THE `PRIVATE' HOWARD STERN : IN OUTRAGE ARTIST'S FILM DEBUT, THE ISSUE IS REAL LIFE VS. PHONY.

Byline: Bob Strauss Daily News Film Writer

One of the big questions surrounding ``Private Parts,'' the movie, is whether its star, radio outrage artist Howard Stern, can act.

Many who see the picture will say they still don't know. After all, Stern is playing himself, and the movie is adapted from his best-selling autobiography.

According to Stern, however, the acting question was settled long before the movie cameras rolled. Back, in fact, when he discovered the on-air personality that propelled him down the path to becoming King of All Media - and then had to convince appalled radio station managers that he wasn't a complete lunatic.

``One thing I wanted (the movie) to show was the way I am off the air - meaning, the phony that I am off the air,'' says Stern, cordial, warm and apparently acting phony during one of his patented promotional blitzes. ``I think I'm more honest on the air.

``That's the thing that actually made my career,'' adds Stern, whose New York-based, morning drive-time show averages 18 million listeners a day (he's heard in L.A. on KLSX-FM, 97.1). ``I could walk into Pig Vomit's - the general manager's - office and talk to him like a businessman. I could play that role, show them that I was a sane, rational guy - then betray them on the air! I think I would've been fired if I couldn't play that aspect of my career. A lot of guys who never made it in radio didn't know how to talk to their bosses.''

Sweet-talk this!

``Private Parts'' exposes ample evidence that Howard Stern can talk anybody into tolerating anything. Like the most forgiving woman in the universe, his wife, Alison (played in the movie by Mary McCormack), who understandably takes exception to Stern's in-studio antics with strippers and broadcasting of intimate details about their lives. Or the second most patient woman in the universe, Stern's on-air foil, Robin Quivers (played by herself), who has been fielding his raunchy, sometimes racist bits every morning for years.

With ``Private Parts,'' however, Stern puts his gift for personal spin control to its greatest test yet. He not only wants the movie to satisfy his millions of fans, he's carefully designed it to convince the other millions who dismiss him as a foul-mouthed, arrested adolescent that he's really a sweetheart.

``The marketing problem of this movie is that there are people who don't listen to the radio show and have this notion that all I am is a guy who says penis all the time on the air,'' says Stern, looking like a movie star in shoulder-length hair, faux tuxedo and small, oval sunglasses. ``They think I'm just this outlaw who's been fined by the government. Those people, in fact, might never go see this movie.

``That saddens me,'' he sensitively reveals. ``I've got to somehow connect with that audience. I just talked to a guy who brought his wife to a screening. She absolutely hates me, but walking out she said, `Now I understand why a woman would marry him.' Which is great. I wanted to do something that would shock people, but in a different way, by the fact that they were seeing another side. They were expecting strippers and lesbians, but they got something completely different.

``But the strippers and lesbians are there too, thank you,'' Stern adds to reassure the faithful. ``I mean, you've got to show that side of it.''

A class act, believe it or not

The film, which was produced by ``Ghostbusters' '' Ivan Reitman and directed by ``The Brady Bunch Movie's'' Betty Thomas, recounts Stern's gawky youth with a constantly criticizing father, his awkward college years, his pitiful early attempts at radio work and his gradual realization that the only way he would ever get anywhere would be by breaking every taboo in the broadcasting book - as well as numerous other taboos he's seemed to invent as he's gone along.

``If I did a film that, basically, dealt with me today, you'd say, `Wait, I know that,' '' Stern explains. ``You've heard the radio show, you've read the books (`Parts' and its best-selling sequel, `Miss America'), you've seen me on `E!' (a video feed of Stern's daily radio broadcast runs on the cable network), you know all that stuff.

``To me, what was interesting was going back and revealing what I was like as a 20-year-old guy when the cameras and the microphones weren't around. And showing this geek who was horrible on the air, whose bosses told him so and whose father told him he was an idiot. And showing how he met this woman; who knows what she saw in him, but she went with him around the country.

``Then, eventually, he gets bigger and bigger. And the more he realizes he's got to be honest on the radio, the more he realizes this woman's getting affected. I didn't want to sugarcoat it - the very things Alison and I have not resolved in our marriage are the things we don't resolve in the movie. But I think people understand after seeing the movie; it explains those private parts, if you will.''

Stern rejected numerous screenplays and Hollywood executives' suggestions to make sure the movie lived up to his unexpectedly high standards. Of course, his initial threat to make a movie about a superhero called Fartman only reinforced the perception that, when it came to actually proving his boast that he could out-act De Niro, Stern was indeed all talk.

``I knew that everything they were writing for me were over-the-top, dumb movies,'' says Stern, whose perceptions were reinforced by his friend Reitman, arguably the most successful comedy filmmaker currently working. ``I am so sick of the comedies that have been coming out, just the cookie-cutter approach. I just didn't want to do that. I wanted the moviegoer to feel, almost, like there was a camera eavesdropping on my life, to make it real.''

Will Howard become a Hollywood phony?

Stern readily admits, however, that when the time came to act out his life, his trademark brashness was no help. Of course, he did not make his film debut easy on himself, either. The movie was shot in the afternoons, after Stern and his radio cohorts - all of whom play themselves in the picture - had been up since well before dawn and done full, four-hour broadcasts.

``I've got to admit that, when I was claiming to be a better actor than De Niro, there was a lot of bravado there,'' Stern confesses. ``When I got on the set I said, `Uh oh, there's a lot more to this acting stuff than people know.' There's a learning curve. You either get it or you don't. I felt that, at some point, I had gotten it, and I was very pleased with my performance. But can I play someone other than Howard Stern? That's a good question.''

Thomas has reportedly asked Stern to play a part in her next movie, a remake of ``Doctor Dolittle'' starring Eddie Murphy. Stern reports that Reitman has approached him with an acting gig, too.

But even if, as test screenings indicate it will, ``Private Parts'' makes Stern a movie star, he's not about to quit his day job.

``I don't think it would faze me at all,'' he says. ``When 25,000 people would line up at one of my book signings, I swear to you, for not one minute did I feel like, `Well, I've done it!' Maybe it goes back to my father and everything, but I always feel like a moron. And I always feel like, `So all of these people think you're great, so what? What're you gonna do tomorrow on the air?' ''

Well, just keep exposing your private parts.

``I truly believe that, when I'm on the radio, that is the real me,'' Stern repeats. ``It is the only time in my life that I can be honest, that I can really be myself. I feel I have to play act in real life and I suspect most people feel that way. We have to play act with our families, at our jobs, in every aspect of our lives. But we are different people inside and we never get to expose it to the world. I couldn't; I can only do it behind a microphone.

``It's the weirdest occupation in the world. But y'know what? I wouldn't trade it.''

Think you know Stern?

Here are some little-known facts about Howard Stern, self-proclaimed King of All Media.

The first caller from Los Angeles to ``The Howard Stern Show'' in New York was from a member of local environmental group the Surf Rider Foundation on July 25, 1991. Stern's comment the day his show was first simulcast into Los Angeles: ``I had such high hopes (for L.A. callers). But they're just as stupid as our usual fans.''

Stern sold a double-CD box set of his early bits by mail order for $30 during his first year on the air here. Titled ``Crucified by the FCC,'' the box today sells for $300 or more.

One of Stern's first entertainment industry feuds, at least for L.A. listeners, was with comic actor Chevy Chase. After Stern placed a particularly nasty on-the-air early-morning phone call to the Chase home, he asked that the bit be cut from the Los Angeles rebroadcast of his show. Then-KLSX-FM (97.1) program director Andy Bloom complied.

After Stern's longtime sponsor, Snapple, was purchased by Quaker Oats, the fruit drink company promptly canceled its advertising on the Stern show. Stern started bad-mouthing Snapple on the air, and its stock price fell.

Local wacky listener ``Melrose'' Larry Green is a frequent guest on the Stern show. Green came to Stern's attention when he stood on the corner of Melrose and Highland avenues during Stern's first year in L.A., holding a sign that trumpeted: ``Howard Stern for President.''

The Stern show's headquarters when in Los Angeles is the Hotel Nikko, near the Beverly Center.

CAPTION(S):

4 Photos, Box

Photo: (1--Cover--Color) STERN: `private' interview

Photo Illustration: Bradford Mar/Daily News

(2) ``Who knows what she saw in (me)?'' says Howard Stern of his wife, Alison (played in the movie by Mary McCormack).

(3) Howard Stern: ``One thing I wanted (the movie) to show was the way I am off the air - meaning, the phony that I am off the air.''

(4) Stern's on-air foil, Robin Quivers, plays herself in ``Private Parts.''

Box: Think you know Stern? (See Text)