THE ACT GETS OLD; RODMAN LOSES FANS ON SHOW.

Byline: KAREN CROUSE

Jay Leno tried to coax a sexy pout out of Mira Sorvino, his first guest Friday on ``The Tonight Show.'' No luck there. But then Dennis Rodman rambled to the rescue and without even trying he showed the actress how it's done.

The pout part, anyway.

Rodman's pose throughout the live taping was much more sullen than sexy, the shades of his behavior illuminating the difference between being a bad boy and a just plain rude one.

Rodman was a rebounding phenomenon when he was reborn a few years ago as a pop culture curiosity. With his outrageous garb and gauche gab Rodman leaped into the public consciousness and elevated his popularity to heights that his jumping ability under the basket never could have carried him.

When he wasn't skipping practices for professional wrestling matches, Rodman, 37, remained a hustling, hard-working hulk on the hardwood. And if you managed to shuck pretense from personality, you'd find a likable guy.

But why be decent when you can be filthy rich? If not for the off-court persona that the once (and future?) Chicago Bulls forward has cunningly crafted, few people would have cared about the marital or playing status of the ``goofball.'' That was how Leno described Rodman while kibitzing onstage with the studio audience a few minutes before Friday's taping, which aired the same night.

The mere mention of Rodman's name triggered a buzz that traveled through the crowd like an electric current. Tieniequie Simon's squeals punctured the din, making it clear to the entire assembly who she had stood in the snaking line outside NBC Studios most of the afternoon to see.

Hint: It wasn't Jay.

Rodman can be as unpredictable as next week, which is what Simon, a sophomore at Cal Poly Pomona, had always found so intoxicating. When at last he was introduced, Simon and 321 other people (323 if you count Sorvino and Leno on the stage) shifted forward in their seats, as though they were about to be let in on some scintillating secret.

Alas, there would be no meaty disclosures, just the uncovering of a man whose act has worn thinner than a sneer.

Rodman strolled onstage wearing a black pinstriped suit, platform shoes that belonged in the back of Elton John's closet, a black felt hat that was pulled all the way down to his eyebrows and a barely concealed insolence.

Leno tried to get Rodman to doff either the hat or the shades, lest he forgot who it was he was talking to, and lapsed into a series of questions about ``The Sopranos,'' the new HBO series about a mob family.

But Rodman wouldn't budge. The hat, the shades and the insolence stayed. It was enough to make you squirm, watching Rodman mumble through his interview with Leno, who gamely persisted in trying to draw out the voice of Dennis the Mummer.

After a few minutes, it was obvious why Rodman wasn't wearing any socks underneath his shoes; he had stuffed them in his mouth.

It was no small feat for Leno to get Rodman to admit he had talked to Lakers owner Jerry Buss but that he didn't think the team could afford his salary under the cap.

Or that Shaquille O'Neal wasn't somebody he'd care to hang out with but he'd have no problem playing alongside him.

Or that he had to borrow a ring for his spur-of-the-moment wedding to actress Carmen Electra in Las Vegas, one he arranged by rousing her out of bed at 6:30 a.m. with the romantic entreaty, ``Get the hell out of bed and let's go somewhere.''

As the interview dragged on, Simon, the Cal Poly Pomona student, sat back in her seat, stone-faced, with her arms crossed at her chest. Her body language spoke a lot louder and clearer than did Rodman. The only time he was really animated was during commercial breaks, when he engaged Sorvino in conversation.

When the lights came up and the cameras started filming, Rodman returned to his shell. He refused to leave his seat and stand off to the side with Sorvino and Leno as Sheryl Crow sang a cut from her latest album. Nor did he stand up and offer Crow his seat next to Leno after she had finished.

Rodman doesn't care one whit what we think. That much was obvious when he blamed the media for last week's confusing events that had everyone wondering whether the free agent was retiring, taking a year off or coming back.

But in case he's interested, we weren't the only ones who left the studio sadly surmising that Rodman no longer is an entertainer but a caricature.

``I lost a lot of respect for him today,'' Simon said, the disappointment catching in her throat. ``He was very disrespectful up there. You can be different. You don't have to go with the crowd. But you still should have common courtesy. When he couldn't even stand up for Sheryl Crow's song, that was the last straw as far as I was concerned.''

Judging from the lukewarm enthusiasm the crowd mustered for Rodman's exit, we'd venture to say Crow's choice of songs probably struck a chord with many of the people who arrived for the taping as admirers of Rodman and left ambivalent.

Its refrain?

``You don't bring me anything but down.''

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PHOTO (Color) Dennis Rodman was no barrel of laughs during Friday's taping of ``The Tonight Show.''

Reed Saxon/Associated Press