Filmmaker Stanley Kubrick came to know Nicole Kidman almost as intimately as her hubby, Tom Cruise, while directing them in the sex scenes for ``Eyes Wide Shut,'' the actress tells Vogue.

``It was just him and the two of us in the room, so you were able to become aroused or feel whatever you felt. . . . Nobody else in the world knows us the way Stanley did and was privy to our relationship in that way,'' Kidman said.

Hunt for bride ends happily for Clancy

Best-selling novelist Tom Clancy, 52, will wed Alexandra Llewellyn, 32, on June 26 at St. Thomas Church on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. A reception for 200 will follow at the St. Regis Hotel.

Her dad is tres rich J. Bruce Llewellyn, cousin of Colin Powell and owner of the Philadelphia Coca-Cola Bottling Co., rated the No. 1 African-American-owned business in Black Enterprise mag's Top 100 U.S. companies.

He also owned a Buffalo, N.Y., TV station when it employed Alexandra as a reporter.

The author is divorced from wife of 28 years, Wanda, who filed papers in 1995 accusing him of desertion and adultery with a New York City assistant district attorney 24 years his junior, whom he met through the Internet. Clancy met his intended about three years ago at a Baltimore charity.

Selleck to riled Rosie: It's your show

Rosie O'Donnell said she wanted a peaceful discussion about gun control when actor Tom Selleck came on her show Wednesday. It didn't work out that way.

The actor, who has filmed a commercial for the National Rifle Association, instead got into a heated debate with O'Donnell, a frequent critic of the NRA since the Columbine High School massacre.

Selleck said he believed gun control legislation wouldn't have done anything to prevent the tragedy, and that it was wrong to legislate against guns during a period of national mourning.

When O'Donnell complained about NRA opposition to efforts to ban assault weapons, Selleck said he couldn't speak for the organization.

``You can't say, I will not take responsibility for anything the NRA represents if you're doing an ad for the NRA. You can't say that. Do you think you can?'' O'Donnell said.

Selleck said it was ``an act of moral vanity'' for O'Donnell to assume that someone who disagrees with her cares any less about gun control. He said he felt attacked.

``I didn't come on your show to have a debate,'' he said. ``I came on your show to plug a movie. That's what I'm doing here. If you think it's proper to have a debate about the NRA, I'm trying to be fair with you. This is absurd.''

An exasperated Selleck looked out on the silent audience.

``It's certainly entertaining,'' he said. ``Look at the audience, laughing and having a great old time.''

``It's a serious subject,'' O'Donnell shot back. ``I don't think it's something to laugh about.''

Conceding the debate hadn't gone well, O'Donnell apologized to Selleck, saying she wasn't making a personal attack. Selleck, looking down at the floor, didn't accept it.

``It's your show,'' he said, ``and you can talk about it after I leave.''

Hughes hoax goes on sale to Web shoppers

Now on sale for the first time, on the Internet only, a book that landed its author in prison instead of on the best-seller list: Clifford Irving's notorious ``autobiography'' of Howard Hughes.

``It's like a child I always loved,'' the 68-year-old Irving said Wednesday of the 1970s-era hoax, based on fabricated interviews with the reclusive billionaire.

The book is now available through an online seller owned in part by the author.

In the early '70s, Irving was one of the country's most talked-about writers. He had convinced publisher McGraw-Hill that he had compiled an autobiography from secret meetings with Hughes. He received $765,000 for the proposed book.

But before publication, the scam was discovered. Irving served 14 months in federal prison for fraud, and Time magazine named him Con Man of the Year. He has since come out with several books, mostly novels, but virtually all are out of print and he has no deals pending.

``Clifford Irving's Autobiography of Howard Hughes'' is being sold through the Web site terrificbooks.com.

``I've always felt there was something unfinished in my life when it came to that book,'' Irving said.

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

CAPTION(S):

2 Photos

Photo: (1) Baffled by bees

Pest controller Eric Hufstetler contemplates a swarm of honey bees that settled on a car in Crest Hill, Ill. He said a beekeeper would have to deal with the protected species.

Associated Press

(2) WINFREY