RODMAN'S GONNA FLY NOW FOR DRUG-SMUGGLER MOVIE ROLE.

Byline: Marilyn Beck & Stacy Jenel Smith

If you happen to see a self-described ``6-foot-9 black Superman flying through the sky'' over Homestead, Fla., on Saturday, wave hello to Dennis Rodman.

The bad boy of basketball has started production of the big-screen ``Cutaway,'' a tale of parachuting drug smugglers, in which he stars with Stephen Baldwin and Tom Berenger. He plans to go through parachute training today, and then, for the first time, try ``stepping out of a perfectly good aircraft. Who would do that? That would scare anybody.''

But, Rodman lets us know, it doesn't scare him that much. ``I'll be facing death in the eyes. OK. Cool. Great. ... With my luck, the damn thing won't open.''

Rodman says he has another film in the offing following the Cutting Edge Entertainment's sky-diving action flick, which wraps in about five weeks.

However, he has to make a decision about his future in basketball - and intends to make that decision as soon as ``Cutaway'' is done.

``It depends on how I feel, if I think I'm going to be happy playing basketball for another year or not.''

How does he stand with the Lakers?

``The door is always open,'' says the mega-talented player whose mega-strange behavior has put him on the outs with his latest team and with basketball fans in general.

``I'm not worried about the Lakers,'' he adds. ``If another offer comes along, I might take that.''

Meanwhile, there's not much time for anything but working and working out, to hear Dennis tell it.

He's been spending his days ``in the swamps, out here with the cheap beer stores ... We saw four or five crocs yesterday.''

And evenings, he goes into South Beach, eats and works out, ``because I've got to stay fit and trim.''

South Beach, Dennis Rodman, no partying?

Not with a 7 a.m. call, he says.

Reading about Moore

It's taken a tragedy to do it, but it looks like an American publisher might finally be found for ``Dudley Moore: The Authorized Biography.''

``I'm in discussions with various U.S. publishers about the book,'' reveals Barbra Paskin, the BBC journalist who wrote the text, which has been released abroad.

She had arranged for a sale of ``The Authorized Biography'' here, but that deal died when the actor's fourth wife, Nicole Rothchild, slapped Dudley and Barbra with a $10 million defamation suit.

The suit, says Paskin, was later dropped.

If the book does see publication here, it will be with an update to include details of the terrible disease from which, Dudley learned last year, he is suffering. It's progressive supranuclear palsy, a Parkinson's-related malady that attacks the brain and eventually leads to paralysis. It has no known cure.

He's reached the stage where ``he can't talk steadily or play the piano,'' reports Paskin, who adds that Moore is estranged from his 23-year-old son by second wife Tuesday Weld and has seen his 4-year-old son by Rothchild just once.

``He is living with Rena Fruchter, his classical musical partner, her husband and their three daughters,'' says Paskin.

``They have been utterly remarkable, literally making him one of the family - in a sense, they are the family he's never known.''

Senior moments

Now it's Norman Lear jumping into the animated series-for-grown-ups game.

He's co-writing and executive-producing `` 'Til the Fat Lady Sings,'' a comedy - you can tell by the title, can't you? - involving the colorful habitues of a senior center. The pilot has someone visiting his extremely aged mother in a rest home and includes such moments as a nurse stopping a resident in the hallway and screaming ``THE HEARING LOSS SUPPORT GROUP MEETS IN FIVE MINUTES!''

Killer parts

Once you've played Charles Manson, where do you go? Well, for Steve Railsback, the answer is Ed Gein - the psychotic homicidal Wisconsin handyman remembered for robbing graves and making lamp shades of human skin.

Seems makers of the soon-to-film feature, called ``In the Light of the Moon,'' have been after Railsback to star for quite awhile.

He's been busy making direct-to-video action flicks and becoming a huge star overseas.

With reports by Stephanie DuBois.

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3 Photos

Photo: (1) RODMAN

(2) MOORE

(3) LEAR