OSCAR-NOMINATED HUNT IS `MAD ABOUT' DIRECTING.

Byline: Marilyn Beck & Stacy Jenel Smith

Oscar nominee Helen Hunt still hasn't made up her mind if she'll continue with ``Mad About You.''

She tells us, ``There was a period when people thought Paul (Reiser) and I were making that decision, but we were simply trying to get through a lot of shows we had to do. I guess something's going to have to happen in the next few weeks.''

Hunt has a very full plate right now. She adds director to her ``Mad About You'' credits with Tuesday night's episode, titled ``Cheating on Sheila,'' on which filmmaker Sydney Pollack guests as a marriage counselor. Helen has already helmed a second half-hour of the sitcom. And she'll direct her third episode the week of the Academy Awards - which, she laughingly concedes, should certainly serve as a distraction from thinking about her chances of picking up a Best Actress Oscar for ``As Good as It Gets.''

``Paul especially has been urging me to direct for a long time,'' she says. You know, there are times when someone makes a show of being supportive, and times when someone is truly supportive, and Paul, he's been truly supportive.''

And how is the experience of directing Helen Hunt? ``I keep joking about how difficult she is.''

She has been taking time to look over sketches from designers who are besieging her with offers for Oscar gowns - ``as they do with all of us who are lucky enough to be nominated. I haven't decided anything yet.''

She has also been weighing non-``Mad About You'' work possibilities. ``There's a movie in Europe and a play in New York I might do this summer. Both have very different characters from what I've been doing,'' she says. ``I'm leaning toward the play ... but the director hasn't even decided whether he wants me yet.''

Fat chance anyone's going to turn down Helen Hunt, sizzlin' hot as she is.

Is the doctor in?

Reports in London papers that have the ``ER'' team ending this season by killing off George Clooney's character couldn't be more off-base. Clooney is contractually bound to the show until spring of '99 - and continues to say he will honor that commitment. Killing off his character - this year, next year or whenever - would mean that there would be no chance for him to ever return for a guesting. And you can be sure producer John Wells will want to keep him on deck as a possible guest after he's given up his regular residency. Incidentally, Clooney, who remains close to ``ER'' executives and co-stars alike, is the lowest paid of all the major ``ER'' players. Really! The others got a raise when they signed on for a sixth year. George declined to commit for the extra 12 months.

The videoland view

The script problems have finally been licked on ``Cleopatra,'' and producer Robert Halmi is now talking deal with Vanessa Williams - who's been favored to play the part all along. Halmi tells this column that he expected to started shooting the four-hour ABC miniseries in Rome this spring, most likely in May. It will be released theatrically abroad.

Halmi is in pre-production on ``Animal Farm'' for TNT and says that the live-action adaptation of the Orwell classic ``will change the industry.'' He adds, ``We have just finished casting the animals and will have to re-create them on computers. It is very complicated. The project will take at least a year to complete.''

Together again

So Kevin Arnold and Winnie Cooper are getting back together - some five years after those childhood sweethearts played by Fred Savage and Danica McKellar bid farewell as ``The Wonder Years'' left the air. Danica's just completed a guesting on Fred's NBC ``Working'' series, portraying the boss's daughter, with whom Fred becomes involved. ``They were going to air the episode in February, then March, now they're talking about holding it back for the May sweeps,'' says Danica. ``People really like Kevin and Winnie.''

And Fred and Danica like one another enough that they have remained friends. ``After the show went off and Fred went to Stanford and I was busy at UCLA, it was hard to see each other.'' But now, ``I was at his 21st birthday party last summer, and we get together for lunch at least once a month,'' says the 23-year-old. Danica's college career couldn't have taken her much farther from the world of show business. This spring, she graduates summa cum laude from the Mathematics Scholars Honors Program, where her achievements included co-authoring a paper she delivered to professors from around the world at Rutgers University. It dealt with, she says, ``the percolation in the area of statistical mechanics, a division of mathematic physics.'' Got that?

With reports by Stephanie DuBois.

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2 Photos

Photo: (1) Helen Hunt

Sitcom future undecided

(2) George Clooney

Another year of ``ER''